Read Online After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell - Free Book Online Page A

night. They called us early this morning. We thought we'd wait until now to call you. There seemed no reason to wake you all up.'
'But, but . . . I don't understand. I only saw her yester
day.'
'Yesterday?'
'Yes. She came up to Edinburgh on the train. Completely out of the blue. Beth and I met her at the station. She seemed fine. For a bit anyhow. But then she went all peculiar and said she had to leave. And then she just got on a train and left.'
'Really?'
'Oh, my God, oh, my God, this is so awful. I can't believe it.'
'I know, love, I know,' Ben says. 'Your mother and I are going down there today. I asked if she could be transferred to a hospital in Edinburgh, but they said there was no way they could move her.' Ben's voice catches for the first time. There is a pause in which he tries to collect himself. He doesn't want to upset Kirsty even more by crying himself. 'The other thing is that we have to contact Beth. '
'What? What do you mean?'
'Well, I rang the payphone at her halls of residence, but she doesn't seem to be there. I don't want to just leave a message saying . . . this.'
'Of course, of course.'
'It's so difficult to get in touch with her sometimes. '
Neil takes the receiver off Kirsty. 'Don't worry about that, Ben. You and Ann just get yourselves down there. I'll sort Beth out.'
'That's very good of you, Neil. We're going to catch a train now. I'll call you again tonight.'
     
61
     

pa rt two
     

The sun is burning off the mist. revealing the snaggled rocks that
rear up at intervals along the sand. On the beach is an odd, broken assortment of my family my older sister is away at college with the man she will eventually marry, my grandmother is off visiting friends in Glasgow, and Mario is with us.
I left without telling him and offered my parents no explanation as to why I had arrived home a week before term ended. Mario turned up on the doorstep the next day, having charmed the address from the housing officer. My family have accepted his arrival with unexpected and unprecedented equanimity and here we all are, playing happy families on Gullane beach.
My mother has nested herself down beside a rock with the Scotsman on Sunday keeping the water that the sand holds from seeping into her skirt. Arranged around her are a black snakeskin handbag, her shoes, laces tucked in under the tongue, my father's book on seashore birds and a number of white plastic boxes protecting the picnic Beth and I made earlier. Beside her, in a deck-chair, my father sleeps with his mouth open.
Beth is twisting her hair into silky, flaxen coils and snipping off her split ends with nail scissors from my mother's handbag.
     
The scissors flash with light and she gives Mario long, sideways glances as he resolutely chews his way through sandwiches he picks from the boxes by my mother. He eats with a concentrated seriousness, his jaws slapping open and snapping closed. He is not speaking. His eyes scan the slowly appearing horizon. In about two hours' time I will tell him that I don't ever want to see him again and he will return to America. But we don't know this yet. For the moment, there is only the beach and the gulls going schree-schree over our heads.
The bruises on my thighs and hips have faded to yellow and I have only just stopped bleeding. Above my left breast is a round, red bite mark, pitted deep into my skin. Every night, blanching, I dab it with acrid-smelling witch hazel, but its bright colour refuses to dwindle. I am thinking about this when my mother catches my eye. I look away.
My father wakes and starts asking my mother what time it is. She ignores him and he reaches for the paper instead, crushing its pages into a methodical square before reading it. 'Have you had enough to eat, Mario?' my mother asks, in a way so barbed it makes me look up. His name puzzles her. She can't say it without frowning. He nods with a mouthful of food and gives her a thumbs-up. Beth titters. I stand up. 'Shall we go for a swim?' I ask