Read Online All Bones and Lies by Anne Fine - Free Book Online

manage to spread the misery back over jollier occasions when he’d thought he’d done rather well. ‘No problem,’ he snapped. ‘I can easily take it home with me.’ But part of the trouble, of course, was that, although she acted like an ungrateful child, she had an adult’s self-command. ‘Maybe that’s best,’ she retorted. And down, down sank his spirits. He hated being skewered this way over food. It meant either a couple of hours of sitting with his stomach audibly complaining, or sitting forlornly at the table spooning his luxury meal into his mouth while she affected to busy herself round the kitchen, somehow managing to create the impression that clattering pans about was the only way in which she could charitably disguise his greed.
    â€˜Let’s see the letter, then.’
    She passed it over. He ran a practised eye down the paragraphs, taking a professional interest in the skilled way Frampton Commercial had managed to make out that each and every one of their costly and inconvenient demands wasfor their clients’ benefit, not their own. She’d never lend it to him, and he’d never ask; but he’d have loved a copy. At least a dozen of these weaselly worded phrases might usefully be introduced into his own department’s raft of unwelcome communications. He tried to commit one or two of the most general to memory. ‘. . . responding to heightened public concerns about safety . . .’ ‘. . . with our ever-increasing awareness of the responsible policyholder’s commitment to the environment . . .’ And why couldn’t Priding Borough Council, too, ‘proudly restratify security hierarchies to empower renewed client confidence’?
    She was getting impatient now. ‘This is the sort of drivel your lot write. Surely you can work out what it means.’
    At least it couldn’t mean another bout of workmen, he thought with relief. After the unravelling of the mystery of the exploding attic lightbulbs, she’d had the infestations of men in boots, the little heaps of plaster everywhere, the streaks of ill-matched paint spilling down to each wall light. Mess and expense and fuss. Tea breaks. Endless supplies of shortbread fingers and cries of, ‘Can I just use your phone to check something with the suppliers?’ The horror of all her querulous grousing about that was so fresh in his mind that any matter of certification must be a formality.
    â€˜You’ll just have to ask that Mr Herbert of yours to come back and sign you one of these Approved Whatsit things.’
    Her mouth looked like a burst slipper. Was she going to
cry
? ‘It’s only paperwork,’ he assured her hastily. ‘I can’t for the life of me see it costing more than a tenner.’
    She shot him a harsh look. ‘Try not to be sillier than you look! Do you really think I’d be fool enough to drag you round here if things were that simple?’
    Now he felt close to tears himself. ‘How should
I
know?’ he wanted to bellow at her. ‘How should I have the
faintest
idea any longer what you can and can’t do? You’ve spent so long aping helplessness whenever it suits you that now I’m quite
lost
.’ And it was true. He didn’t know – he couldn’t even
guess
– if she had truly lost her grip to the extent that Frampton Commercial’s smarmy letter (which, credit where it was due, went on to explain in the plainest of words the procedures she should follow) had rattled her enough to phone him at work.
    â€˜So what’s the problem?’ he asked, and was appalled to see the rheumy eyes redden and fill. Pretend it’s
work
, he told himself, trying to stem panic. After all, didn’t he meet this little human tragedy every day – old people overwhelmed? He put his arm round the trembling shoulders, and asked more gently, ‘What
is
it?
Tell
me.’
    He knew she was