Read Online Beneath the Earth by John Boyne - Free Book Online

inseparable when you were children.’
    â€˜That was a long time ago. Before he became an insufferable ass.’
    â€˜He told me that you used to compare penis sizes.’
    â€˜What is his obsession with that? That never happened.’
    â€˜He told me he won too.’
    I rolled my eyes.
    â€˜Which,’ she added, ‘speaking from first-hand experience does not say very much about you.’
    â€˜I’ll have you know that there’s a certain milkmaid in Tittmoning who could contest that opinion. She’s told me many times that I have nothing to worry about, that I’m perfectly average.’
    â€˜Well lucky her. And if you don’t want to hear about my orgasms, I don’t want to hear about your perfectly average penis.’
    â€˜You brought it up,’ I pointed out.
    â€˜Did I? You pervert, Pierce. I’m your sister.’
    â€˜That’s not what I meant and you know it.’
    â€˜Nothing can happen between us, you realize that, don’t you? We’d have three-headed children.’
    â€˜Oh shut up.’
    She sniggered and looked out the window where her dog, Frisky, was living up to his name by attempting to mate with a bougainvillea. Perhaps aware that he was being watched, he stopped his rutting momentarily, hung his head in a this-is-what-I’m-reduced-to-since-you-won’t-get-me-a-bitch-of-my-own way, and got back to it. He looked like he was having fun, at least.
    â€˜If he says anything inappropriate or just keeps banging on with no end in sight, then I’ll tell him to stop,’ said Audrey.
    â€˜Is that what you did on your Debs night?’
    â€˜I’m serious, Pierce. Why did Mother want him to talk anyway? What on earth was going through her mind?’
    I shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ I said. ‘She could be rather sentimental at times.’
    â€˜Not in her choice of reading material, she couldn’t. Maybe she liked the idea of a celebrity appearing as she was lowered down.’
    â€˜A celebrity?’ I laughed, outraged by such liberties being taken with the English language. ‘You’re kidding, right? Arthur’s not a celebrity. He’s just a writer. And he’s only got one book to his name so far.’
    â€˜Well, that’s how he likes to think of himself, isn’t it? And perhaps Mother felt the same way. He has received a lot of attention for his work, you know.’
    â€˜Stalin received a lot of attention for his work too. It didn’t make it any good.’
    Leaving the kitchen, I wandered upstairs into Mother’s room, where the windows had been flung open to release the smell of stale, dead woman. Someone had covered a mirror with a black negligee. I hadn’t been in this room very much since I was a teenager and it still felt a little out of bounds to me, but as I looked around at the picture of the Sacred Heart on the wall, the plastic holy water vessel shaped like Jesus on the cross and the collection of erotic fiction on the bookshelves, I felt like I was being transported back to childhood, when Arthur and I would rummage around in here looking for Christmas presents. We’d do the same thing in his house, taking out his father’s dresses and prancing around in front of the mirror like a couple of cheerful young benders until he caught us and chased us out.
    And here on the dresser was a photograph of Mother with Father, both staring straight at the camera with no smiles on their faces, like a couple from a nineteenth-century portrait, all gloomy-eyed and horror-struck. And here a photo of Mother with Audrey and me. And here, to my surprise, one of her and Arthur at Butlin’s. When on earth had they gone to Butlin’s together? She’d never taken me to Butlin’s.
    At the graveyard, before starting his eulogy, Arthur requested that all cell phones be turned to silent or switched off and under no circumstances should photographs be taken. Also,