Read Online Breaking Light by Karin Altenberg - Free Book Online Page B

saw that her wrists were too thin inside a cuff of gold bangles and wished he could have helped her carry the box. But the young man had already taken it from her and was turning back into the shop, gesturing for her to follow. He walked on then, but heard them behind him: ‘Who was that? A friend of yours?’
    â€˜He lives up at Oakstone, I believe.’
    â€˜Ah, the famous
professor
.’
    â€˜I didn’t know he was a professor.’
    â€˜Nah, he doesn’t look it, does he?’
    â€˜Look it?’
    â€˜You know … clever.’
    â€˜No?’
    â€˜Don’t get me wrong, he’s a nice-looking geezer, but he seems a bit … well, peculiar – as if he needs looking after.’
    â€˜Don’t we all.’ She laughed.
    â€˜Well, now, you see!’
    The door closed behind their gay voices and Mr Askew trotted on along the wet street, once again safely out of reach.
    *
    He had barely got into the house when she rang the bell; the floor was still wet where his mac had dripped. ‘Oh dear,’ he moaned. ‘I’m not ready yet.’ But there was no going back and there she was when he opened the door. She was peering outfrom under a clear umbrella dotted with hectic-looking ladybirds. Her blue eyes were the kind that would scan a room and not miss anything – and yet not quite
see
. He noticed that her face at that moment looked quite callous. He smiled at her and she looked appalled.
    â€˜Afternoon, Mr Askew. It’s me, Doris Ludgate, come to clean the house.’
    â€˜How do you do?’ He didn’t quite catch her name, but politeness was always a form of protection.
    â€˜Can I come in, then?’
    â€˜Yes, yes, of course.’ He stepped aside to let her pass. She was wearing a pair of wellingtons, but fished out the same white trainers from a plastic bag and put them down on the checked tiles in the hall. She kicked off the rubber boots with surprising agility and bent over to put on the trainers, her behind bulging dangerously and forcing him to take a step back until he was pressed against the wall.
    She stood to face him. ‘There. That’s better. Now, where shall I start?’
    This too was something he had failed to contemplate. Somewhere in a far corner of his mind, he heard his mother’s voice: ‘Don’t you dare come in here and mess up my kitchen!’ And just then, he remembered Michael’s mum dropping the pancake spatula by the old Aga – and the greasy skid mark on the floor tiles. For a moment, he could smell her beauty in the room – the perfume on her skin – something sweet intermingled with the woodiness of iris. She knew all along and she did nothing. And yet I can’t hold it against her. It was the first time I was persuaded by beauty in a person.
    â€˜Eh?’
    â€˜Oh, I beg your pardon, I was miles away.’ He wondered whether there was dandruff on the back of his jumper.
    â€˜Were you, now?’ She looked at him in dismay and he could see that the blue in her eyes had hardened into slate. ‘Well, that’s no good, is it? I have never been employed by somebody like you before but, as a new member of staff, I believe that the very least I can expect from the management is that they
listen
to me.’ Strictly speaking, she had never been employed, of course, other than very briefly in a café and then by her husband, if you could call that employment. In the beginning, he had sometimes shouted at her to make herself useful and fix him some proper food for his tea and once or twice he had laughed hard and said that, if she hadn’t been his wife, he might still have hired her as his whore. At the time, she thought that was quite flattering, meaning that she was good at
it
; he wasn’t normally one to pay her compliments. But the thought of having a proper job again, like before she was married, had always been tantalising. Only