Read Online Divided Kingdom by Rupert Thomson - Free Book Online Page B

wouldn’t treat you like that,’ I said.
    She cupped a cold hand to my cheek, then turned from me and started down the steps. I hesitated, unable for a moment to conceive of any action that was not extraordinary. I would do anything for her, I thought, anything at all.
    I caught up with her below the castle, outside a pub called the Silk Purse. She was standing on the pavement, a cigarette alight between her fingers, her eyes fixed on the window. She glanced at me across her shoulder. ‘Fancy a drink?’
    â€˜I’m not old enough.’
    â€˜Of course you are.’ She took me by the arm. ‘Come on.’
    In the lounge bar she ordered two glasses of red wine. And then another two. And then I’ve no idea how many.
    It was the first time I’d ever been drunk. As we stumbled home down streets so narrow that if I ricocheted off one wall I collided with the other, I remember telling her that I loved her, no, I
adored
her, which made her laugh, and her hair fell forwards against her cheek like the tip of a cutlass and her teeth flashed in the black air.
    I had to stop and stare at her. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ I said.
    She had stopped too, though not because of what I’d said. Something else had just occurred to her. ‘What kind of girls do you like, Tom?’
    I was staring at her again, but for a different reason now. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t understood. ‘Like you,’ I said.
    She put a finger to her lips. ‘You’ll wake everybody in the street.’ But she still had laughter in her eyes. They had sharpened at the corners, and the dark parts shone.
    I lowered my voice to a whisper. ‘Like you.’
    She didn’t seem to hear what I was telling her – or, if she did, she automatically discounted it.
    We came down out of the old town and on to a main road near the station.
    â€˜I’m not your brother, Marie,’ I said. ‘We’re not even related – not really.’ I felt I was risking everything in saying this, and yet I couldn’t hold back. But she didn’t take it the way I had expected.
    â€˜How much do you remember?’ she said. ‘You know, from before?’
    â€˜Nothing,’ I said.
    She stopped again and looked at me. ‘Nothing at all?’
    â€˜Only my name.’
    â€˜What was it?’
    â€˜Matthew Micklewright.’ The words sounded like gobbledegook. I wished I hadn’t said them.
    â€˜But you were eight years old. Nearly nine. You must remember something.’
    I shook my head savagely. ‘No. Nothing.’ What I was telling her was true, and for the first time ever I was glad it was true. I had an urgent need to deny her something. I was taking a kind of revenge on her.
    â€˜That’s astonishing,’ she said, though she didn’t look astonished. She was staring at the ground as if she had just noticed a bird with a broken wing.
    As we crossed the river I insisted on walking in the gutter, even though I knew people always drove too fast on that particular stretch of road. Once, I looked up to see a pair ofheadlights hanging in front of me, and Marie had to pull me back on to the pavement.
    â€˜You’ll get killed,’ she said.
    â€˜What do you care? I don’t mean anything to you.’ It all came out blurred. My tongue seemed to have swollen, filling my mouth.
    Back home, I sprawled on the bathroom floor, the black-and-white tiles constantly swerving away from me but never going anywhere. Everything I thought of made me feel sick. I clutched the lavatory seat with both arms, my cheek resting heavily against my sleeve. Cold air rose out of the bowl. I tried to look round, but the ceiling tilted and I fell sideways against the bath.
    Hauling me upright, Marie placed a hand on my forehead. I had to reach up and push it away. ‘No,’ I mumbled. ‘Leave me alone.’
    The impossible weight of her cool hand.
    The