Read Online Healer by Peter Dickinson - Free Book Online

don’t … Anyway, it’s still a funny place.”
    They climbed on. About a quarter of a mile above the last house in the village Barry could see a new-looking bungalow, built of stone, standing on a buttressed terrace. It seemed the only place they could be going, but as they approached, Pinkie moved around to Barry’s other side and fell back a little, keeping him between herself and the house. The lane led close by the jut of the terrace, and the moment they reached it she left his side and scuttered up by the wall, crouching until she was bent almost double by the time she came to the garden gate. She pushed it open and made signs to Barry to stop in the gateway.
    The terrace supported a garden, but nothing like Barry had ever seen. The soil was piled high as the outer walls and crisscrossed with yard-wide concrete trenches. All over the level surface stood white labels, sometimes with winter-blasted plants in front of them but often marking only a patch of bare earth. The labels made the garden look like a cemetery for toy soldiers. From a trench halfway across the garden projected the head and shoulders of a man; close-shorn white hair showed beneath a knitted blue hat with a bobble on top. Hearing the click of the gate latch, the man had half craned around, then moved a few feet to the right and swivelled completely to see who it was. Two ferocious blue eyes glared from a scarlet face. A white moustache bristled like the antennas of a weapons system.
    â€œGet the bloody hell out of my garden,” bellowed an enormous voice.
    Barry hesitated. Pinkie was creeping along the trench in front of him. He fell back, just outside the gate. The man gestured vigorously with the trowel he held, commanding Barry to move on and not stand there insulting his privacy by looking at his garden. Pinkie slipped out of sight. The man gestured again and was drawing breath for another good yell when Pinkie leaped at him.
    She had ambushed him from close by. His furious face had no time to change before she was in his lap and kissing him, almost like a dog that had jumped up to lick his face. He pushed her off, still as if she’d been a dog. She scampered to the gate and took Barry by the hand. He’d never seen her like this. She’d let go; she was laughing, her eyes sparkling behind the glasses, her hair all over the place.
    The man had come gliding after her. When he rounded the corner, Barry saw that he was sitting in a wheelchair. A pair of empty trouser legs drooped in front of him, with shoes somehow fastened to the ends. The shoes made little shuffling dance movements as the chair joggled them.
    â€œHere’s Barry,” said Pinkie. “He brought me. It’s Granddad, Barry.”
    â€œMr. Stott to you, young man.”
    â€œPleased to meet you, sir.”
    â€œWe’ll see about that. Don’t count your chickens. Where’s that mother of yours, young woman?”
    â€œAt home.”
    â€œCan’t stand the sight of her,” explained Mr. Stott. “Feeling’s mutual. Met her, I daresay.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œThen you’ll know what I mean, eh?”
    â€œWell, er, she’s a good cook.”
    â€œPlease, Granddad,” said Pinkie.
    â€œSay what you think and think what you say. Bottle it up and regret it one day.”
    â€œIs your leg hurting?”
    Mr. Stott gave a great snort, as if he was determined to unbottle all his loathing of his daughter in one satisfying explosion before moving on to this new subject.
    â€œBeen behaving itself,” he said. “Got what’s called a phantom limb, young man. Went and stood on a land mine at Alamein. Came to in the hospital and found the surgeons had been having a go at my legs, sawn off anything the mine had left. Left leg never got the message, though. Thinks it’s still there. Bloody rum thing, the human mind. You’re looking at a man that’s haunted by his own left