Read Online Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson - Free Book Online Page A

lays the brown suede against his cheek and closes his eyes like a clairvoyant. ‘Hers,’ he says decisively, ‘definitely.’
    Vinny is as unhelpful as ever. ‘Never seen it before,’ she says coldly, but when I first showed it to her she flinched away from it as if it was made of red-hot iron. ‘Don’t you dare go rooting around amongst my things again,’ she warned and stomped away.
    We know, in our bones and our blood, that the shoe has travelled through time and space to tell us something. But what? If we found its partner would it help us find the true bride (‘it fits, it fits!’) and bring her back from wherever she is now?
    ‘She could be dead for all we know, Charles.’ Charles looks as if he’d like to attack me with the shoe. ‘Don’t you ever think about her?’ he says angrily.
    But there isn’t a day goes by when I don’t think about her. I carry Eliza around inside me, like a bowl of emptiness. There is nothing to fill it, only unanswered questions. What was her favourite colour? Did she have a sweet tooth? Was she a good dancer? Was she afraid of death? Do I have diseases I will inherit from her? Will I sew a straight seam or play a good hand at bridge because of her?
    I have no pattern for womanhood – other than that provided by Vinny and Debbie and no-one could call them good models. There are things I don’t know about – good skin care, how to write a thank-you letter – because she was never there to teach me. More important things – how to be a wife, how to be a mother. How to be a woman. If only I didn’t have to keep on inventing Eliza (rook-hair, milk-skin, blood-lips). ‘No, hardly ever,’ I lie to Charles in an off-hand way, ‘it was such a long time ago. We have to move on with our lives, you know.’ (But where to?)
    Perhaps she’s coming back in bits – a drift of perfume, a powder-compact, a shoe. Perhaps soon there’ll be fingernails and hair, and then whole limbs will start to appear and we can piece our jigsaw-mother together again.
    ‘Whose shoe is this?’ Charles asks a distracted Gordon, struggling to keep the barbecue charcoal alight. Gordon turns and sees the shoe and goes a strange colour, like raw pastry. ‘Where did you get that?’ he says in a hollow voice to Charles but then Debbie elbows us out of the way and says, ‘Come on, Gordon, the guests’ll be here soon and those coals need to be glowing . What’s wrong? Dad never had any bother with it. What’s that?’ she adds, nodding her head in the direction of the shoe. ‘Throw it away, Charles, it looks unsanitary.’
    Mr Rice appears in the garden looking for something to eat and when he finds only raw meat, disappears back inside. Mr and Mrs Baxter make a tentative appearance in the garden. Mr Baxter is rarely seen at any neighbourhood gathering. He casts a long shadow, even when he isn’t standing in the sunlight.
    Mr Baxter’s hair has been newly cut in an army crop that bristles angrily from his scalp. Mrs Baxter’s hair, on the other hand, is softly waved and the colour of small timid mammals. There’s nothing harsh about Mrs Baxter. She favours neutral colours – oyster, taupe, biscuit and oatmeal – so that sometimes she just seems to fade right away into her pretty, chintzy living-room with its well-behaved curtain tie-backs and orderly teak display-unit. This is better than Vinny who wears funereal shades as if she’s in permanent mourning for something. Her life, according to Debbie, who’s more of a pastel person herself.
    At the unexpected sight of Mr Baxter, Charles says, ‘Right, I’m off then, I’m going to the cinema,’ and before Debbie can say, ‘Oh no you aren’t!’ he’s gone. Poor Charles, he can never find anyone to go anywhere with him. ‘He should get a dog,’ Carmen suggests – the McDades have a pack of assorted dogs for every purpose – ‘a dog would go anywhere with him.’ But Charles wants someone who’ll sit in the back row of the cinema