Read Online In The Garden Of Stones by Lucy Pepperdine - Free Book Online

get from him, from Colin,
was … fear. My being there made him very nervous and he was
desperate for me to go away and leave him alone. He was petrified,
I could see it in his eyes, like a frightened rabbit, and when we
shook hands, his were trembling.”
    “ And how did it make you feel? Being forced out?”
    “ The truth? At first, angry, and then … sad … for him .
What does it mean, Mal? It’s been dwelling on my mind since
yesterday and I can’t seem to get past it. Was it a lucid dream or
not?”
    He sits
back in his chair. “To be honest, Grace, I have no idea. You seem
to have created a whole new category of … something.”
    “ And I bet you’re just tickled to death with the prospect of
writing a paper on this brand new discovery, aren’t
you?”
    He
narrows his eyes at her. “You do realise you just said that out
loud, don’t you?”
    She
feigns innocence. “Did I? Hmmm.”
    A
silence hangs between them during which Mal removes his spectacles,
huffs on one of the lenses, misting it, and then wipes it clean on
a handkerchief taken from his pocket.
    “ Here’s what I want you to try and do, Grace.” He refits his
glasses. “I want you to try and go back to the garden, to the
cemetery, try to find Colin again, and this time, try and talk to
him, engage him in conversation. See if you can find out why he’s
there, why he’s sad and frightened and so desperate to be left
alone.”
    “ You think it’s important?”
    “ It could be.”
    “ Because you think that sadness, that fear, is mine?” she
says, the insight becoming clear. “You think this Colin is
reflecting my own feelings back at me, and by talking to him
about his fears, I will be addressing my own?”
    Dr Mal
smiles. “You’re getting good at this. Yes, that’s exactly what I
think. Hold on a minute. You say you shook hands with
him?”
    “ Yes.”
    “ Why?”
    Grace
shrugs. “I don’t really know. I suppose because it doesn’t hurt to
be polite.”
    “ No, but you already told me you can’t stand skin contact
with strangers, in case of cold fish syndrome. What made you think
Colin would be any different?”
    “ I didn’t really think about it,” Grace says. “It was a spur
of the moment thing, and at the time I was convinced he wasn’t
real. Besides, if I did make someone up inside my head, I’m not
going to give them the one thing that repels me most, am
I?”
    “ So you are coming round to the possibility he might be your
creation?”
    “ I haven’t decided yet.”
    “ And what will you do, if you meet him again, and you
discover he has bad breath and BO? Will you reject him and start
again?”
    “ That depends. I never noticed any nasties the first time,
so if I do meet him again, and I can’t make any promises on that
score, and I like him despite any negativities, I can either ignore
them, work around them or, if they are troublesome and get in the
way of progress, work on re-evaluating his attributes and getting
rid of them.”
    “ Like rewriting computer code to make the game run better?”
he says. “Changing the parameters to smooth out a
glitch?”
    “ Just so.”
    “ Do you think that is a good idea? What’s wrong with a few
imperfections?”
    “ They go against my … pernicketiness.”
    Pause.
    “ Here’s something for you to think about,” says Mal. “If the
man is a construct of your imaginings, might his physical faults be
your unconscious way of reflecting different parts of your own psyche. His bad
breath becomes representative of, say, your feelings of self
loathing, his BO your own expectation of being rejected. Both
conditions keep other people at a distance.”
    “ My own flaws made flesh,” she says, thoughtfully.
“Rewriting my own code to make him fresh and sweet smelling? My way of telling myself
that if I make a few changes here and there, even I can be more
acceptable, more –?”
    “ Loveable?”
    She
snorts. “Like that’s ever going to happen. It’s an