Read Online In the Name of Love by Patrick Smith - Free Book Online

especially big wave threatened to submerge their winter boots.
    Soon their eyes grew so wet from the wind they could no longer see and they decided to cross over to the lee side of the island. The storm wasn’t as relentless there, it came in lashes, then dropped again. Smoke leaked out of local people’s chimneys before it disappeared in jerks. They could talk.
    Passing the churchyard she said Anders had mentioned that his wife was buried on the island. ‘Is her grave in there?’
    ‘Yes. There’s nowhere else one can be buried here.’
    He showed her the old wind-dried bench on the church landing stage where the boats used to put in when people came from neighbouring islands to attend Sunday service. The bench had a beautiful patina, a silvery grey surface soft and rough as cigar ash. They sat on it a while. A forgotten flag gave a series of brisk little slaps before the wind caught it again and stretched it full out. She pushed her fists deep into the side pockets of her suede coat. A gesture he had grown fond of. Her stomach pressed clearly against the fabric. He asked her how much time was left. Five months? Six?
    ‘Are you looking forward to it?’ he asked spontaneously and found his question strange as soon as he said it.
    She flinched, then got to her feet. He too stood and saw her dark pupils float in liquid. He touched her arm but she moved away. As they walked home her coat was pulled tight down by her balled fists in the pockets.
    Sitting in the kitchen they talked more frankly than they had before, as though his question had forced open something in her. She told him that Anders wanted to know the sex of the child but she didn’t.
    ‘I don’t want to know if it’s a girl or a boy. I just don’t.’
    She was close to crying again, and he took her hand. Her nails dug into his palm.
    ‘You want it to be a surprise?’
    ‘A surprise? No! Oh, I don’t want to go on about it,’ she said. Once more the tears began to slide down her cheeks. She brushed them off with the fingers of her free hand, first one cheek, then the other, and looked away a moment to steady her voice.
    She asked him about Carlos, about his plans and his ambitions. Dan said Carlos now wanted to be a criminal defence lawyer in New York. ‘He claims there are so many crooks around it’s an assured living.’ Madeleine smiled. At that moment it seemed as if her smile would be enough. Without any need for anything more. Ever.
    They were still holding hands when she took hers away, gently, and looked out the window as though something was happening out there. But nothing was. There was just the darkening sky and the black-veined skeletons of the fruit trees and the two snow-capped rhododendron bushes, the same as before. She looked back at him. ‘You wouldn’t be betraying her,’ she said. ‘It’s surely what she’d have wanted for you.’
    He felt his shoulders stiffen, a reaction he at once disliked.
    ‘It’s not like that,’ he told her.
    ‘No? What is it like?’ she asked softly.
    ‘I know she’s dead. I know she’s gone for good. I’m sick of thinking about it but I’m sick of trying to think about the future too, as though there were any future worth having.’
    ‘We all need to tell ourselves a few white lies now and then. Is that so bad? It’s part of being able to live, isn’t it?’
    She stared at him briefly. She brushed her hair back, exposing her face.
    ‘I don’t know if I’ll have the baby,’ she said calmly.
    Her saying it shocked him. ‘What?’ he said.
    ‘I’ve thought of having an abortion. There are clinics in St Petersburg. It’s just an overnight boat trip away. Places where they do nothing else but late-term abortions. I’ll have to decide soon though.’
    ‘Does Anders want that?’
    ‘He doesn’t know. I’m going to go there on my own.’
    ‘On your own?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You can’t do that! It would be awful!’
    She didn’t answer.
    Instead she looked out the window again.