Read Online Mahalia by Joanne Horniman - Free Book Online Page B

top of the building and saw fig seedlings growing in the gutters. It felt as if the end of the world had come and Nature was reasserting herself. The students were the bright, feral remnants of a society that had destroyed itself.
    From inside the building he heard the beat of a drum, and then someone starting to sing. It sounded like Eliza’s voice. Tired of sitting and listening to Mahalia grizzle, Matt carried her stroller up the steps at the back of the building.
    Inside, the walls were painted in bright colours, hung with artwork. A grey metal tray for smokers overflowed with plastic drink bottles and lolly wrappers. Matt couldn’t hear the singing now that he was inside, but he wandered up stairs and down corridors, wheeling the stroller over a coarse old blue carpet that flowed like a river through the building, up and down staircases that linked various mezzanine floors. It was a labyrinth, with coloured glass windows throwing eerie light over the floor. The bones of the old school building it had once been were there, but it looked like a place that had been settled by gypsies.
    Matt saw a young man with a shaved head striding along a corridor. ‘Hello!’ the man called. ‘Hello!’
    â€˜Hello!’ A voice came from inside a room somewhere. Eliza’s voice. Matt recognised it, and something inside him leapt with happiness that at last there was something familiar to him in this strange place.
    â€˜Hello!’
    â€˜Hello!’
    The voices continued trying to locate each other, while Matt followed along the corridor.
    And Eliza emerged from a classroom, almost bumping into the man with the shaved head, a wide smile on her face. She hugged him quickly.
    And then she saw Matt, and Mahalia, and she hugged Matt, too. She squatted down to say hello to Mahalia, who stopped her grizzling and lunged with delight at Eliza, straining against the stroller’s seatbelt, patting Eliza on the face with her damp little hands.
    But despite Mahalia’s charms, Eliza went off with the man with the shaven head, whose name was Brent, or Trent, or Kent, who had bright dark eyes like raisins, and an echoing black mole on the side of his face. Matt was surprised to find himself left with a strong feeling of disappointment. He watched as they walked away, saw Eliza shove her friend playfully and laugh at something that he’d said.
    Matt looked down at Mahalia, who sat playing with her toes. He felt desolate. There wasn’t much fun in his life. He couldn’t simply stroll off with someone and do whatever he felt like.
    Matt pushed the stroller back home, over the bridge with the metal walkway, past the trendy pub where gay people hung out, and down their street of peeling timber houses, the front yards littered with discarded chip packets. He bought a loaf of bread on the way and ate it while he walked. Matt was often ravenous, and bread filled him. Mahalia chewed on the crusts, biting down with her almost-through teeth.
    Matt threw himself onto the bed. He longed for his guitar – he could always do that , and satisfy some itch in himself – but it was gone, locked away in the hock shop, waiting for him to find the money to get it out again.
    Mahalia rolled about on the floor. She was good at rolling – front to back, and back to front again. She could sit well now, as long as Matt sat her up first.
    â€˜You’ll be crawling soon, Mahalia.’
    She turned to his voice and smiled.
    A letter arrived from Emmy, addressed to his mother’s place. She brought it round one day but he didn’t want to open it in front of her, so he dropped it onto the table. To Matt, it seemed to burn there.
    â€˜Is there anything you need? Any way I can help?’ His mother had taken Mahalia onto her hip, and jiggled her up and down as she spoke. Her offers were always too casual. He felt like a horse she didn’t want to frighten. He knew this was because he’d been so