Read Online Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift - Free Book Online Page B

small white or
black busts—as if from a central warehouse—of men with heavy brows and beards and toga-draped shoulders. There was a desk and, instead of the leather sofa, two dumpy red-brick-coloured
armchairs. There was a rack of newspapers and magazines, strange objects of modernity in what might have been a museum. Sunlight came from the window between half-drawn curtains and stretched
itself in a bright rectangle over the soft-brown carpet.
    On the desk was a small stack of what she recognised as law books. But it was the only sign—it even looked rather arranged—of his supposed intentions while the house was empty and at
peace. On a morning like this? Mugging up. She imagined anyway that his diligent studying would have consisted of putting his feet up on the desk and smoking several cigarettes.
    She seemed to see him actually doing this, like a ghost in the room. That made two ghosts then. But her ghost was—had been—palpably and unadornedly there. Though no one would ever
know.
    It was only March, but such was the warmth that a fly was buzzing and knocking obstinately against the window. And then she saw it, on the other side of the desk: a little enclave of books very
similar to the one she knew and had recourse to at Beechwood. She even recognised familiar titles, books she had actually read. So she was not a stranger or trespasser here. In some way she even
belonged.
    But if Paul Sheringham had ever gone near any of these books, he never said. He gave the impression that he thought there were many things at Upleigh that ought by now to have been chucked away.
After all, the bloody horses had all gone. And when she’d told him about her own reading at Beechwood (she wished she hadn’t) he’d scoffed, as he scoffed at so many things, and
said, ‘All that tommyrot, Jay? You read all that stuff?’ And reminded her at once that their relationship was essentially bodily, physical and here-and-now, it wasn’t for droning
on about books.
    A lawyer? Hardly.
    The only difference at Upleigh was that the ‘boys’ books’ were not in a separate bookcase, revolving or otherwise, but in a little section (perhaps once cleared of weightier
matter) of the main big case, convenient for access.
    And the other difference of course was that she was standing naked in the library at Upleigh, something she had never done at Beechwood.
    She took one of the books from the shelf in front of her and opened it, and then, for reasons she couldn’t have explained, pressed it nursingly to her naked breasts. It was a copy of
Kidnapped
. She knew it. She had read the copy from the bookcase at Beechwood. There was the map of ‘The Wanderings of David Balfour’. There were the words, ‘I will begin
the story of my adventures . . .’
    She pressed the book to her, then replaced it. No one would know. No one would know about that book’s little wandering and adventure. No one would know about the ‘map’ on the
sheet upstairs.
    She left the library. The house’s scattered retinue of clocks ticked and whirred. It was the only sound. Outside, the world shone and sang. Here everything was muted,
suspended, immured.
    She turned into a passage that she instinctively knew would take her to the stairs to the kitchen. This one, after she descended the stairs, was so still and quiet it might as well have been a
library. She felt its unnerving calm. Any kitchen normally has a residual warmth, but this one, beneath the sunny upper floors and left inert all morning, was distinctly cool. But that was her
fault perhaps, for wearing no clothes.
    Goose bumps emerged on her skin. So too did a vulgar gurgle from her stomach.
    The pie, with a knife for cutting it, was on the table, beneath a blue-and-white tea towel. Beside it was a tray with cutlery, napkin, condiments, a bottle of beer and a glass, a bottle opener.
The whole collation was presented so that Mister Paul might carry it up to any part of the house if he cared