Read Online September Starlings by Ruth Hamilton - Free Book Online Page A

separations, I wrote Georgina Dawn’s books,shopped, improved the house, looked after children and animals. My husband is a stranger, a beloved and broken man who remains a mystery to me, though I have held him in my arms and shared the laughter and the loving.
    Les touches my shoulder. ‘Are you all right, girl?’ He’s very much a builder, is constructed like one of his thrown-together houses, straightish, tallish, but not very well appointed. Les always manages to smell of sand, cement and putty, even when he’s dressed up. We took him to a wedding once, and when he knelt in the pew, a screwdriver and a couple of washers clattered from a pocket of his good suit and rolled across the aisle, cheering up the proceedings no end. Today, Les is a bundle of rags, T-shirt, jeans, a tatty maroon cardigan. ‘You look a bit pale, love,’ he says.
    Tenderness cuts me these days, makes me brusque, puts me on my guard. ‘I’m fine.’
    He blinks, turns his head slightly, as if trying to hide his grief. ‘We’d have been out at West Lancs now, me and him.’ He jerks a gnarled thumb towards my husband. ‘After our nine holes, we used to skip the rest and sit in the clubhouse. Ben always had to be near a window with his binoculars. He loved a round of golf, even if he did spend half the time looking at the sky through the bloody binoculars. Him and his birds. They called him Birdy at the club, and it was nothing to do with his score card. I sometimes wonder what we’ve done wrong. I mean, why did he have to finish up like that? It’s no life for him, worse for you in a way.’ The thick lower lip trembles. ‘He’s a good man.’
    Ben stirs himself. ‘Sarah,’ he announces. ‘Light brown hair, ribbons. Running in the sand … dog.’
    I kneel, rub life into waxy hands. The weather is fair, predictably so because the forecast last night predicted storms. But there’s a chill in the air, the crisp nip of autumn, and Ben gets cold so easily. I turn on the fan heater, angle it towards him. ‘Sarah is Les’s daughter, Ben. She used to run on the sands with you and Hector.Do you remember Hector? He was a great dane – we had him before Chewbacca.’
    ‘Thousands of them,’ says Ben sleepily. ‘Millions. Where did they all come from? And under the stove …’ The eyes fix on me, yet I know that he is seeing somebody else. ‘The singing is so beautiful. Why is she angry? Why should the singing have to stop?’ He nods, snores, is gone again.
    Les shuffles towards the door. ‘Wharrabloodymess.’ The exclamation tumbles from his tongue as one angry, bruised word. He slips back into the bowels of Liverpool’s demolished slums when he is disturbed or worried. Twelve children, two rooms up, two down, a tin bath on a nail in the yard, accents like warm molasses. Out of such beginnings Les clawed his way until he owned his own business, until he managed to buy out several competitors. One of his favourite sayings to Ruth is, ‘Well, we’re all right now, don’t want for nothing, queen.’
    ‘Thanks,’ I call to his disappearing back. He can’t cope with the deterioration of his nearest friend, and I can’t offer comfort. I hold back, because there are no words for Les.
    I find a book of cheques, pay bills, write to my agent whose hand is outstretched for Georgina Dawn’s next magnum opus . Perhaps this time he will get 10 per cent of nothing, as I am too busy to write. And I’m working towards some kind of decision, trying to clear a path to the future. The pen pauses. I am remembering the day when he realized, when my poor husband began to talk about his ‘gaps’. ‘I am not always with you, Laura,’ he said. ‘So you must take care of all domestic bills, gas and rates and so on. I’ll show you how it’s done …’
    I sat here then, in my house by the sea, and I held out my arms, gathered him to me as if he were a child. There were papers for me to sign, witnesses to find. On that day, I removed from him