Read Online Silent Voices by Gary McMahon - Free Book Online

SIX
     
     
    B RENDAN WAS ALREADY on his sixth beer by the time Jane got home. He was sitting at the breakfast bar, staring at the wall, and trying to keep his mind blank. Drinking; just drinking, and not thinking about anything at all. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the window, but it didn’t quite reach him. He stared at the patches of brightness as they crawled slowly across the kitchen floor.
    “Don’t tell me you’ve been sitting here drinking all day.” Jane hefted a couple of shopping bags and put them on the breakfast bar beside him. “Well?”
    “No,” he said. “Not all of it... I slept a bit this morning, and then I had a visitor.”
    “Was it that freeloading idiot Mark Maginn again? I hope you didn’t lend him any money. This shopping doesn’t come cheap, you know.” She started to unpack the shopping bags, placing the tins in the cupboard above the sink and the fresh stuff in the fridge.
    Brendan watched her in silence. Then, feeling the need to break into the moment, he spoke again. “No, it wasn’t Mark Maginn. Not this time. It was someone else – somebody I haven’t seen for a long time.”
    Jane had her back to him so he couldn’t see her face. Her chunky arms were raised above her head as she shoved two boxes of cereal – the twins’ favourite – into the cupboard alongside the tins of beans and spaghetti hoops. Her hair was still sweaty from her dancing class. She loved to dance; it made her feel young again. She’d told him this once, as they lay in each other’s arms after making love. Brendan couldn’t remember when it was. Nor could he remember the last time they’d made love.
    “It was Simon Ridley.”
    Jane stopped moving. Her hands were still inside the cupboard, pushing a cereal box through the blockage of tin cans. She was standing on her tiptoes. She paused there, unmoving, and the cereal box dropped from the cupboard and fell onto the floor. It made a rattling noise, like someone shaking a bag of bones.
    “He’s come back. He says he wants to speak to me about something important.”
    Jane started moving again. She bent over and picked up the cereal box. Brendan stared at her backside. It was bigger and wider than when they’d first met, but it was still one of her best features. She was a beautiful woman, his wife. He used to tell her that all the time, but he hadn’t for years, now.
    “I said I’d meet him later.” Brendan drained his can, belched. “Pass me another beer, would you?”
    Without objection, Jane crossed to the fridge and took out two beers. She opened both cans, passed him one, and poured the contents of the other into a tall glass. She took a sip, paused, and then took another, bigger mouthful. “Fucking hell,” she said.
    Brendan did not respond. He hadn’t heard her swear since the cat was run over in the road by a boy racer last summer. She didn’t like expletives; she was proud of her broad vocabulary.
    “Fucking hell,” she said again.
    Brendan could not tell if she were smiling or grimacing. He decided that he’d rather not know. Sometimes it was safer to play dumb – often, it saved your marriage.
    “What did he want?” She walked over to where he was sitting, placed one of her hands over one of his. She squeezed. Her fingers were cold from the beer glass. “Is he back for good? I can’t imagine that. Isn’t he rich now, some kind of property investor?”
    “Yeah. He’s loaded. From what he told me, I think he might have bought the Needle.” Admitting this out loud, in the bright light of day, Brendan realised that it didn’t sound quite as crazy as it had when Simon had alluded to the fact earlier.
    “Why would he buy that old place... especially after what happened to you all there? I mean, what’s he trying to prove?” Jane sat down. She moved her hand away.
    “Maybe he bought it because of what happened to us. Perhaps he wants to try and remember.” He stared at her face, her hard blue eyes, her sunken