Read Online Steeplechase by Krissy Kneen - Free Book Online

table. I try to swallow but my throat is dry.
    â€˜Are you there? Is anyone there?’
    I lean towards John. ‘I have to leave.’
    Just a whisper, and he turns his head towards my ear and says, ‘Not just yet.’
    They are waiting. Everyone is waiting. There is the kind of silence that you get when the room is full of people, little scraping sounds, the creak of a chair, the sound of a shoe squeaking against the polished boards.
    â€˜We know you are there.’
    And in the silence I know it is true. I know he is here. I can hear him. I can hear him breathing, and the moment I hear it I cannot unhear it. There is the regular breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out. I hold my own breath to be sure but his breathing does not falter.
    The stone shifts slowly towards the corner of the board. Yes.
    â€˜Yes,’ Charles interprets for the rest of us. ‘Yes you are here with us now.’
    â€˜He is here,’ I say. But it wasn’t him that moved the stone. That was Charles’s finger or Andy’s or the Scottish boy’s. A simple parlour game, but he is here with us anyway, just like he was there with me when I was a child, on every occasion that I picked up the phone. The sound of his breathing in counterpoint to the flat beeping of the telephone. A disengaged signal but the boy was there anyway, and he is here now.
    â€˜Stop it.’ I shout so suddenly that even I am startled by it. He is here. I can hear him. I can almost see him. I trip back over the chair, fall, a plate clatters to the floor, the skittering of its many pieces on the floor. I can almost see him. I hold my hands over my eyes as if this will stop him from appearing.
    â€˜This is bullshit,’ the pixie girl shrieks. I have startled her with my sudden outburst. I stand and wrestle my fingers away from John. Everyone is staring at me. Someone laughs then stops and the room returns to silence. I can hear my heart thudding in a chest so tight that my own body might suffocate me.
    â€˜I’m sorry John,’ breathless. ‘I’m so sorry. I have to go.’
    â€˜Hey, hey…’ John stands.
    â€˜Stay here,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll get a cab.’
    But he follows me out. I am certain he has signalled to his friends, his palms raised perhaps, his finger circling his ear, whatever it is, it takes only a minute because he is trotting beside me by the time I reach the car.
    â€˜Oh darl,’ he says and touches my face and it is only then that I realise there are tears on it.
    â€˜God. I’m sorry.’
    â€˜It’s okay,’ he tries to comfort me.
    â€˜That was a disaster.’
    â€˜It’s okay. Really it’s okay. It was just a silly joke game.’
    â€˜And I’m the joke.’
    â€˜No.’
    I nod and he gathers me up into his hug where I feel warmer and safer but not completely safe.
    â€˜What happened back there?’ he asks when I have settled enough to start the car.
    â€˜I freaked out.’
    â€˜Sure. But what happened?’
    â€˜Old stuff. Dumb stuff. I’m sorry I embarrassed you.’
    â€˜Honestly it’s okay. They were all drunk. You probably made their night. Demonic possession, they’ll call it. Charles will want you at all their dinners from now on.’
    â€˜I can’t go back.’
    â€˜Sure you can. They’ll all be rotten drunk. Half of them won’t remember anything about tonight. The other half will be embarrassed about vomiting in Charles’s pebble garden. Someone always vomits in Charles’s pebble garden.’
    â€˜Yeah?’
    â€˜Sure they do. It’s like a running gag at that place.’
    He puts his hand on my knee.
    There was no one there, of course. He is right. It was just a bunch of kids playing a silly, harmless game.
    â€˜I was a million years older than everyone anyway.’
    â€˜Yeah,’ he shrugs, ‘there’s that. You can beat yourself up