Read Online Tales of Sin & Fury, Part 1 by Sonia Paige - Free Book Online

fine.’
    â€˜You were doing that stuff even then?’ Debs comes over to sit on the bottom of my bed.
    â€˜A bit.’
    â€˜I didn’t know they had it then.’
    â€˜I think they had that stuff before the ark,’ I say. ‘How do you think the Old Testament prophets did their stuff? All those visions? They were probably as high as kites.’
    â€˜Hold it, babes,’ says Debs, and lurches towards the toilet again.
    â€˜So if them old prophets were doing drugs,’ says Mandy while we wait for her, ‘do you reckon they went through this n’all? They got stuff in the Bible about throwing up in the bog?’
    â€˜I haven’t read it that carefully,’ I say. We look at each other and nearly giggle, if we didn’t feel so ill.
    After a bit Debs staggers back, pale-faced. ‘What did I miss?’
    I carry on: ‘We drank the tea out of tin mugs, then they shared some bread and honey with me. Then they lay down. They shut their eyes and fell silent as if I wasn’t there. Sunbathing seemed to absorb all their attention. They disappeared into the sand like chameleons and seemed to expect me to join them. Eventually I spread out my towel, took off my dress, and lay down too, in my bikini. The sun bored down on us all. I can’t remember what we did that first day except lie there. I got out my book, but the words started to move around the page and I put it down. The hash made pictures in my brain. I let them come and go. I didn’t want to think about anything. It was a kind of peace.
    â€˜Later in the day they offered me a meal. I watched them prepare vegetable stew. Joris’s hands were skilled and careful. Sigurd was more skittish, but he was swift and neat, and followed Joris’s lead. They collaborated without speaking. They shared the food with me generously. “ Eet zoveel als je wilt ”. Sometimes I could understand what they said when I let the sounds wash over me. They never asked me anything about myself. Sometimes they smiled at each other. We ate in silence, then I went back to my room.
    â€˜The next day I walked down the beach again, bought some tomatoes on the way to contribute, and again we had hash tea and lay and dreamed on the sand all day.’
    â€˜Leave it out,’ says Debs. ‘Going on about that when we’re stuck in here.’
    â€˜It wasn’t all nice,’ I tell her. ‘I kept getting stung by memories like sandflies. Memories I’d rather forget.’
    When I shut my eyes I used to see Hayden. I saw his long sad face. The Dorset rain on the small cottage windows and his sad hard face and his thin figure hunched around a spliff in front of the wood fire.
    And her. The real pearls round her neck and the fake smile on her face. And the faint glaze of disappointment in her perfectly mascara-ed eyes.
    â€˜What memories?’ asks Debs.
    â€˜That man I told you about. Hayden. And my mother. She used to say, “I gave you every opportunity and you chose to throw your life away.”’
    Suddenly I can’t speak any more and I feel my eyes filling with tears. More humiliation. Get a grip.
    â€˜So why did ya, then?’ asks Mandy.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜What she said. You was brought up to be a nice one, not a scrubber. What went wrong? Why d’ya chuck it all away?’
    How to describe my mother? Life as an expensive recipe book. Controlled ingredients, mix carefully, glamorous presentation. All that ‘Goddess in the Kitchen’ stuff. She loved the bright lights. Put on a good enough show and you can convince people things are OK. Except your own daughter. Shaming you in her scruffy clothes. Letting the holes in the façade show. Letting the air in.
    I try to explain. ‘I felt suffocated in her cushioned world. Cosmetics and designer clothes and dinner parties and knowing the right people. How can you feel safe when the person protecting you is terrified? All