Read Online The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw - Free Book Online

of shark and octopi. Red-faced staff in white caps shovelled chips into polystyrene trays and dunked fish into sizzling fat fryers.
    Midas pointed to a green-hued photo of the speciality fishcake. When she’d asked him what was so great about the chip shop he’d cited them as an example. On cue, a grinning customer left the counter with an open fishcake and chips, vinegar making the breadcrumbs soggy. A lean man in a leather jacket and black polo-neck stepped up to the counter and rested an umbrella against it. He winked at the girl serving, who blushed.
    ‘Double fishcake and chips,’ he said in a nasal voice.
    ‘Salt and vinegar?’
    ‘Plenty of salt.’
    The girl serving scattered salt over his chips. Midas turned to Ida to ask her not to be disappointed if the fishcakes had gonedownhill in six years, suddenly embarrassed about his choice of food. Yet she looked genuinely delighted, and entrusted him with ordering her fishcake while she sat in a white plastic chair at a small table by the window.
    ‘How long do you think they’ll stay hot for?’ she asked when he came over with two soft packages of greaseproof paper.
    ‘They’re just out of the fat fryer.’
    She grinned. ‘Shall we take them back to my place?’
    ‘Um…’
    She stood up carefully and tapped his belly. The touch of her finger on his stomach had filled his throat with a gargle and he couldn’t speak, even though he thought he should politely decline her offer.
God
, he barely knew her.
    She was relentless. ‘Are you okay to drive us?’
    He looked at her eager face and took the father test: ask yourself what your father would have done and make sure you do the precise opposite.
    They stepped out into the chilly street, where the tramp from the park was huddled in an alley mouth with his carrier bag of cider bottles. Midas heard the percussion of his chattering teeth. He led the way towards his car, which he realized now he’d parked in a puddle. She lowered herself carefully into the passenger’s side. Night was falling quickly. Soon they were driving through darkening countryside and there were no other cars on the road.
    ‘Those chips smell good.’
    ‘Mm.’
    She laughed. ‘You get really tongue-tied, don’t you?’
    He blushed. ‘S’pose.’
    Dark branches rushed past the window. It started to rain. The car shuddered through a pothole and Ida winced and involuntarily grabbed her knees. Midas tried to watch the road. Coniferous trees shook in the wind and rain.
    ‘Perhaps you think too hard about what words you’re going to use and how to make your mouth say them.’
    He frowned. Perhaps she spoke her mind too easily. ‘Maybe.’
    After a silence she pointed out a narrow driveway. He turned up it, headlights sweeping across a tiny bungalow with a slate roof.
    Trees lashed each other in the darkness. Cold rain, nearly sleet, tapped their scalps and shoulders as they left the car.
    Ida took a deep breath. ‘Okay. This is the cottage.’
    A blue front door had a horseshoe nailed to it. Dead plants in cracked flowerpots sat on the windowsills. A drop of icy rain hit Midas in the eye. Ida stepped up to the door, holding the key tightly but making no move to place it in the lock. She stared at the woodwork.
    ‘The décor’s rather predictable I’m afraid. Carl’s not really interested in it. Think middle-aged academic.’
    He thought of his father. She unlocked the door and hit a light switch.
    A wide passageway led to some wooden stairs and two doors, one to a kitchen and one to a sitting room with a sofa bed where she had clearly been sleeping. He wondered why she didn’t sleep upstairs in the bedroom, and whether the sofa bed made this her bedroom. In which case he was
in her bedroom
. God, he wasn’t ready for anything like that.
    A bookshelf was stacked with a few photo frames and books with names he half remembered from his father’s study: Virgil, Pliny, Ovid. They were like the words of a black magic spell, and he