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

turned his back on them. In a corner sat a neat pile of lifting weights and an aged pair of blue boxing gloves, while on the wall opposite the window hung a small print of a self-portrait of Van Gogh, ear bandaged tightly. A patterned throw, navy blue with silver dots, overlaid the sofa bed.
    Ida sat on the bed and started to unlace her boots. Midas triednot to seem too interested. She slid them off and laid them carefully on the carpet beside the bed. Underneath, she wore many layers of thick socks.
    ‘It must have been hard,’ he said, looking at her padded feet. ‘Underwater.’
    She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘That diving you said you used to do with Carl Maulsen.’
    ‘No, no. This… condition hadn’t developed when I was working for Carl.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Is it recent?’
    She nodded.
    They looked at their laps.
    ‘Midas?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
    ‘Sorry.’
    She shrugged. She clapped her hands together. ‘Right then. Let’s eat these fishcakes.’
    Midas went to the kitchen and found plates. He unwrapped the greasy bundles on to the crockery and carried them back to the sitting room. He sank into an armchair that was lumpy with springs.
    Ida had opened a window to let out the smell of chip grease. Something in the trees hooted as they ate.
    ‘There are owls outside,’ said Midas.
    ‘Yes. I heard them. When I couldn’t sleep the other night.’
    ‘We should go out and look for one.’
    She seemed surprised. ‘You’d like to do that?’
    ‘Yes.’
    She chewed thoughtfully, finished her mouthful and wiped her lips. ‘When I was a kid I used to go down to the beach and lookfor dolphins in the moonlight. Don’t think I’ve ever gone owl watching. But now… it’s hard for me to walk in the dark.’
    ‘We won’t go far.’
    ‘Sorry.’ She blushed. ‘Sorry, Midas. I’m too frightened I’ll trip.’
    He was surprised. He’d seen her superior confidence in every matter, and the sudden role reversal made her look, for a moment, younger, almost a kid.
    It was getting colder inside. Ida closed the window, cranked up the heating and got Midas to bring them a bottle of white wine from the fridge, moisture all up its green neck.
    ‘You’ve got a lot of bottles in that fridge.’
    She grinned. ‘They’re Carl’s. But, you know, he told me to help myself.’
    She put the wine firmly on a counter beside the sofa bed, along with two glasses, then took a corkscrew, which she brandished like a knife.
    ‘He’s been really good to me, down the years. A sort of uncle figure.’
    ‘Are you actually related?’
    ‘No. My mother just knew him from way back.’ She jabbed the corkscrew into the cork and twisted it absent-mindedly. ‘That’s him. In that framed cutting.’
    There was a yellowing newspaper column in a small frame on the end of the bookshelf. Midas got up and took it off the shelf. The headline read LOCAL DUO EARN HONORARY MAINLAND FELLOWSHIP and there was a grainy picture at the bottom of the article. Of the two men it showed in crisp suits, the first was undoubtedly Maulsen, squarely built with a dashing grin and silver hair.
    ‘Shit,’ said Midas, grip tightening on the photo frame.
    Ida looked up, worried. The cork crumbled into the bottle and bobbed in the wine.
    He staggered to the armchair and collapsed backwards into it.
    ‘Midas, what’s wrong?’
    He shook his head quickly. She narrowed her eyes when he looked at her. He thought of how he’d concealed what he knew about Henry Fuwa, and couldn’t bear to disguise this too. He handed her the picture frame.
    ‘Read the names.’
    She skimmed the article, then squinted at the image. ‘Is this
you
?’
    ‘My father.’
    ‘You have the same
name
?’
    ‘Yes.’
    She put the photo down. ‘You didn’t know about this, did you?’
    He shook his head. ‘I mean, I knew about the fellowship, but not Carl Maulsen.’
    ‘Well… it’s great news! You said you didn’t know much