Read Online The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Maggie O'Farrell
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been more useful.’
Lexie smiled as she stretched up to take down the curtains. ‘Perhaps.’
A nother lapse. Elina is downstairs again, in the kitchen, and she is walking, up and down, back and forth, with her son over her shoulder and she’s wearing her pyjamas with the baggy, flowered sweatshirt over them and the room is filled with noise. A driving, constant shrilling, and it is Elina’s job to stop this noise. She knows this noise. It has begun to feel as if it is the only thing she knows: its pitch, its variations, its progressions. It starts as a heh-heh . There can be a few of these. Five, six, seven – anything up to as many as ten. After that begin the ha-ngggs : ha-nggg, ha-nggg, ha-nggg . It can stop there, if Elina gets it right, if she does a certain thing at an exact moment, but because she isn’t sure what it is she must do or when, the noise can broaden and deepen out to the dread uhHggg : uhHggg uhHggg uhHggg uhHggg . After four of these, a gulp of silence, then on to the next four.
If she could just sleep, everything would be all right. Just a stretch of three hours, four maybe. She is so tired that if she turns her head there is a crackling sound, like someone crumpling paper. But she keeps moving. She moves around the kitchen, past the cooker, past the kettle, past the answerphone, which is telling her she has no fewer than thirteen messages, round by the fridge and back, an ache pulsing in her temples. It’s roughly two seconds for every uhHggg , so that’s eight seconds for each set of four and let’s say another two seconds for the silent break, which makes ten seconds for the lot. Which makes twenty-four uhHggg s a minute. And how long has this been going on so far? Thirty-five minutes, which makes – how many? Elina’s brain fails at the maths.
Later, in the silence that is always so taut, so fragile, Elina climbs the stairs alone. On the landing she hesitates. There are three doors to choose from: hers and Ted’s room, the bathroom and the attic-room door, which is above her head in the ceiling.
She pulls down the squeaking silver ladder for the attic and climbs the rungs, rising into the room as if emerging from the sea. She looks at the way the light knifes in through the gaps in the blind, illuminating a dusty row of nail varnishes on the mantelpiece, the books lined up on the shelves, shut spines facing her, the vase containing a splayed arrangement of paint brushes, their bristles stiff, set into points. Her bare feet hiss on the carpet. From the desk under the window, Elina picks up a diary and leafs through it. Dinner, she reads, cinema, meeting, exhibition opening, haircut, appointment at gallery. She puts it down. This had been her room, her studio, back when she was Ted’s lodger. A long time ago. Before the before. Before any of this. She opens a drawer and finds a necklace, a wand for mascara, a red lipstick, a half-used tube of ochre paint, a postcard of Helsinki harbour. The wardrobe door is stiff but Elina gives it a sharp tug with her dusty fingers and it opens.
In here is the only full-length mirror in the house. The door swings open, rectangles of light wheel across the room and Elina is suddenly face to face with a woman in a stained sweatshirt, the bleach growing out of her hair, her face waxy white.
She avoids her own eye in the mirror as she raises the sweatshirt and holds it under her chin. She puts her fingers in the elastic holding up her pyjama bottoms and turns it down, just enough, just for a second. Long enough to take in where the gash starts, at one hipbone, and where it ends at the other, its crooked, stumbling path through her flesh, the delicate violet of the bruising, the metal clips holding it all together.
She lets the hem of the sweatshirt drop. She remembers – what?
That she had been numb up to her armpits, like a floating head and shoulders, as if she were a marble bust. But it was a strange
Lexie smiled as she stretched up to take down the curtains. ‘Perhaps.’
A nother lapse. Elina is downstairs again, in the kitchen, and she is walking, up and down, back and forth, with her son over her shoulder and she’s wearing her pyjamas with the baggy, flowered sweatshirt over them and the room is filled with noise. A driving, constant shrilling, and it is Elina’s job to stop this noise. She knows this noise. It has begun to feel as if it is the only thing she knows: its pitch, its variations, its progressions. It starts as a heh-heh . There can be a few of these. Five, six, seven – anything up to as many as ten. After that begin the ha-ngggs : ha-nggg, ha-nggg, ha-nggg . It can stop there, if Elina gets it right, if she does a certain thing at an exact moment, but because she isn’t sure what it is she must do or when, the noise can broaden and deepen out to the dread uhHggg : uhHggg uhHggg uhHggg uhHggg . After four of these, a gulp of silence, then on to the next four.
If she could just sleep, everything would be all right. Just a stretch of three hours, four maybe. She is so tired that if she turns her head there is a crackling sound, like someone crumpling paper. But she keeps moving. She moves around the kitchen, past the cooker, past the kettle, past the answerphone, which is telling her she has no fewer than thirteen messages, round by the fridge and back, an ache pulsing in her temples. It’s roughly two seconds for every uhHggg , so that’s eight seconds for each set of four and let’s say another two seconds for the silent break, which makes ten seconds for the lot. Which makes twenty-four uhHggg s a minute. And how long has this been going on so far? Thirty-five minutes, which makes – how many? Elina’s brain fails at the maths.
Later, in the silence that is always so taut, so fragile, Elina climbs the stairs alone. On the landing she hesitates. There are three doors to choose from: hers and Ted’s room, the bathroom and the attic-room door, which is above her head in the ceiling.
She pulls down the squeaking silver ladder for the attic and climbs the rungs, rising into the room as if emerging from the sea. She looks at the way the light knifes in through the gaps in the blind, illuminating a dusty row of nail varnishes on the mantelpiece, the books lined up on the shelves, shut spines facing her, the vase containing a splayed arrangement of paint brushes, their bristles stiff, set into points. Her bare feet hiss on the carpet. From the desk under the window, Elina picks up a diary and leafs through it. Dinner, she reads, cinema, meeting, exhibition opening, haircut, appointment at gallery. She puts it down. This had been her room, her studio, back when she was Ted’s lodger. A long time ago. Before the before. Before any of this. She opens a drawer and finds a necklace, a wand for mascara, a red lipstick, a half-used tube of ochre paint, a postcard of Helsinki harbour. The wardrobe door is stiff but Elina gives it a sharp tug with her dusty fingers and it opens.
In here is the only full-length mirror in the house. The door swings open, rectangles of light wheel across the room and Elina is suddenly face to face with a woman in a stained sweatshirt, the bleach growing out of her hair, her face waxy white.
She avoids her own eye in the mirror as she raises the sweatshirt and holds it under her chin. She puts her fingers in the elastic holding up her pyjama bottoms and turns it down, just enough, just for a second. Long enough to take in where the gash starts, at one hipbone, and where it ends at the other, its crooked, stumbling path through her flesh, the delicate violet of the bruising, the metal clips holding it all together.
She lets the hem of the sweatshirt drop. She remembers – what?
That she had been numb up to her armpits, like a floating head and shoulders, as if she were a marble bust. But it was a strange
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