Read Online The Moment You Were Gone by Nicci Gerrard - Free Book Online

raw patch.’
    ‘It sounds heartbreaking.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Gaby, ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s just today that it feels like that. I’ve never been good at saying goodbye.’
    Ethan laid a hand lightly on her shoulder. ‘It’s not really goodbye, Mum. It’s more like, see you in a bit.’
    ‘I know. Sorry.’ She frowned. ‘This car feels a bit funny. Can you smell burning?’
    ‘A bit. Is the handbrake on or something?’
    ‘Of course not,’ she replied, checking surreptitiously to make sure.
    ‘It’s probably coming from outside,’ he said. He pulled a pile of CDs out of his backpack, selected one and slid it into the player, turned up the volume, then lay back and watched through his dark glasses as the fields rolledemptily by, golden and green under the heavy sky, the blur of high hedges, the swift string of houses, the sudden trees that cast a bar of shade over the hot car, then slid into the distance. Cows, stubble, swallows lining up on telegraph wires. I’m leaving home, he thought. The words throbbed inside his head like a refrain. His body was heavy in the warmth. His hands, folded loosely in his lap, felt as if they belonged to someone else. He could feel his eyelids growing heavier, until at last he let them close …
    Gaby let her gaze rest briefly on his profile as he slept. Such a beautiful face, she thought. A wing of tawny hair over his forehead, thick straight eyebrows above eyes so deep brown they were almost black, like sloes, cheeks still pale and smooth, although he shaved every day now, a dimple in his chin like the one in hers, a small mole under his left ear. He was half man and half lean, beautiful boy; there was still that freshness about him, a physical sweetness that made her want to reach out and put her hand on his thin shoulder, stroke the soft flop of his hair.
    She let herself remember him as he was in the photograph that stood on the piano at home: four years old, in red shorts, blue T-shirt and sandals, outside his grandparents’ greenhouse holding a cardboard basket of tomatoes, and on his face a look of frightened uncertainty, as if he didn’t know where on earth he was or to whom he should turn for help. A tiny boy who used to stand with his soft hand in hers, shifting fretfully from foot to foot; who was scared of heights, enclosed spaces, beetles and flies, cows, waves, cracks in pavements, older boys,crowds, clowns, balloons, fireworks, the dark, being left alone. She used to sit by his bed at night, and he’d wind his fingers through her hair while she sang lullabies and half-remembered songs from her own childhood. He wouldn’t go to sleep without her there, watching over him like a sentinel until his hand slipped back on to the pillow, the fist uncurling, his eyes dragged shut, his breathing deepened, and then she would creep from the room. Now he towered over her. Now he shut his door on her, locked it. He lectured Connor on politics, told them surreal jokes and giggled with friends over musical trivia or the worst film titles. He played the piano when he thought no one was listening, sitting upright on the piano stool, his long fingers rippling over the keys, staring into the distance as though he could see a whole different landscape out there. He went out at night with condoms in the pockets of his ripped jeans, smelt of cigarette smoke and beer and sweat and secrets, gazed at her with an inscrutable expression on his young, romantic face, or was kind to her and Connor in a way that made her feel how he was leaving them, how he’d left. But, still, she sometimes remembered the early years, and wondered what had happened to that solemn, scared child. Had he simply vanished, melted away, or was he still lurking, waiting to unsettle them all again? Even now there were times when she woke in the middle of the night and had to steal into his room to make sure he was there, dreamy and beautiful on the pillow. But she was supposed to trust him and believe him