Read Online The Night Following by Morag Joss - Free Book Online
Authors: Morag Joss
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Loss (Psychology), Psychological, Psychological fiction, Romance, Crime, Murderers, Murder, Married People, Deception, Murder Victims' Families
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it happened, some people got the flashing lights and some didn’t, but it went after a bit. It hadn’t bothered Daphne past her first three weeks, after all. She would just have to stop going on about it.
When she woke in her chair, the broadcast had finished and the wireless was crackling. The sound, like a match put to paper and kindling, had sent her into a half-dream that she was lighting a fire. Her eyes were watering now at the fading firelight, and she closed them again. When the stinging subsided, she read the clock. It was gone eleven and the fire had burned down to a few coals. The only other light in the room was coming off the wireless dial, dull and cool and greenish, as if from shining from under water.
She should have given herself an early night instead of waiting up on the off-chance Stan would drop in. He’d feel bad about tonight when he stopped to think about it. After all, they were getting married. He’d agreed.
Evelyn went to the kitchen to put the kettle on in the dark for her hot water bottle, and stood thinking her sad thoughts in the soft blue light from the gas. She had turned the gas off and was filling the bottle before it occurred to her it was foolish not to have put a light on. But she managed it fine, as easily as if she could see. She smiled. It was like Mam often said about this little chore or that, turning the heel on a sock or crimping the edge of the pastry on one of her famous meat and potato pies, Oh, I could do it blindfold.
Evelyn got the stopper on and stood for a while, pressing the bottle against her stomach.
The earthy aroma of warmed stone and the smells of damp brushes under the sink, burnt matches and potato peelings and gas were as familiar to Evelyn as the back of her own hand. She could breathe those smells anywhere and she’d be straight back in Mam’s kitchen, but nevertheless tonight she felt a bit lost. It definitely did make you a bit nervy and weepy, being in the family way, she thought. She tiptoed upstairs, avoiding the creaky spots. As soon as she was in her bed with her feet on her bottle, she would feel as right as rain.
Dear Ruth
Is it going to be sad all the way through, this story?
I remembered something. You had some poem about mimosa. Where would that be lurking?
Tried to unearth it but no sign of it in any of the boxes of books or papers. Though would I know it for what it was, if I found it? Occurred to me I might not be clear about what I was looking for.
Instead, found heaps of stuff from Overdale! Ruth, was it at Overdale you told me about mimosa?
Later
Been looking further, still no sign.
Maybe you took it with you somehow. That’s how it seems. Plus you took away a lot of words on other subjects as well.
Excuse scrawl, light poor, bulb dead.
Legs giving trouble.
Arthur
I’d done it before, watched from an upstairs window as someone left, and then waited on long enough afterward to feel a reverberating absence imprison me like a circle of spears. But that April evening I was a grown-up married woman, who had struck and killed another human being, so the parallel was a surface similarity only. In fact it wasn’t the same kind of situation at all.
I was six the night the man I knew as my great-uncle left. He stalked out in a riot of hurled missiles, insults, and breaking glass, leaving a trail of strewn belongings and wrapped presents that shed their bright ribbons and paper across the snow. It was Christmas Eve of 1962. Whenever my mother talked about it, she made a great deal of that. Christmas bloody Eve, can you believe it,
Christmas bloody Eve,
she would say, as if he had chosen the moment so that particular and perpetual outrage at his sense of timing would stain the day forever, obliging her to rename it. She forgot that he didn’t choose it at all, and he wasn’t around after that to correct her, but left because she threw him out. Not literally, for he was a foot taller than she was and strong, even at his age;
When she woke in her chair, the broadcast had finished and the wireless was crackling. The sound, like a match put to paper and kindling, had sent her into a half-dream that she was lighting a fire. Her eyes were watering now at the fading firelight, and she closed them again. When the stinging subsided, she read the clock. It was gone eleven and the fire had burned down to a few coals. The only other light in the room was coming off the wireless dial, dull and cool and greenish, as if from shining from under water.
She should have given herself an early night instead of waiting up on the off-chance Stan would drop in. He’d feel bad about tonight when he stopped to think about it. After all, they were getting married. He’d agreed.
Evelyn went to the kitchen to put the kettle on in the dark for her hot water bottle, and stood thinking her sad thoughts in the soft blue light from the gas. She had turned the gas off and was filling the bottle before it occurred to her it was foolish not to have put a light on. But she managed it fine, as easily as if she could see. She smiled. It was like Mam often said about this little chore or that, turning the heel on a sock or crimping the edge of the pastry on one of her famous meat and potato pies, Oh, I could do it blindfold.
Evelyn got the stopper on and stood for a while, pressing the bottle against her stomach.
The earthy aroma of warmed stone and the smells of damp brushes under the sink, burnt matches and potato peelings and gas were as familiar to Evelyn as the back of her own hand. She could breathe those smells anywhere and she’d be straight back in Mam’s kitchen, but nevertheless tonight she felt a bit lost. It definitely did make you a bit nervy and weepy, being in the family way, she thought. She tiptoed upstairs, avoiding the creaky spots. As soon as she was in her bed with her feet on her bottle, she would feel as right as rain.
Dear Ruth
Is it going to be sad all the way through, this story?
I remembered something. You had some poem about mimosa. Where would that be lurking?
Tried to unearth it but no sign of it in any of the boxes of books or papers. Though would I know it for what it was, if I found it? Occurred to me I might not be clear about what I was looking for.
Instead, found heaps of stuff from Overdale! Ruth, was it at Overdale you told me about mimosa?
Later
Been looking further, still no sign.
Maybe you took it with you somehow. That’s how it seems. Plus you took away a lot of words on other subjects as well.
Excuse scrawl, light poor, bulb dead.
Legs giving trouble.
Arthur
I’d done it before, watched from an upstairs window as someone left, and then waited on long enough afterward to feel a reverberating absence imprison me like a circle of spears. But that April evening I was a grown-up married woman, who had struck and killed another human being, so the parallel was a surface similarity only. In fact it wasn’t the same kind of situation at all.
I was six the night the man I knew as my great-uncle left. He stalked out in a riot of hurled missiles, insults, and breaking glass, leaving a trail of strewn belongings and wrapped presents that shed their bright ribbons and paper across the snow. It was Christmas Eve of 1962. Whenever my mother talked about it, she made a great deal of that. Christmas bloody Eve, can you believe it,
Christmas bloody Eve,
she would say, as if he had chosen the moment so that particular and perpetual outrage at his sense of timing would stain the day forever, obliging her to rename it. She forgot that he didn’t choose it at all, and he wasn’t around after that to correct her, but left because she threw him out. Not literally, for he was a foot taller than she was and strong, even at his age;
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