Read Online The Radleys by Matt Haig - Free Book Online Page B

drink,” he tel s her, sounding angrier than he wishes.
    She stares at him, at the laughter lines which stay on his face, years after the laugh in question.
    “I’m seventeen, Dad. It’s a Friday night. I’m al owed some freedom.”
    He tries to calm down. He wants her to think about the past. If he can get her to think about the past, it wil anchor her there and help her stay safe. “Eve, do you remember when we—”
    “I can’t believe you did that,” she says. “It’s humiliating. It’s just . . . medieval . You treat me like Rapunzel or something.”
    “You said eleven, Eve.”
    Eve looks at her watch. “God, so I’m half an hour late.” She realizes he must have left the house ten minutes after eleven.
    “Just to see you there, just to see you with that boy acting like . . .” He is shaking his head.
    Eve stares out at the hedges speeding by, wishing she could have been born something else, a little thrush or starling or something that could just fly away and not have to think about everything that is in her head.
    “That boy is Toby Felt,” she says. “His dad is Mark Felt. He’s going to have a word with him.
    About the rent. I told him you’ve got a job now and you’l be able to pay double next month, and he’s going to tel his dad that so everything’s going to be okay.”
    Jared can’t help it now. This is too much for him. “Oh, so what did that favor buy him? Eh?”
    “What?”
    “I’m not having my daughter prostitute herself in some field on a Friday night just to buy us favors with the landlord.”
    This infuriates Eve. “I wasn’t prostituting myself. God! Wasn’t I meant to say anything?”
    “No, Eve, you weren’t.”
    “And then what? We have nowhere to live and have to move and have al this crap again? We might as wel just drive to some slummy motel right now. Or find a cozy bus shelter we can sleep in. Because if you don’t wake up, Dad, and stop thinking about whatever crap you’re always thinking about, I’l be prostituting myself just to get us food.”
    Eve regrets al this the moment she’s said it. Her father is nearly in tears.
    And for a moment Eve doesn’t see the man who just shamed her in front of her friends. She sees instead a man who has suffered what she has suffered, so she says nothing and looks at his hands on the steering wheel and the infinite sadness of the wedding ring he wil never take off his finger.

    Ten Past Midnight

    Rowan is leaning against the tumble dryer while his mother attends to Clara in the downstairs bathroom.
    “I’m extremely confused,” he says through the door.
    He is understating the case. A short while ago his mother arrived back with his sister, who was covered in what looked like blood. And she real y was covered , the way a newborn baby is, and hardly recognizable as herself. She had seemed so blank and impassive. Hypnotized almost.
    “Please, Rowan,” his mother says, as the shower is switched on, “we’l talk about it in a bit.
    When Dad comes home.”
    “Where is he?”
    His mother ignores him, and he hears her talk to his blood-stained sister. “It’s stil a bit cold.
    Okay, it’s coming through. You can get in now.”
    He tries again. “Where’s Dad?”
    “He’l be here soon. He’s . . . had to sort something out.”
    “Sort something out? What are we, the Cosa Nostra?”
    “Please, Rowan, later.”
    His mother sounds cross, but he can’t stop the questions.
    “What’s the blood about?” he asks. “What’s happened to her? . . . Clara, what’s going on? Mum, why isn’t she talking? Is this why we’re getting weird phone cal s?”
    This last one seems to do it. His mother opens the bathroom door and looks Rowan straight in the eye.
    “Phone cal s?” she asks.
    Rowan nods. “Someone cal ed. Someone cal ed and didn’t say anything. Just before you came back.” He watches anxiety spread over his mother’s face.
    “No,” she says. “Oh God. No.”
    “Mum, what’s going on?”
    He