Read Online The Servants by Michael Marshall Smith - Free Book Online Page A

r va n t s
    Gradually, his sobs subsided, taking with them all but the last of the tears.
    “Yes,” the old lady said reflectively. “I think there’s only one thing for it.”
    “One thing for what?” Mark managed. His voice sounded thick.
    “I know just what you need,” she said. “Can you guess?”
    Mark shook his head. He couldn’t imagine what she had in mind.
    “A nice strong cup of tea,” she said.
    Mark was so surprised that he started to laugh.
    “That’s better,” she said, and stood aside so he had room to clamber to his feet.
    Her room was very, very warm. As he sat in the chair, watching the old lady pottering about at the stove with the kettle, Mark saw that she had not one but two of those old-fashioned heaters that have horizontal metal bars that glow orange when they’re turned on. Underneath the lace curtains at the window she had taped a strip of cloth to stop the slightest draft from coming in. She was wearing the thick black dress he’d seen her in before, and also a cardigan.
    “Don’t you get hot?” he asked.
    His voice still sounded a little snotty, and his head hurt. Partly from cracking it on the ground, probably, but mainly from the tears. He didn’t cry often. He knew he’d probably feel bad about doing it, later, but just right now he was too worn out to care.
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    m i c h a e l m a r s h a l l s m i t h
    “The older you get, the colder you feel,” the old lady said.
    “The engine starts to wear out.”
    She put two cups on the little table, poured a dash of milk into both, then added tea. From somewhere she had produced a small plate of cookies. Two bourbons, two custard creams, and a garibaldi. Exactly the same cookies Mark’s grandmothers had favored, before they’d died, one the year after the other. Maybe there was a special shop where old ladies bought their cookies, and their dresses and coats, a little place hidden away down a side street or alleyway, where a grandfather clock ticked and an ancient man covered in dust and cobwebs came out of the back, walking slowly, summoned by the tinkle tinkle of the bell when someone hobbled in. The old lady sat down carefully in the other chair. “The good thing is that means nothing hurts quite so much.”
    He looked at her, not understanding what she meant.
    “You don’t get as happy as you used to,” she said. “But . . . you don’t cry very often either.”
    “Neither do I,” Mark said defensively.
    “I’m sure you don’t,” she agreed mildly. “You’re a boy. You’re not allowed to. God forbid that a boy reveal that he isn’t made of stone.”
    It took Mark a moment to puzzle this out, but it didn’t seem that he was being got at, so he just grunted and took a sip of his tea. It was so strong you could almost chew it. Maybe you could get tea bags from the special shop down the alley too, ones which had five times as many leaves in them as normal.
    They sat in silence for a while. He’d noticed the last time
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    that she didn’t seem to mind this. Maybe that was part of being old. You could just sit, listening to the clock ticking the time away, and not feel you had to fill the spaces with words. Perhaps when you’d got to her age, you’d said everything already once. David clearly didn’t feel he’d got to that point yet, and Mark found he enjoyed the quiet.
    “What did you mean, before?” he asked eventually.
    “About what, dear?”
    “You said something about how people were like, you know”—he nodded at the back wall of the room.
    “Did I? I have no idea what I meant. I’m sorry. Sometimes I just say things to check my mouth is still working, I think.”
    He smiled.
    She nodded at the plate. “Have a custard cream.”
    He took one. “Like . . . Brunswick Cream,” he said.
    “That’s right,” she said, and took the other. They sat there eating cookies together, and listening to the sound of the clock.
    Some time later, he woke up.
    For a long