Read Online This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Maggie O'Farrell
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main narrative and right there, at the bottom of each page, additional helpful information on all the things you couldn’t understand. He decided there and then that his life needed footnotes and that he, Niall, should be the one to provide them.
Squinting through his binoculars at his father, Niall commits his observations to memory. Nine minutes late. Distracted, gloomy. He packages them up. He files them neatly at the foot of his page, where he will keep them until later, until he’s called on to refer back to them. There. 1
As he watches his father, he is conscious of the thought entering his mind that to rub the inflammation of his wrist with the side of that binocular strap might feel good, might give him some relief. 2 He squares up to this thought. He looks it in the eye. He puts it from him.
Niall eases back his cuff to consult his watch, which is strapped, as always, over the top of his white medical gloves. He squints into the sky. He lifts the binoculars again. He watches his father for another minute and a half, during which time Daniel sits with his head in his hands, fidgets back and forth in his seat, appears to be arguing with himself, grimaces, rubs at his chin.
Niall couldn’t say how long he has been making observations, gathering information about his father; 3 he also couldn’t articulate exactly what he’s looking for. He just knows it is something that must be done. He tries it on his mother, tries to compile footnotes on her actions and movements, but she is more difficult to pin down. She seems to sense what he’s up to, succeeds in eluding him, in finding his hiding places. Daniel has an air of absorption, of oblivion, that makes him a prime subject. There is, Niall has realised, a lot that Daniel doesn’t notice.
The thing about spying, Niall thinks, as he steps out from behind his pillar and starts making his way across the parking lot, is that things which at the time seem irrelevant might later turn out to be crucial. You just never know. Like the time he overheard his mother, on the telephone, say, in her instructive voice, you ought to try living with a passive-aggressive , and Niall had repeated the phrase to himself and had later asked his father what it meant. His father had told him passive-aggressive was an example of something called an oxymoron and then, after a moment, had asked him who his mother had been talking to. Was it her cousin ? his father had wanted to know, and Niall had had to say, no, it was Chris. Who’s Chris ? his father had asked and Phoebe had chimed in to say that Chris worked with Mommy and that one day Chris had been with Mommy when she’d come to pick Phoebe up from kindergarten and had taken them both for ice-cream, that he and Mommy had split a sundae, except that Mommy said she shouldn’t eat that kind of thing, and Chris said, Whyever not? but ended up eating way more than Mommy, which Phoebe thought wasn’t fair at all. Their father, Daniel, had listened to this very carefully. He had, Niall noted, turned off the radio to hear it better. And when Phoebe had finished, he’d had his new faraway look on his face, as if he was thinking about something else entirely. Then he had said, huh, and Niall had footnoted this. 4
He pops the catch on the car door and climbs in. His father jumps, just as he always does, gives him a huge grin, 5 and says, ‘Oh, hey. I thought I was going to have to come in and spring you out of there.’
Spring you out, Niall knows, is a reference to jail, which is entirely appropriate for school, an establishment Niall likes and loathes 6 at the same time.
Niall fastens his seatbelt but doesn’t say anything; his father doesn’t expect him to chat, 7 which is a relief after the rest of the world’s population.
‘So,’ his father continues as he swings the car out of the school gates and into the road, ‘I got us an appointment for two o’clock, which we should just about make, but whether we’ll be seen on time
Squinting through his binoculars at his father, Niall commits his observations to memory. Nine minutes late. Distracted, gloomy. He packages them up. He files them neatly at the foot of his page, where he will keep them until later, until he’s called on to refer back to them. There. 1
As he watches his father, he is conscious of the thought entering his mind that to rub the inflammation of his wrist with the side of that binocular strap might feel good, might give him some relief. 2 He squares up to this thought. He looks it in the eye. He puts it from him.
Niall eases back his cuff to consult his watch, which is strapped, as always, over the top of his white medical gloves. He squints into the sky. He lifts the binoculars again. He watches his father for another minute and a half, during which time Daniel sits with his head in his hands, fidgets back and forth in his seat, appears to be arguing with himself, grimaces, rubs at his chin.
Niall couldn’t say how long he has been making observations, gathering information about his father; 3 he also couldn’t articulate exactly what he’s looking for. He just knows it is something that must be done. He tries it on his mother, tries to compile footnotes on her actions and movements, but she is more difficult to pin down. She seems to sense what he’s up to, succeeds in eluding him, in finding his hiding places. Daniel has an air of absorption, of oblivion, that makes him a prime subject. There is, Niall has realised, a lot that Daniel doesn’t notice.
The thing about spying, Niall thinks, as he steps out from behind his pillar and starts making his way across the parking lot, is that things which at the time seem irrelevant might later turn out to be crucial. You just never know. Like the time he overheard his mother, on the telephone, say, in her instructive voice, you ought to try living with a passive-aggressive , and Niall had repeated the phrase to himself and had later asked his father what it meant. His father had told him passive-aggressive was an example of something called an oxymoron and then, after a moment, had asked him who his mother had been talking to. Was it her cousin ? his father had wanted to know, and Niall had had to say, no, it was Chris. Who’s Chris ? his father had asked and Phoebe had chimed in to say that Chris worked with Mommy and that one day Chris had been with Mommy when she’d come to pick Phoebe up from kindergarten and had taken them both for ice-cream, that he and Mommy had split a sundae, except that Mommy said she shouldn’t eat that kind of thing, and Chris said, Whyever not? but ended up eating way more than Mommy, which Phoebe thought wasn’t fair at all. Their father, Daniel, had listened to this very carefully. He had, Niall noted, turned off the radio to hear it better. And when Phoebe had finished, he’d had his new faraway look on his face, as if he was thinking about something else entirely. Then he had said, huh, and Niall had footnoted this. 4
He pops the catch on the car door and climbs in. His father jumps, just as he always does, gives him a huge grin, 5 and says, ‘Oh, hey. I thought I was going to have to come in and spring you out of there.’
Spring you out, Niall knows, is a reference to jail, which is entirely appropriate for school, an establishment Niall likes and loathes 6 at the same time.
Niall fastens his seatbelt but doesn’t say anything; his father doesn’t expect him to chat, 7 which is a relief after the rest of the world’s population.
‘So,’ his father continues as he swings the car out of the school gates and into the road, ‘I got us an appointment for two o’clock, which we should just about make, but whether we’ll be seen on time
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