Read Online We That Are Left by Clare Clark - Free Book Online Page B

that next to the Germans the English would only ever be enthusiastic amateurs.’ He hung his head. ‘I’m glad he’s dead.’
    â€˜Don’t say that,’ Phyllis said fiercely.
    â€˜But it’s true.’
    â€˜I don’t care. You’re not allowed to be glad anyone’s dead, not anyone at all. Not any more.’
    The afternoon was darkening. In the grey light Phyllis’s face looked very white. Outside the wind was getting up. Oscar could hear the whistle of it in the top of the tower, the sea shush of the rustling trees. Neither of them spoke. Oscar thought of Nanny who did not live in the house any more but in a damp cottage in the village, crowded with feathers and stones and splotchy drawings and samplers with the stitches pulled too tight. The day before his mother had madehim visit her and, when it was time to leave, she had cried, the tears clotting in the powdery creases of her cheeks, and said that she hoped Oscar would be a brother to the girls now, with Theo gone.
    Phyllis reached out and put her hand on Oscar’s arm. The tips of her fingers were yellow with cold. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
    â€˜For what?’
    â€˜For telling me about Uncle Henry. For not being like most boys of fifteen.’
    Oscar looked at her hand on his sleeve. Then awkwardly, like a game of Pat-a-Cake, he put his on top of it. ‘I’m good at that,’ he said.
    The door banged open.
    â€˜Phyllis?’ Jessica called out, clattering up the shallow steps into the Tiled Room. Immediately Phyllis slipped her hand out from under Oscar’s. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Am I interrupting something?’
    â€˜Don’t be pathetic,’ Phyllis said. ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’
    â€˜Looking for you, if you must know. You’re to go back to the house. The men from Theo’s regiment are here.’
    â€˜I thought Eleanor—’
    â€˜Yes, well, she didn’t. Won’t. Whichever. Father says you’ll have to do.’
    The sisters looked at each other. Then Phyllis nodded. She stood up, unwinding Oscar’s scarf from around her neck.
    â€˜That’s all right,’ he said. ‘You can give it back to me later,’ but Phyllis balled it up and held it out to him. Oscar took it. It was warm, like something alive.
    â€˜Hold on.’ Jessica brushed away the bits of dead leaf that clung to her sister’s jersey. ‘That’s better. You should brush your hair before you go in, though. And put some lipstick on. You look terrible.’
    â€˜Jesus, Jess, they’re here to pay their respects, not go to a bloody dance.’
    Jessica watched, her crossed arms hugging her chest, as Phyllis hurried through the gloom towards the Great Gate. At the edge of the lawn a white dog was barking at the grass.
    â€˜Are you all right?’ Oscar asked.
    â€˜Of course I’m bloody all right,’ she snapped. ‘It would just be nice if for once everyone in this house didn’t take their misery out on me.’
    Since Theo’s death the other Melvilles had grown older, greyer, huddled inside their skins like hand-me-down overcoats, but not Jessica. It was impossible not to look at her. She was so new-looking, so extravagantly, insistently shiny. Even in the murky light of the Tiled Room she glowed as though there was sunshine inside her. Her honey-coloured hair reminded Oscar of the gleam on the smooth underside of his mother’s chin when he held up a buttercup to see if she liked butter.
    â€˜Eleanor says there’s no point to anything any more.’ She talked without turning round, as though she were talking to the trees outside the window. ‘Not now, not with Theo gone. She told your mother that the darkness was like drowning. That she could not remember how to breathe. Your mother said to remember that she still has Phyllis and me. And Father, of course.’ She exhaled