Boy on the Wire by Alastair Bruce Read Free Book Online Page A

buy tins of paint, brushes, white spirits, cloths, dust sheets, a sander.
    I take my purchases out to the car and pile them in the boot. I have no firm plan yet, which is unlike me, beyond staying for a few more days before putting the house on the market. I will use the time to give the place a coat of paint.
    I have never been good at DIY, though I think I can manage to tidy the place up a bit, make it more marketable for when the time comes to sell it. From what I can see, it would be hard to give houses away here, though. The bungalow on the left as I look up the road has boards across its windows and the one beyond that has a ‘For Sale’ sign outside. I have seen no signs of life from the house on the right, though it is more difficult to see from here than the one on the left. There is open land behind Peter’s house. It is still scrub. Not much has changed. On the way here I noticed that all the houses are set back from the road. I try to remember if I have ever seen anyone in the gardens, but I cannot.
    I call it Peter’s house, as if he is still alive. I find it hard to think of it as my house, though legally it is mine now – or will be very soon – and once it was as much mine as it was his. The familiarity of it somehow makes it less possible for me to make it my own. I was a very different person when I lived here, almost a stranger. It is him that should claim it – that boy that I was.
    I allow my thoughts to wander. It is years earlier, and I have returned, forgiveness on my mind. Peter and I occupy separate wings. The house is not big enough to have wings but it is not far off. We extend, perhaps rip out the attic room and put in an en suite. We meet local women, marry them. In a year or two, children. We gather in the middle of the house for family meals, Peter and I at opposite ends of the table. Patriarchs. Perhaps we would take holidays in the Karoo. A car trip to Barrydale and the mountain pass and a picnic in the river valley.
    Our very own dynasty. A line of Hydes, beginning here, spreading out to populate the world.
    In this reverie, I give Peter my face. We always looked alike and I have not seen him up close for many years – not alive anyway.
    I feel something: embedded in the fabric of this place, this house, city, country, a past that repels me. At the same time, though, the scent of it, the sense of it floating around me, in the dust on the air, buried in the layers of paint on the walls, it has its hook in me, a fish hook ripping through my gullet. The house pulls me in.
    I don’t want it – any of it. Did I want reconciliation with Peter by coming out here, by trying to prevent what I saw coming? I have long felt revulsion for him, for what he did, though I know I should not blame him. And, here I lay it out in the open, I do not want to be in the house of a man to whom I have not spoken in eighteen years; I do not want to be reminded of those terrible events when my brother died. Peter drew me here with that letter, with those half-truths, those untruths, and the threat, implied or not.
    I am annoyed with myself, I should never have come.
    I will go back to London and try to resume my life, with Rachel if she will have me. My brother will be out of my life then, once and for all. It is decided.
    I will sort the house out, put it up for sale, and then get back on a plane.
    I unroll plastic sheeting on the floor, move furniture away from walls, cover that in plastic too, wash the walls, tape the edges of the windows, remove light fittings, switch and plug covers. It is while doing this that I discover the cameras. Each room has what appears to be a motion-activated camera, installed no doubt for security purposes. I have found no evidence of any other security or recording equipment though and do not give the cameras much thought.
    For a week I paint through the day and into the night. Each night I sleep, I imagine, without moving, in the centre of the bed, arms at my sides. I do not