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

shower, do not clean myself at all. I am covered in paint – my hair, even my feet, as I discover when I remove my shoes to go to bed, have paint on them, as if I have somehow unknowingly taken my shoes off in the middle of painting.
    I notice, as I go through each room, there are marks on the carpet where furniture has stood. It is as if he had been getting rid of it in preparation for my arrival. Some of it I can even remember. I picture the dining-room table, standing in the middle of the room. Doors leading out onto the patio. Seated at the table are my mother, father, Peter and myself. I have scabs all over me. Week-old cuts and grazes. Paul is not there. My mother scrapes at the food on her plate. Peter stares at me from the opposite end of the table. I do not meet his gaze. It is not an accusatory stare. It is something else. As if he is pleading with me. Perhaps he has asked me to pass the salt. I sense that if I look at him, he will not meet my gaze. My father is looking at both of us as if he thinks there is something between us.
    Do I remember this? Or, do I only remember sitting at the table and the rest is made up? Embellished by time and the dislocation I feel being back here.
    I have not opened many of the cupboards or drawers that remain – it does not feel right somehow – but when I move an item of furniture I can feel it is empty. He wrote in his letter that he had cleared out most of the contents and he seems to have done a thorough job.
    I know there are some items that remain and I will need to clear everything out of course before selling, but first I will paint the whole house: every room except the one under the eaves, the one leading off Peter’s old bedroom. There is nothing in there to paint: it is just brick, concrete and raw wood.
    I do find something in one of the kitchen cupboards, though. I am looking for a jar in which to wash a paintbrush, and I find a document. A strange place for it but Peter was probably not the most logical man. It is a title deed in Peter’s name and the address is the bungalow next door, the one that is boarded up.
    I stand at the window that looks out towards the house. Something flaps in the wind and catches my eye. One of the boards that was nailed across the window has come loose, or was always loose, I am not sure. I have not noticed it before. I go outside and walk up to the fence and watch it flapping back and forth.
    I go back inside the larger house and have a shower, wash most of the paint off and change into fresh clothes. I am passing the window when I see the board move again. I know it is the wind that moves it, but something makes me go back out to the fence and stand there for a few minutes. Every window I can see, besides the one that caught my eye, is boarded up. The garden is overgrown but sparse at the same time. It does not rain much here. There are trees on the far side of it. They lean to the right, bent by the wind.
    I feel, though only briefly, I am being watched. I dismiss it. Sometimes solitude can conjure up ghosts.
    I look along the fence, and there, a short distance away, is a gap. The wire is old and here the fence seems to have simply rusted away. Or perhaps, some time ago, it was cut. I step through. There is no grass here, only sand. My feet kick up clouds of it, though I try to move lightly. I walk up to the single-storey building, the walls a dull brown. I walk around it until I reach the window with the broken board. The ground in front of it is undisturbed, as far as I can tell. I peer through the gap. The glass is still in place, though grimy. I rub some of the dirt away and place my forehead against the window, my hands shielding the glare. My eyes take a few seconds to adjust. On the wall opposite me is a painting of a scene in England, where I now call home. At least I imagine it is England: a babbling brook, a green meadow, a water mill. It is out of place here, does not belong. I feel, and I cannot explain this, anger. I