Burley Cross Postbox Theft: A Novel by Nicola Barker Read Free Book Online Page B

snatched it out of your arms (it was a fair old weight in the pot!) and tossed it into the road. It lay there for hours. I saw the argument that followed (you didn’t see me – I was sheltering behind our greenhouse). I watched you storm to your car, climb inside, slam the door and then sit there for a while. I longed to do something – to say something – but I didn’t dare interfere (I wanted to. I really wanted to. More than you will ever, ever know).
    I could tell how upset you were as you drove off – heard you accidentally sound the horn as you knocked the left indicator – and my heart literally broke for you.
    It may cheer you to know (all these years later), that after you’d gone – a fair while after – I braved Glenys’s rage, went out into the road and rescued it (the maple – just as dusk was starting to fall). I planted it in our front garden (next to thebrick path, by the gate) where it still stands to this day – almost taller than I am, now – a fine, lasting testimony, I often think, to a son’s gentle magnanimity (I only pray there might still be some small remnants of benevolence remaining in your heart, for Rhona and me, today).
    Glenys never said a word about it (the tree, your visit. In fact she didn’t speak – to anybody – for almost a week) but I’m sure she knew what I had done. In fact I’m certain of it. Every time she entered our gate from that day onwards, she had to walk straight by it.
    I saw her standing on the path and staring at it, deep in thought, early one autumn afternoon about three years ago (the leaves had just turned a deep vermilion and it did look especially lovely). It was difficult to read her expression at the time (apprehension? Uncertainty? Regret? As you know yourself, it could be so hard to tell what she was thinking), but I resolved to grasp the nettle and say something to her when she finally came inside (to comfort her? Confront her? Make a direct appeal on your behalf? I’m not entirely sure), but then the milk boiled over in the pan on the stove and the moment was lost in the chaos that ensued.
    I suppose I never really had the stomach to stand up to her (I hope I’m not a coward, Donovan – although you often accused me of it. But I don’t think it’s cowardice so much as resignation, an inherent stoicism. I taught myself – ever since the trials of my childhood – never to expect too much. I like to think, of all the virtues, patience is the one I come closest to possessing. Patience: ‘A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue’, as I believe Ambrose Bierce once called it!).
    I’m still not sure what good – if any – would have come from a needless confrontation. Your mother was never really open to persuasion (when I visualize her, even now, in my mind’s eye, I see her in the guise of an old seaman’s chest: heavy, well-travelled, somewhat battered, ribbed by a set of thick, iron supports, fastened by a giant lock. The key is lost).
    Glenys was always uncompromising – in both her habits and her views. She could be shrewish, hard-nosed and intractable. By the end (the very end), Rhona and I (and the poor parrot, and the cat) were her only remaining friends. Even the postman refused to deliver to her door (he dropped her mail off with us). She was barred from both the pub and the local shop. She’d driven everybody else away. She’d scared them off. It had been an almost calculated act. As if to be alone – truly alone – towards the end was the fulfilment of a life’s ambition.
    Thinking that – believing that – how could I have ever knowingly jeopardized the relationship we had? It was so fragile, so necessary. Glenys needed us (although she was far too proud to admit it). She needed me, and, in a curious way I was grateful for her need (the kind of gratitude you feel when an abandoned fledgling bites your finger as you struggle to feed it).
    For all the pain she caused you (and the frustration and the