Come and Tell Me Some Lies by Raffaella Barker Read Free Book Online

the hill and out of the village. ‘Oh, how nice this all looks,’ she said, seeing the kitchen table laid and the big card I had made towelcome the boys home. ‘You poor loves. Don’t worry, Flook will be fine. Mummy will ring up soon to tell you how he is.’ She reached her arms out and like eager puppies we scrambled towards her.
    Louise gave us supper. We had some of the chicken pie Mummy had made, and then she took Dan and Poppy up to bed. Brodie and I lay in front of the fire, our heads pillowed by Honey’s soft bulk, and watched television.
    At nine o’clock the telephone rang. It was Daddy. ‘Darling heart, Flook is sleeping soundly. He had to have an operation but now he is much better. I will be home to you soon. Mummy is staying the night here with Flook.’
    Hot tears spilt down my face. ‘Thank goodness he’s not going to die.’ Louise made us cocoa and we dragged ourselves up to bed. For comfort we each took a kitten; Angelica and Witton curled themselves in our beds like hot-water bottles and purred sympathy through the night.
    Flook was ill for a long time. Something went wrong after his operation and Daddy had to drive back in the middle of the night. Louise came down to look after us in her nightdress. Flook nearly died and we gleaned enough terrible information to become hysterical. No one explained.
    â€˜Please tell me what’s happening,’ I begged Louise. She had slept all night by the telephone; her ankles gleamed cold white in the morning. ‘He’ll be all right, don’t you worry,’ was all she would say.
    Flook stayed in hospital in a room of his own and his face shrank as his hair grew. He looked like a bush-baby or a sweet little monkey, eyes huge in his papery face, arms thin, wristsprotruding towards sharp simian paws. Mummy stayed with him, and every day Daddy took us to visit them. We were never allowed to stay long as Flook became tired very easily. Daddy sat with him and told him stories while Mummy took us out into Norwich. We went to the Castle Museum to see the stuffed animals. Contained in glass cases, huge tigers and lions stood arrested mid-snarl, glaring at our faces flattened against their barricade. Brodie found a black button sunk into a post and pressed it without thinking. The gallery filled with growls and roars. Poppy squeaked, ‘Help, Mummy, help!’ and wrapped herself in Mummy’s coat. Brodie froze, for a split second thinking he had brought the animals to life.
    â€˜Turn them off,’ Dan begged, ‘I don’t like it.’ His round face was woebegone inside his green corduroy hood and he stamped his foot as the lion roared. ‘Stop that, you silly cat,’ he shouted.
    We moved on to the Egyptian section. ‘Cleopatra was the Queen of Egypt,’ Mummy told Dan and Poppy. ‘She was very beautiful, with raven-black hair and milk-white skin. She kept herself beautiful by bathing in asses’ milk.’
    â€˜Yuck,’ said Brodie. ‘It must have smelt disgusting.’
    Dan was fascinated. ‘Did she drink from her bath before she washed or after?’
    I stopped in front of a tiny bound casket and looked in horror. ‘Mummy, it’s a cat, a poor little cat. Look what they’ve done to it.’ The others rushed to see and Dan burst into tears. ‘Will Flook look like that soon?’
    â€˜No, darling, of course he won’t. Flook is much better now.’ Mummy’s hair was standing on end in static wisps as she tried tokeep us all from becoming hysterical. ‘The Egyptians wrapped up their very special animals in these bandages when they died, and then they buried them in great tombs. You know about mummies, don’t you? Well, this is a mummified cat.’

Chapter 14
    Patrick loved wrestling. Brought up in a tenement block in Chelsea, he had learned little at school save how to dodge the blackboard rubber which his angry teacher