Crustaceans by Andrew Cowan Read Free Book Online Page A

his earphones. He pinched the cigarette from his lips and pushed back his goggles. Zoë’s making a stew, I told him. Good, he nodded. That’s good. He tugged off his gauntlets. In a moment he might tell me to leave. Why did Mum die? I asked him.
    But there never would be an answer to that, not from my father, however often I pressed him. We don’t talk about it, he’d say; it’s happened, it’s passed – or else he’d ignore me, as though his mind was elsewhere, as if I’d not spoken. He lit a fresh cigarette now and rummaged about in a toolbox. He found a spanner and removed the wheel from the grinder; he spooled the cord round his arm and hung it over a coat-hook. He examined his sculpture, smoothed a hand where he’d been working, and then brushed some debris into a corner. Finally he nodded. Right, Paul, he said, and lifted me into his arms; let’s see about this stew, shall we? He hoisted me on to his shoulders, and as we came from the barn I saw that Zoë was sitting out on our doorstep, hugging herself in the cold. The wind flayed her hair. She didn’t smile till we reached her.
    She was pretty, I thought. I watched her all through that dinnertime; and later, as she washed up, I fetched my kite from the hall and stood by her side, silently waiting. We went to the park, and I remember the agitated grey of the duck pond, the clouds shredding above us and the flick of her legs as she ran. The kite repeatedly crashed, but when at last it was airborne and the line fully out she crouched behind me, her chin on my shoulder, and passed me the winch. She closed her hands around mine. The kite dipped and rose, looped back on itself, and I looked to her face. She was smiling, the tiniest of gaps between her front teeth. Perhaps I smiled too. She suddenly laughed and attempted to hug me, but the kite fell again, flipped over and plummeted. When it struck the ground it bounced twice and broke. Zoë said she would buy me a new one. I told her I wanted a budgie.
    Zoë came often that autumn and winter, though I never knew when to expect her. Some days she worked in the barn with my father, dressed in a pair of his overalls, the sleeves thickly rolled to her elbows. Then in the evenings, as he sat poking the fire and smoking, a bottle of red wine on the hearth, she helped me to build things – monsters from Plasticine, robots from cartons. Once I said, Pretend you’re my sister, and she looked to his armchair. What do you think, Dad? she asked him. He shrugged and sipped from his wine, but I could see he was smiling. Some mornings she walked me to school. Most weekends they slept late. I knew I mustn’t disturb them. I sat at the top of the stairs and waited, listening for his murmurous voice, her giggling, then crept down to the kitchen. I placed the breakfast bowls and the spoons on the table. Sooner or later they’d join me.
    My father had long since moved all his things to our guestroom. In the room he’d vacated my mother’s dresses and blouses still hung in the wardrobe, her woollens beneath them. There was a tangle of dry musty tights in a drawer; her shoes were piled in their boxes. The scent that lingered in the cupboards was hers. Over the year and more since her funeral I’d often been in there. I’d dressed in her clothes, played with her makeup. I’d spoken to myself in her mirror. But as the weather worsened that winter – the barn too cold, my father complained, for his work – he packed all these things into a suitcase and repainted the room. He moved the bed to a different wall and lifted the suitcase on to the wardrobe. Eventually I managed to reach it, balancing a stool on a chair, some cushions on top of the stool. The case wasn’t locked but the ceiling was low. I raised the lid as far as it would go – a couple of inches – and touched the spikes of her high heels, pulled out her polka-dot headscarf. It