Death Of A Hollow Man by Caroline Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

mentioned. The first time Mrs. Higgins came, Deidre had offered, only to be told, “Don’t you worry dear, I’d only be sitting next door on me tod watching the goggle box.” But the coins Deidre had left under the teapot disappeared, and so, always since then, had the manila envelope.
    When Mrs. Higgins had gone, Deidre locked and bolted the door, put some milk for her Horlicks on a very low heat, and climbed the stairs. Her father was sitting up ramrod straight in crisp pajamas under a large, dimmish print of “The Light of the World.” His gray, still faintly gingery mustache was soaked with tears of joy, and his eyes shone. “He is coming,” he cried as Deidre entered the room. “The Lord is coming.”
    “Yes, daddy.” She sat on the bed and took his hand. It was like holding a few slippery bones in a bag of skin. “Would you like another drink?”
    “He will take us away. Into the light.”
    She knew it was no good trying to settle him. He always slept upright, his back bolted into a perpendicular line against a cumulus of pillows. She patted his arm and kissed his damp cheek. He had been a little bit disturbed for several months now. The first indication that all was not well had occurred when she arrived home from the theater one night after set-building to find him in the street going from house to house, rapping on doors and offering the startled occupants a shovelful of live coals.
    Horrified and amazed, she had led him back home, replaced the coals on the kitchen fire, and questioned him gently, trying to find a rational explanation. Of course there had been none. Since then he had frequently been befuddled or confused. (Deidre always used these unemphatic terms, avoiding the terrible official definition. When one of the workers at the center where Mr. Tibbs spent his days had used the word, Deidre had screamed at her in fear and anger.)
    He still had lengthy periods of marvelous clarity. There was just no way of knowing when they would arise or for how long they would last. The previous Sunday had been a lovely day. They had gone for a walk in the afternoon, and she had been able to tell him all about Amadeus, exaggerating her role in the production as she always did to make him proud of her. In the evening they had had a glass of port and some lumpy home-made cake, and he had sung songs that he remembered from his childhood. He had been over forty when Deidre was bom, so the songs were very old ones. “Red Sails in the Sunset,” “Valencia,” and “Oh, Oh, Antonio.” He had put on his bowler hat and tapped and twirled his stick, shuffling in a sad, transmogrified echo of the routines he had leaped through when, years before, he had so delighted Deidre and her mother. His hair had been reddish gold then, and his mustache had gleamed like a ripe chestnut. They both wept before going to sleep last Sunday.
    Deidre crossed to the window to draw the curtains, and stood for a moment looking up at the sky. There was a brilliant moon and a cavalcade of scudding clouds. Gabriel, her guardian angel, lived up there. As well as on the earth walking, bright and shining, just an immortal breath away, keeping a loving eye on the Tibbses’ worldly concerns. When she was a little girl, Deidre would whip around quickly sometimes, as she did in a game of statues, hoping to catch sight of his twelve-foot wings before he put on his invisible cloak. Once, she was convinced she had found the outline of a golden footprint before hearing, over her head, a rushing, beating swoosh of sound, like the passing of a thousand swans.
    As well as the archangel, everyone had a star to watch over them. When she had asked her father which was hers, he had said, “It’s always the star that shines the brightest.” They all looked the same tonight, thought Deidre, letting the curtain fall, and rather cold. She remembered the milk and hurried down to the kitchen just too late to stop it boiling over.
    She refilled and replaced the