Doll by Nicky Singer Read Free Book Online Page B

it stop. Make her stop. Unwind.
    “What’s it to do with you!” she might have shouted again. But she didn’t. Just spun silently on her heels, untied her apron (so maddened she didn’t evennotice the absence of the doll?), and walked out the door of the restaurant and away down the street. He’d watched her go. She’s fleeing, he thought (though she wasn’t running), fleeing, just like she did at the bridge.
    “ You live too much in your imagination ,” his English mother says, though he is alone in the room. “ There are things which are true – and then there are stories .”
    Jan looks out of his bedroom window. In a few hours it will be dark. Stars will shine. And it will be impossible to know whether those stars are living or dead. Because dead stars still shine, the light they give out before they expire taking maybe a thousand years to reach the earth. Is that just a story? No. It is a truth. You have to understand with your heart as well as look with your eyes.
    But he still should not have taken the doll. How would it be if she had leaned over and stolen Violeta? The idea alone quickens his breath, makes him reach out to the drawer and the tiny box, just to check that his stump-armed Violeta is safe. She is safe. He closes the box, slides the drawer shut.
    There is a knock at the door.
    He closes his hand over Tilly’s doll.
    Mercy’s face appears. “Did I make you jump?”
    He shakes his head.
    “Do you mind me coming in?”
    She comes in.
    She is composed now. Her face, once more, flawless skin. In the restaurant he saw sinew, bone. As she bit into the chilli seeds her face contorted, her neck twisting with the effort of swallowing. Then her head began to shake. Her hair swinging in a frenzied staccato, cracking the tang of her about him like a whip. Then the spitting started. She grabbed for water, took huge gulps, crying out all the while so that the water spilled from her mouth. His mother thrust her a napkin and she fought to clean herself, to wipe away the shame. But the fire in her mouth was too violent, so she had to take more water, more and more until she vomited it on to her plate, her fish a lake of spat fluid. The mothers were shocked. His own mother offered napkins and consolation, but Mrs Van Day roared, all indignation until her own teeth closed on a seed and the burn began to burst on her lips too. She moaned, she cried, then she grabbed for her daughter and hurtled them both towards the ladies’ loo.
    The commotion excited the other diners. All eyesswivelled to the table where he and his mother sat, now silent and exposed. The mood was expectant, as though someone (himself, his mother?) was about to make an announcement, offer an explanation. But what explanation could there be? For an unbearable minute, they sat and sat and then the restaurant manager arrived, swiftly followed by Richard Weaver, the restaurant owner. A small sandy man with a soothing voice, Tilly’s father offered apologies and astonishment. He couldn’t imagine how it had happened, he was taken aback and sincere.
    It took Mrs Van Day to mention Tilly. Mrs Van Day who returned at length from the ladies, all make-up wiped from her lips. “But think nothing of it,” she said to Mr Weaver’s further apologies (he had checked the facts with a bus boy). In the light of the tragic circumstances, Mrs Van Day said, she understood. She understood perfectly.
    Mr Weaver ordered fresh linen and new main courses. But the Van Days and the Sparks could not be persuaded to stay for dessert, for coffee, for liqueurs (even though it was on the house). The Van Days and the Sparks were busy people. They needed to get away. They had things to do. Things to discuss. Like Tilly’s mother.
    An hour or so later they were ensconced in his mother’s very English drawing room, the coffee freshly brewed.
    “How many times is it now, Mercy?” asked Mrs Van Day.
    “Three,” said Mercy.
    “I thought twice?”
    “Three