In Search of the Blue Tiger by Robert Power Read Free Book Online Page B

nothing, singing softly.
    â€˜Although you were near me I never was quite sure, my wee bonnie lass who came down from the sky.’
    As always the fire burns in the huge fireplace. It warms and lightens the room. The flames jump and twist, the logs crackle and clap. I watch as one spark escapes and flies away up the chimneystack. A great shadow is cast against the wall, I sense Great Aunt Margaret is watching too.
    She stares into my face with a wildness of eye.
    â€˜The flames took her. My sweetness. The fire wrapped itself around her. And all the screaming and all the tears could not put it out.’
    My Great Aunt shakes like a huge oak in a gale.
    â€˜There was nothing to do. Nothing to do. My poor baby girl lost in the flames. Crying for a mother. Lost so. Crying for me she was and I was nowhere to be found. Lost amongst the horses crashing around her, watching her burn.’
    I look at her and she looks at me. Her hair popping out of its grips, her face bearing down on me. I do not flinch. Nothing in this house makes me flinch.
    â€˜My baby, baby, baby,’ she hisses, the spittle bubbling around her tongue and lips.
    This was how I found out Great Aunt had been a mother.

    Stigir and me love going to the park. So does Mrs April. Once again we meet by chance, down by the old bandstand where the Salvation Army plays tambourines and hymns on Sunday mornings. But today the bandstand is empty and the only sounds are the ghosts of trumpeters.
    â€˜Oscar,’ she says, excitedly, ‘how very lovely to see you again. And Stigir.’
    Stigir’s ears prick up. He knows she’s in on the secret of his name.
    I have my scrapbook under my arm, so we can have a read when we want to. Mrs April notices it.
    â€˜You are such a special boy,’ she says with a smile unusual to me.
    It reminds me of the things Great Aunt says, that confuse me so. ‘You’re odd,’ the Great Aunt says sometimes. ‘Just like him. That so-called father of yours.’
    But Mrs April has a different tone about her. A different way of saying the words. I stare at the flaking paint of the bandstand to hide my confusion.
    â€˜Don’t look sad, little Oscar,’ she says, gently rubbing the back of her hand across my cheek.
    Her touch.
    â€˜I’m not. Just my shoelace,’ I mumble, blushing, bending down to retie the double-knot.
    â€˜And the other one, the other one needs fixing,’ I say, still bent over, the blood and shame rushing to my head like a torrent. I can’t look up at her. This woman with kindness in her voice. For if I do, she would know I know so much and trust so little.
    I kneel as if waiting to be knighted. The sun beats down on my back, searing through my woollen jumper like a sword.
    â€˜Shall we have some cake?’ she says, her voice kinder than an iced-sponge, more soothing than a cream-soda.
    I turn my head to look up to her. She is silhouetted against the sun. Although her face is dark I can feel the beauty of her smile.
    â€˜If you want to, you can come to my house. We can have tea and cake. You can tell me more about your research.’
    She smiles down at me with a softness that asks nothing, hides nothing.
    She has a light in her eyes that is no part of my world of adults. She is offering me cake. Cake and tea. I can taste it in my mouth. This kindness.
    I fumble once more with my shoelace. A good tug to impress her that my endeavours are needed. To let her know I am just the sort of boy who would not want to worry an adult by skipping along with a lethal shoelace straddling in tow.
    â€˜No thank you, the cake. No thank you,’ I hear myself say.
    â€˜Well, perhaps another time,’ she says.
    â€˜Yes … the dog … I must go,’ I say hurriedly, lest the blushes return.
    â€˜Come on then, Stigir,’ I shout to my dog and leap into the air.
    Stigir jumps up from where he lay and we gambol along the path. Of this I am sure. Of this