Legenda Maris by Tanith Lee Read Free Book Online

poem. Like him, it didn’t seem I was going to get an answer. An even more
wretched end to my escapade than I had foreseen. I hadn’t considered the
possibility of absence. Somehow I’d got the notion Mrs. Besmouth-Antacid seldom
went out. It must be difficult, with him the way he was, whichever way that happened
to be. So, why did I want to get caught up in it?
    A minute more, and I turned with a
feeling of letdown and relief. I was halfway along the path when the front door
opened.
    “Hi you,” she said.
    At this uninviting salute, I looked
back. I didn’t recognise her, because I hadn’t properly been able to see her on
the previous occasion. A fizz of fawn hair, outlined by the inner light, stood
round her head like a martyr’s crown. She was clad in a fiery apron.
    “Mrs. Besmouth?” I went towards her,
extending the carrier bag like meat offered to a wild dog.
    “Besmouth, that’s right. What is it?”
She didn’t know me at all.
    I said the name of the store, a password,
but she only blinked.
    “You came in about your dressing gown,
but it hadn’t arrived. It came today. I’ve got it here.”
    She looked at the bag.
    “All right,” she said. “What’s the
delivery charge?”
    “No charge. I just thought I’d drop it
in to you.”
    She went on looking at the bag. The rain
went on falling.
    “You live round here?” she demanded.
    “No. The other end of the bay, actually.”
    “Long way for you to come,” she said
accusingly.
    “Well... I had to come up to The Rise
tonight. And it seemed a shame, the way you came in and just missed the
delivery. Here, do take it, or the rain may get in the bag.”
    She extended her hand and took the
carrier.
    “It was kind of you,” she said. Her
voice was full of dislike because I’d forced her into a show of gratitude. “People
don’t usually bother nowadays.”
    “No, I know. But you said you hadn’t got
time to keep coming back, and I could see that, with—with your son...”
    “Son,” she interrupted. “So you know he’s
my son, do you?”
    I felt hot with embarrassed fear.
    “Well, whoever—”
    “Haven’t you got an umbrella?” she said.
    “Er— no—”
    “You’re soaked,” she said. I smiled
foolishly, and her dislike reached its climax. “You’d better come in a minute.”
    “Oh no, really that isn’t—”
    She stood aside in the doorway, and I
slunk past her into the hall. The door banged to.
    I experienced instant claustrophobia and
a yearning to run, but it was too late now. The glow was murky, there was a
faintly musty smell, not stale exactly, more like the odour of a long closed
box.
    “This way.”
    We went by the stairs and a shut door,
into a small back room, which in turn opened on a kitchen. There was a
smokeless-coal fire burning in an old brown fireplace. The curtains were drawn,
even at the kitchen windows, which I could see through the doorway. A clock
ticked, setting the scene as inexorably as in a radio play. It reminded me of
my grandmother’s house years before, except that in my grandmother’s house you
couldn’t hear the sea. And then it came to me that I couldn’t pick it up here,
either. Maybe some freak meander of the cliff blocked off the sound, as it
failed to in the street.
    I’d been looking for the wheelchair and,
not seeing it, had relaxed into an awful scared boredom. Then I registered the
high-backed dark red chair, set facing the fire. I couldn’t see him, and he was
totally silent, yet I knew at once the chair was full of him. A type of
electric charge went off under my heart. I felt quite horrible, as if I’d
screamed with laughter at a funeral.
    “Take your coat off,” said Mrs. Besmouth.
I protested feebly, trying not to gaze at the red chair. But she was used to
managing those who could not help themselves, and she pulled the garment from
me. “Sit down by the fire. I’m making a pot of tea.”
    I wondered why she was doing it,
including me, offering her hospitality. She