Lighthouse by Alison Moore Read Free Book Online Page A

walks with the heat of the sun on his back, his hiking boots gathering dust from the dry path.
    His last pair of hiking boots was bought especially for the trip he took with his father. The two of them were not used to hiking together. He had never seen his father wearing hiking boots before. Futh’s boots were a bit big, even with two pairs of thick socks, as if they were expected to last for many years, but he probably never wore them again and has not had another pair until now.
    These new boots are only a few days old. The lady in the shop said, ‘Wear them in at home first, just around the house, and then take them out for little walks, building up the distance gradually.’ But Futh did not do that. He packed them in his suitcase with the price tag still attached.
    ‘You have to be careful,’ his father had said, as they picked their way slowly down a steep embankment, ‘of women, or before you know it you’re married, and there are children, and then you’re ruined.’
    Twelve-year-old Futh, on the slope, trying to descend steadily, held on to the grass and low branches and found that they came away in his hands, coming with him as he stumbled and slid to the bottom.
    ‘We can do without her,’ his father said as they walked on. But Futh knew that every woman his father brought into the hotel room was a substitute for her. Some of them even looked like her. And Futh, seeing the women going into the bathroom, watching them in the mirror in the middle of the night, desired them himself.
    It would be some years before Futh went to bed with a girl, and more before he met Angela, and even then it was often these women he found himself thinking about as he came.
    He met Angela at a motorway service station. It was a Sunday and he had been to his father’s place for lunch. His father had, by then, moved out of his sister’s house and into a flat. It was less than an hour’s drive down the motorway from where Futh lived, but at the time Futh still could not drive. He had hitchhiked there, and then his father had driven him half the way back, dropping him off at the service station so that Futh could find someone else to take him the rest of the way home.
    Futh got himself a cup of coffee from a vending machine and then stood outside, beside the slip road, with his thumb out, waiting for a lift. It was not late but it was winter and already getting dark, and it was raining. Vehicle after vehicle drove by while the rain got heavier, but finally a little car slowed and stopped just past him. He hurried to the passenger door and looked in through the window. The driver had put the light on and was leaning across the seat to open the door, but Futh did not yet recognise her.
    ‘How far are you going?’ she asked. He told her and she said, ‘That’s not far from me. I can drop you there.’ With relief, Futh clambered in and closed the door.
    He was aware of the smell of his own rain-wet coat mixing with the smell of cigarette smoke which filled the inside of her car. Futh did not smoke himself but sometimes he found the smell of cigarette smoke almost painfully pleasant.
    She said, ‘My name’s Angela.’
    ‘That’s my mother’s name,’ said Futh, buckling up.
    Angela switched off the light, turned the blower on the misting windscreen and set off. While she negotiated her way onto the dark motorway, Futh was looking at her closely, struck by something about her which seemed familiar, trying to think what it was.
    His wet hair was dripping onto his face and down the back of his neck. Spotting a towel in the footwell, he reached for it, saying, ‘Do you mind if I . . .’ and when she looked, opening her mouth to reply, he was already using it, rubbing his face and his hair and the back of his neck and his throat with it.
    As she turned away again, he realised where he knew her from. On his first day of secondary school, he had developed a crush on a girl in his year. She had never noticed him and they had