Owning Jacob - SA by Simon Beckett Read Free Book Online

should I?' she flashed. 'Some pathetic squaddie and his stupid breeding-cow? Why should I care more about them than Sarah? I see their kind every day, squeezing out one brat after another! They've probably got three or four by now.
    They'd get over it, but Sarah wouldn't have! Care about them) I'd have taken it myself if she'd asked!' Her eyes were bright and moist. 'Have I shocked you?'
    she sneered. 'Didn't you think plain old Jessica was capable of something like that? God, you make me sick. You married her, you fucked her, but you never loved her. You don't know what love is.' Ben couldn't bear to stay there any longer. The smal kitchen was suddenly airless, dense with the possibility of violence. He stood up, startling himself with the sound of the chair legs scraping across the lino-covered floor.
    'I don't know what you'd cal what you did,' he said, thickly, 'but it wasn't love.' He got as far as the door, then stopped. 1 can't pretend I don't know about this. I can't just ignore it.'
    Jessica didn't look up. 'Do what you like,' she said, dul y.
    'I don't care any more.' She was stil staring at nothing when he went out.

Chapter Four
    I Jacob selected a piece of jigsaw puzzle, held it in his hand for la second, then exchanged it for another and pressed it neatly I into place. The puzzle, a scene from Star Wars, was nearly half I completed. The box for it lay open close by, but Jacob never lio much as glanced at the picture of the finished jigsaw on I the lid. It wouldn't have helped if he did, because he was I assembling it face down. He would sit through the whole of Ithe Star Wars trilogy time and time again, entranced by the I fast-moving images and sounds coming from the TV
    screen, Ibut a static photograph from it held no interest for him.
    Ben was pretty sure that he recognised what it was, could Imake the association between one and the other, although The wasn't entirely certain. It was more likely that he simply egarded the picture itself as incidental. It was fitting together fie little cardboard shapes which engrossed him, not what was Dn them when he had finished. He could assemble them with he picture upside down or sideways on with equal dexterity.

    : seemed to be al the same to him.
    Ben watched from the other side of the lounge as he broke off from the puzzle and gazed at something out of the window, perhaps at the window itself. Ben couldn't see what had ught his eye, but he could guess. Jacob would scrutinise a ked windowpane, a broken piece of glass, the chipped rim of a milk bottle in the sun; anything that refracted light and split it into an unexpected jewel of colour. They had realised what he was doing only after they saw him squinting into the spray of a lawn sprinkler, moving his head about to catch sight of an indistinct rainbow in the haze. Sometimes, general y after a joint, Ben wondered if he saw something in the refractions invisible to a less fractured mind.
    Whatever he'd seen now failed to hold his attention, though. Jacob went back to the jigsaw. He gave no sign of being aware of either Ben's scrutiny or his presence. Normal y he would have tried to encourage the boy to talk, asked him about school, anything to steer him towards some sort of communication. Now he couldn't find it in himself to make the effort.
    Jacob didn't mind. Jacob was locked in his own world, as usual. Sometimes Ben wondered if he wasn't happier there than when he was forced to acknowledge an exterior one that made little sense to him.
    What am I going to do? Jacob's elbow brushed the pile of unassembled pieces and ' knocked several to the floor. His face creased up as they pattered to the carpet. He looked down at where they'd landed, his breathing growing faster as he became more agitated, but made no attempt to pick them up. Sometimes it was difficult to know what would upset him, or see why it should. Jacob was general y placid, but if he became frightened or disturbed it could take a long time to calm him