Past by Tessa Hadley Read Free Book Online Page A

bloated flaunting bosoms and fat nipples, upside-down perspectives from peeled, parted, meaty thighs. The drooping texture of the pages was disgusting; some of them were glued together with damp, returning to pulp.
    â€” Come on, said Arthur, not interested, tugging at her hand.
    The door to the last room was closed and it was half-dark in there because rags of left-behind curtain were drawn across the window. A few fat flies knocked around sluggishly, buzzing against the glass. As the children’s eyes adjusted they made out some large dark mess on the floor, something shrivelled and staining which was the centre of the bad smell. Arthur recognised it first.
    â€” It’s Mitzi, he said.
    Mitzi was Kington’s loping, lolloping red setter, belonging to the Pattens who owned the barn conversion opposite the church. The children hadn’t missed her because she wasn’t always in the village when they were; like theirs, the barn was a holiday home. Ivy saw that Arthur was right: crisp curls of Mitzi’s russet hair were stuck to the blackened leathery thing in places, and it had approximately Mitzi’s outline. Spikes of white bone stood up in a row out of the collapsed flat bag of the rest.
    â€” Don’t be stupid, she said derisively. — How can it be Mitzi? Do you think anyone would just leave her here?
    â€” But it is Mitzi, look!
    You could definitely make out one of those velvety, floppy ears, more intact than the rest of her. Arthur went closer and half-crouched with his hands on his knees, examining forensically, wrinkling up his nose for the smell. — Why is she like this?
    Ivy began loudly singing nonsense words and laughing. — La, la. I don’t know what you’re talking about, she sang. — It isn’t Mitzi. Arthur is a silly twat. La, la, la.
    Arthur’s being there with her made her hot, in the presence of that thing: if she’d been alone she could have stared more greedily, without any need for concealment. Partly she was distracting him as an older sister should, saving him from certainty. Mitzi and the rude pictures swam together in her embarrassment: not knowing she was doing it, she began to think that those women were dead.
    â€” Let’s go out, she said. — It’s only an old stinky mess.
    â€” Yes, it’s stinky.
    Arthur had been calm in the presence of the horror, but once or twice he looked back sharply nonetheless as they came down the poky stairs; they hurried, and burst out in a muddle through the door at the bottom.
    â€” Don’t dare say anything to Kasim. Because he’d be furious.
    He nodded obediently, trusting her.
    As they squeezed out through their gap into the day again – and Ivy restored the padlock carefully to its locked-seeming position – Kasim lifted his head, blinking, from among the flowers where he really had fallen asleep. To Ivy and Arthur, their usual roles as adults and children seemed reversed for a disconcerting moment, because they had seen what he hadn’t: he belonged outside to the innocent sunshine. It occurred to Kasim, too late, that perhaps he shouldn’t have let them go inside without checking first that the cottage was safe. But here they were again, unscathed, so it didn’t matter. He yawned and announced he was starving. Ivy unpacked their picnic, laying out biscuits, apples, crisps.
    â€” We have to make Arthur eat an apple, she insisted firmly.
    â€” So what’s it like in the cottage?
    She was nonchalant. — Empty.
    Arthur watched everything his sister did; the liquid blue eyes seemed huge in his small, fine face and he looked as if he was courageously suffering. Ivy had to remind herself that he always looked like this, even when he was only thinking about his dinner, or money – he was surprisingly mercenary for his age. As usual, he took a biscuit from the packet when Ivy did, bit into it when she did, took a mouthful of water from their