Rook by Jane Rusbridge Read Free Book Online Page B

he said, she’s old enough. She’s mature for her age .
    It’s not all about Nora, she’d told him.
    No, it’s about honesty . That’s what he said.
    And what might that imply? Her indignation rises even now.
    Brian packed his canvas holdall for the trip and left the house that night. A minor disagreement. When the project was over, he surely would have come back, if it hadn’t been for the accident. The thought makes her quite tearful, imagining their reunion, the generosity of her forgiveness, in the old house which Brian did love so much but she has always hated, ever since she was a girl. None the less, here she remains, paddling in this backwater. But she must pull herself together.
    At the bar, Jason pushes a bowl of peanuts towards her. ‘Tapas,’ he says with a wink, ‘like in Spain.’
    Impossible to have a private conversation anywhere in this place.
    Eric shuffles in with his shoulder bag of second-hand books and takes his usual place, the stool in the dark corner near the door where he can sit and nurse his pint. Customers walk straight past him. Just as well since his coat carries the back-of-the-throat fumes of a mouldy flannel.
    Always a strange one, Eric – another who could never be provoked to anger. He’d just stand with his big, piano-player hands dangling, staring at his tormentors, the boys from the council estate. At the village school he was bullied so much, his parents, who had money, paid a woman to teach him at home. Ada used to play in the millstream with him as a girl, when she was home from boarding school. ‘Lift me up to the bank, Eric,’ she’d say. She raised her arms to feel those strong fingers hot around her ribs.
    His face is so ancient now, eyebrows shaggy as draught excluders, and he has a habit of staring at the flagstones even when she’s talking to him. He smiles to himself, never looking anyone in the eye. Loves the pianos he looks after better than any person – owns a house full of them – and he’s the best piano tuner for miles around. In demand by those in the know.
    Ada puts a hand on Eric’s arm to call his attention, lifts it to his cheek, where the bristles are silvery-sharp as metal shavings. He has always responded to her touch. Tonight she asks him about the swans, to get him talking, to get his eyes to lift to hers.
    Rain, wind or shine, he tells her, every day on my bike.
    He takes three dog-eared paperbacks from his bag and heaps them on the bar before removing the top book and laying it on the beer towel, to reorder his pile. When he goes home, the books will still be there, left in whatever order he finally decides is best. They are his gift. Eric travels into Chichester every morning on the early morning bus with the schoolchildren, as he has done every morning for thirty years. He stares at his own feet – great plates of meat – as he shuffles down the aisle and hands out free second-hand books. The mystery is, all the young people love him.
    ‘Know them all.’ He nods, rearranging his books, lining up the battered spines. ‘Every one of this year’s.’
    The cygnets are half-grown now, almost adults in size if not in plumage. When Eric tells her this, Ada thinks again of Flick, living the high life in Spain; the granddaughters she hardly ever sees. Every day, Eric sees his swans, his babies.
    Making her way back to a seat near the fire, Ada would have tripped on the uneven edge of a flagstone, if Harry hadn’t come in at that moment and caught her arm at the elbow, steadying her. Solid as a rock, that man.
    Jason has let the fire die down and Ada’s feet, in her new kitten-heeled sandals, are cold. Not June yet. Ne’er cast a clout .
    Brian teased her. Said she misunderstood. Told her ‘May’ refers to hawthorn blossom, not the month. There is some debate , he said in that earnest way of his. A ‘clout’ is a slab of mud, earth turned over by a plough. He’d witter on about alternative meanings of words until she was utterly