Sleight of Hand by Nick Alexander Read Free Book Online Page B

burning her coffin, and Sarah coming home, and stepping inside the house, and having to overcome my own fear for her sake, and I just didn’t seem to be able to find any spare brain capacity to decide whether to hit Mark or hug him. I think I slipped into my bitchy-and-aloof routine instead.
    When Mark stood to lead me inside, I couldn’t find the words to tell him how afraid I was of the shadows in the house. My drink tasted of Fairy Liquid – it suddenly reeked of the stuff – and my skin prickled with the cold. The garden looked, for some reason, fluorescent and blue tinged and it sounded, as if I had taken acid, like it was speaking to me – a deep incomprehensible voice comingfrighteningly from the lawn. I wondered if someone had drugged my drink, and then wondered
who
had drugged my drink.
    And then I felt Mark’s arms around me and wondered if and when I had taken the decision to hug him.

Top Of The World
    Penny comes running from the house, drying her hands on her pinny as she runs. “What’s happened?” she asks.
    As if
I
know. I am crouched beside Jenny; her head on my lap. The left side of her body, just the left side, is twitching. Her eyes are open, but her pupils have rolled out of view.
    â€œSome kind of fit,” I say. My voice sounds calm, which surprises me. “Call an ambulance.”
    â€œPerhaps she’s fainted,” Penny says. “She’s had a hard day. I haven’t seen her eat …”
    â€œShe
hasn’t
fainted,” I interrupt. “Call a bloody ambulance.”
    Penny stands, hesitates, and then runs back inside, leaving me cradling Jenny in my arms.
    I watch as she starts to foam at the mouth, a mixture of vomit and saliva. I tilt her head sideways so that it runs from her mouth onto my trousers. I wonder if I should slap her. People always seem to slap people who have fainted in films. Would that be the thing to do?
    â€œJenny? Jenny? God, I don’t know what to do Jen,” I tell her, casting around in case anyone else is present, in case someone
else
knows what to do here. But we’re all alone at the bottom of the garden.
    A lump forms in my throat at the realisation that Jenny might actually be dying here – dying in my arms because I simply don’t know what is wrong, or what to do.
    Our lives have been so intertwined, almost obscenely so. Twenty years ago, Jenny was my lastever attempt at dating a woman; her daughter was conceived on the day Steve and I had the car crash – the day Steve died. And Tom and I saved her from her violent ex and gave her a new life in France, for a while. I took that life away by running away with Ricardo. It almost seems logical, unsurprising even that she might die now with her head on my knees. “Please don’t go, Jenny,” I say, stroking her hair, tears sliding down my cheek. “Please hang around. I need to make it up to you.”
    Penny returns, the cordless phone in one hand. “She’s twitching,” she says into the handset. “Yes. Like electric shocks. She’s being sick too. Vomiting, yes. Drugs? I don’t think so. Has she taken any drugs?”
    I wipe my eyes with my free hand. “No, just alcohol,” I say.
    â€œJust al … yes. Yes, quite a lot. Is she diabetic?”
    I shake my head. “No, I don’t think so. No, definitely not.”
    â€œOr epileptic?”
    â€œShe’s not anything. What we need is a fucking ambulance.”
    â€œHe says she isn’t anything and that we need … yes.”
    â€œIt’s on its way already,” she tells me. “OK. Yes. Yes. Hang on.” She crouches beside me and touches my shoulder. “He says to roll her on her side so she doesn’t choke. Like they do on television. The recovering position.”
    I move from beneath her and lower Jenny’s head to the ground and do as I’m told. With her right arm bent upwards and her legs