The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell Read Free Book Online

jiggles it a bit.
    I feel a lurch of fear we’ll get caught. “Where did you learn to break into buildings?”
    “It wasn’t footy or repairing punctures that Dad taught me.”
    “We could get done for this! It’s called, it’s called—”
    “Breaking and entering. That’s why you keep your eyes peeled.”
    “But what am I s’posed to do exactly if somebody comes?”
    “Act embarrassed, like we’ve been caught snogging.”
    “Uh—I don’t
think
so, Ed Brubeck.”
    He does a half-hiss half-laugh. “
Act
it, I said. Relax, you only get nicked if the cops can prove
you
picked the lock. If you don’t confess, and if you’re careful not to bugger the mechanism …” he feeds a skeleton key into the keyhole, “… then who’s to say you didn’t just happen along, find the door left ajar, and go in to satisfy yourinterest in Saxon church architecture? That’s our story, by the way, just in case.” Brubeck’s got his ear against the lock as he’s twizzling. “Though I’ve stayed here three Saturday nights since Easter and not heard a dickie-bird. Plus it’s not like we’re taking anything. Plus you’re a girl, so just sob your eyes out and do the ‘Please, Mr. Vicar, I’m running away from my violent stepfather’ bit and, chances are, you’ll walk away with a cup of tea and a Penguin biscuit.” Brubeck holds up a hand for hush: a click. “Got it.” The church door swings open with the perfect Transylvanian hinge-creak.
    Inside, Saint Mary Hoo’s Church smells of charity shops, and the stained-glass gloom’s all fruit-salady. The walls’re thick as a nuclear bunker and the
thunk
when Brubeck shuts us in echoes all around, like a dungeon. The roof’s all beams and timbers. We walk down the short aisle, past the ten or twelve pews. The pulpit’s wooden, the font’s stone, the organ’s like a fancy piano with exhaust pipes. The lectern-thingy must be fake gold, or a burglar—Brubeck’s dad, for example—would’ve swiped it long ago. We reach the altar table and look up at the window showing the crucifixion. A dove in the stained-glass sky has spokes coming off it. The Marys, two disciples, and a Roman at the foot of the cross look like they’re discussing whether it’s starting to rain or not. Brubeck asks, “You’re Catholic, right?”
    I’m surprised he’s ever thought ’bout this. “My mum’s Irish.”
    “So do you believe in heaven and God and that?”
    I stopped going to church last year; that was me and Mam’s biggest row till this morning. “I sort of developed an allergy.”
    “My uncle Norm says religion’s ‘spiritual paracetamol,’ and in a way I hope he’s right. Unless God issues personality transplants when you arrive, heaven’d mean a never-ending family reunion with the likes of my uncle Trev. I can’t think of anything more hellish.”
    “So Uncle Trev’s no Uncle Norm, then?”
    “Chalk and cheese. Uncle Trev’s my dad’s older brother. ‘The Brains of the Operation,’ he says, which is true enough: He’s got brains enough to get losers like Dad to do the dirty work. UncleTrev fences the merchandise if the job’s a success, does his Mr. Nonstick Frying Pan when it goes belly-up. He even tried it on with my mum after Dad got sent down, which is partly why we moved south.”
    “Sounds a total scuzzball.”
    “Yep, that’s Uncle Trev.” The psychedelic light on Brubeck’s face dims as the sun fades. “Mind you, if I was dying in a hospice, maybe I’d want all the spiritual paracetamol I could get my hands on.”
    I put my hand on the altar rail. “What if … what if heaven
is
real, but only in moments? Like a glass of water on a hot day when you’re
dying
of thirst, or when someone’s nice to you for no reason, or …” Mam’s pancakes with Mars Bar sauce; Dad dashing up from the bar just to tell me, “Sleep tight don’t let the bedbugs bite”; or Jacko and Sharon singing “For She’s a Squishy Marshmallow” instead of