The Bones of You by Gary McMahon Read Free Book Online Page B

more colorful. Topping off her black trousers and long black coat, there was a bright red scarf. It was thin, pulled tight around her neck, and made her look like someone had cut her throat.
    “Is it your usual cup of tea, madam?”
    “Yes, please.” She left off staring at the house next door and walked along the footpath, pushing open my gate with one of her booted feet. She approached the door and stood before me, her pale face looking even paler than the last time we’d met.
    “How are things?”
    She shrugged. “Not good. They must be worse than I thought if I’m coming here, to see a total stranger, for a bit of human compassion.”
    Oh, she was good. I was really starting to like her.
    “Hey,” I said. “What about me? How bad is my life if the only company I can stand is some teenage misery-addict who only wears black and thinks I’m a prick?”
    She laughed, and it sounded good. It sounded nice and natural. I wasn’t sure why the two of us were drawn together in this way, or what the hell we expected to get from this odd relationship, but it was starting to feel comfortable.
    I wondered if I was showing the girl this level of kindness because of my own fragile relationship with Jess, or if I simply liked her. And what did she want from me? I hoped it wasn’t something that I was unable to give; the last thing I wanted was more complications in my life. But this didn’t feel anything like a teenage crush: I didn’t even think she saw me that way, as a source of attraction. This thing—whatever it was—felt platonic, asexual. She was a pretty girl, but not my type; from what little I could tell, I wasn’t exactly her idea of Prince Charming, either. I didn’t have enough black in my wardrobe, for a start.
    I thought then of Carole, and of the undeniable attraction I felt toward her. She and I had a fire between us. The flames were small, but they were growing. There was nothing like that here, between me and this mixed-up girl. Perhaps what drew us together was a shared sense of pain; the fact that we each recognized in the other some form of emotional trauma.
    What the hell was it anyway that conditioned human beings to think about relationships primarily in terms of sex? Was I so desperate for the suggestion of physical attention that I’d begun to see everyone as either a prospective lover or someone to avoid in case they wanted to have sex with me?
    There it was again: that tendency of mine toward self-absorption.
    This abstinence thing wasn’t quite working out how I’d hoped.
    “I’ll put the kettle on,” I said and turned away, expecting Pru to follow me inside without being asked. This scenario was turning into a habit, and I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that.
    I made the tea before speaking directly to her, just let her get settled at the kitchen table.
    “Here,” I said, setting down a mug before her. “Done just how you like it, with a kilo of sugar.”
    I watched as she sipped her drink, and then sat down and stared at her, watching her pale face, her stubby black fingernails, as she handled the mug of tea.
    “Tell me some more about your father.”
    She put down the cup, smiled weakly, and then blinked a few times. “He was…strange. Looking back now, I can see that he was an obsessive. He dragged me and my sister across the country, moving house twice a year so that he could write about whatever serial killer he was interested in. His books didn’t sell a lot, but they did well enough to pay the bills and to give him a certain reputation in his field. He was on TV a few times, a talking head on documentaries about killers. I have them recorded. I watch them when I’m feeling bleak.”
    “Sounds like you had quite the unconventional upbringing.”
    “Yeah, you could say that.” She drummed her fingertips against the table, then stopped, realizing that it was an annoying habit. “My mum died when I was very young. My sister and I were all the old man had left, and