The Shut Eye by Belinda Bauer Read Free Book Online

compartment. It was small, and made smaller by the overgrowth of ice around its entrance.
    There were no frozen peas – just an empty ice tray and half a box of fish fingers.
    James took them out and stared at the box. Fish fingers were Daniel’s favourite. He put them back.
    ‘Anna! he said loudly. ‘We got any peas?’
    She didn’t answer. It didn’t matter. Where would they be if they weren’t in the freezer? And if they were anywhere but the freezer, they were no good to him.
    He shook his head.
    With the open fridge cooling his thighs, James spread his hands on the counter. They were red and swollen, and one knuckle had two short cuts on it right alongside each other – as if Bugs Bunny had nipped him.
    He must have hit something very hard or very often to have gotten them into this state. He couldn’t remember whether it was one or the other or both, but he felt a lot better for it.
    He knelt slowly in front of the fridge and pushed both his hands into the freezer compartment. The overgrown ice pressed around him coldly.
    ‘Anna!’ he said again, but she was ignoring him.
    He rested his head on the top of the fridge and only woke up when melting ice trickled slowly up his sleeve all the way into his armpit.
    He got up and shut the door—
    such a simple thing to do
    —and went into the bedroom.
    It was only then that James realized with a shock that – for the first time in four months – Anna wasn’t home.

7
    THE MAN WHO’D been seen on TV was a big disappointment. Richard Latham was stocky and middle-aged, wearing thick glasses and beige slacks, and when he walked on to the small raised plinth that was supposed to be a stage, he bounced along on his tiptoes with the exaggerated gait of a puppet on strings. Anna thought there must be something wrong with his feet or his legs.
    It was comical, but it was also a little bit disturbing.
    He tapped the microphone and then bent backwards a little to look up at the ceiling.
    ‘Can you hear me?’ he said.
    An amused ripple ran through the small audience. There were maybe fifteen people in total gathered together in the Bickley Spiritualist Church, which was a grubby little hall next to the King’s Arms. There were bars at the high windows, plastic chairs instead of pews, and fake flowers in a vase: lilies and irises, gathering dust. On the wall behind the plinth was a clock that had stopped at a quarter past six, and a small, apologetic crucifix.
    None of it calmed Anna’s nerves.
    She had taken nearly an hour just to get past the five footprints. She’d chickened out and gone back inside four times, hot and panicky despite the cold and damp, before finally making a run for it – hurtling down the uneven pavement with the baby jiggling and bouncing in his buggy.
    Just being outdoors had been enough to make her nervous. Now that she’d seen the dusty flowers, being indoors was making her nervous too. The carpet was threadbare and crumbly, and nobody but her had left their shoes in the porch. She tried not to imagine the germs, but her eyes already felt gritty. She leaned forward and pulled the rabbit fleece almost up to Charlie’s eyes so that the dust couldn’t settle in his nose or mouth. She almost wished she hadn’t brought him, but leaving him at home would have been worse. Better let him be exposed to the dirty air and filthy flowers than left with James.
    James couldn’t be trusted with children.
    The woman sitting next to Anna leaned over and peered into the buggy.
    ‘Awwww, isn’t he lovely!’
    Anna nodded, and smiled through stiff lips. She wished the woman would get her face away from the buggy. Her hair was too blonde and permed to within an inch of its sticky life, and she was wafting chemicals and germs all over him.
    ‘What’s his name?’
    ‘D— Charlie.’ She’d almost said Daniel. It would have felt so good – to use his name in a normal sentence instead of one that shredded her heart.
    ‘Awwww,’ the woman said again.