Under a Silent Moon by Elizabeth Haynes Read Free Book Online Page B

hair on his head was white and tufty, not neatly groomed. He looked frail and vulnerable, not like him at all. From this position she could see there were marks like yellowing bruises on the top of his right arm. Maybe he got them when they were trying to keep his heart going—wasn’t it supposed to be really brutal? Or maybe Barbara had been beating him up; Taryn wouldn’t have put it past her.
    The last time she’d seen him had been at the Barn. He had been complaining about the bike she’d bought him last Christmas. It wasn’t right for his needs, apparently, even though it had been the one he had chosen from some enthusiasts’ magazine, and she had gone round to look at it.
    Barbara had opened the door to her.
    â€œOh. It’s you. Well, you’d better come in.”
    Her father was in his armchair, reading the Telegraph , paisley-patterned feet up on the footstool.
    â€œGood heavens,” he’d said, peering at her. “What the hell is that thing you’re wearing?”
    â€œIt’s a poncho, Dad. I’ve come about the bike.”
    â€œIt makes your legs look enormous,” he said. “You’d be better off with a long coat.”
    She’d taken a deep breath in, and repeated slowly: “I’ve come about the bike.”
    â€œIt’s outside, next to the garage,” he said. “You’ll have to take it back.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter with it?”
    â€œGears keep slipping,” he said from behind the newspaper.
    â€œWhat? What do you mean?”
    He lowered the newspaper slowly and looked at her over the tops of his reading glasses. “It’s a road bike, Taryn.”
    She remembered the feeling bubbling up inside her, the frustration and the misery of being spoken to like that. How long would she have to put up with it? “I know what it is. It’s the one you asked for. The one you picked out of the magazine!”
    â€œI don’t want a road bike, I don’t enjoy cycling on the roads. If I wanted to cycle on the roads I would have asked for a road bike, wouldn’t I? I can’t ride that thing through the countryside. It’s not suitable. It’s not appropriate.”
    His voice rose over the course of the outburst until he was on the verge of shouting, his face flushed to a deep crimson.
    She stared at him for a moment, counting to ten. Then fifteen. Then she looked away, defeated. “All right. I’ll see if I can trade it in for a different one.”
    Her father shook the creases out of the newspaper. The matter was closed, resolved to his satisfaction, for the time being at least. He always won. If he didn’t win, he would carry on and on until he could claim the victory in another way.
    She’d gone out to the garage and looked at the bike, leaning miserably against the wall with the front wheel turned out at an odd angle, as though it had been casually tossed aside and had slumped down under the weight of its own inadequacies.
    It had started to rain by then and she was wondering whether she could fit the bike in if she put the seats down in the car, when Barbara came to the back door with a bag full of bottles for the recycling bin.
    â€œI’ll see you, then,” Taryn had said, with an attempt at a cheerful wave.
    â€œWhat? You’re not coming back, are you?”
    â€œNo. I just meant—never mind.”
    Head down against the rain, she’d gone round to the front as the back door slammed shut. She spent a good twenty minutes trying to fit the bike into the car, scraping the skin on her ankle with a pedal, getting grease on her hands and her new wool poncho and the fabric of the backseat, blinded by tears and hating herself for bothering with them; the pair of them, they were as bad as each other. Hateful people!
    The next day she had taken the bike back to the shop where she’d bought it, at considerable expense since it wasn’t the