Weathering by Lucy Wood Read Free Book Online Page B

few letters, stilted and formal, neither of them good at writing, then after a while, no letters.
    ‘I’m not,’ Judy said. ‘I’m not back.’ She pushed her sleeves up higher above her elbows. ‘I never left. I wanted to come to the funeral, but Dad got a problem with his stomach, we had to take him to the hospital, turned out there was a pseudo cyst in there.’
    The funeral. Ada took the pot and filled it again. ‘A pseudo cyst,’ she said. Didn’t that just mean no cyst?
    ‘He’s living in town now,’ Judy said. ‘Had to sell the bungalow, pay for his residential bills. They let him take his sound system but not his fish tank. They don’t allow pets. I told them that if a fish escaped it probably wouldn’t be able to terrorise other residents. They said: how did I know?’ She stopped and looked at Ada. ‘I guess you won’t remember the fish tank.’
    ‘I remember,’ Ada said. They would scatter bright food pellets and watch them sink.
    ‘They said I should buy him curtains with fish on instead. And I did.’ She shook her head. ‘And a duvet.’
    Ada swallowed the gritty dregs in her cup. The kitchen clock went, tick, tick, pause, tick. ‘Mario,’ she said. ‘There was a fish called Mario.’
    ‘There was never a fish called Mario,’ Judy told her. ‘They were all female.’ She picked up one of Pepper’s gloves and smoothed out the wrinkles, then dropped it on the table and scraped her chair back. ‘I should look at your chimney while I’m here.’
    There were the cold remains of the fire. The feathers like decoration. Judy knelt down and put her arm in. ‘What I thought,’ she said. She showed the black twigs and feathers. ‘Some old nests in there. Good job you didn’t light a fire or the whole thing might have caught.’ She started pulling out tangled handfuls.
    ‘I can do it,’ Ada told her. She got out a bin bag but there was nothing to do except hold it open while Judy stuffed twigs in. They ripped holes through the plastic. Lichen flaked like old paint. In one handful, a few broken pieces of egg shell.
    There was a gold band on Judy’s ring finger that was loose and slipping over her knuckle.
    ‘Are you in town now then?’ Ada asked.
    ‘I’m up at the farm,’ Judy said. She nodded towards the window as if the farm was just outside it. ‘We’ve got the whole thing just the two of us now.’
    Ada pushed the twigs down so that more would fit in. ‘You and Robbie?’
    ‘Of course me and Robbie,’ Judy said. She took the full bag and tied the top. ‘Of course me and Robbie.’
    Judy and Robbie had been together since they were fourteen. It was his family’s farm. He had dropped out of school as soon as he could, always working, always out from dark till dark. Ada remembered mucky overalls, oil, a tired slump to his jaw. The smell of beer. And his night terrors: Judy describing how he would jerk upright in bed, shouting, fighting the sheets. Judy had spent most of her time at the farm, although she’d never liked it. It was the cows, she said, the way they looked at you as if they were planning something, biding their time.
    ‘But why are you?’ Ada said. Judy looked at her and frowned. ‘I mean, the cows.’
    Judy leaned further into the stove. ‘What about the cows?’
    ‘Remember when they chased us? And they were in a circle.’
    ‘I don’t remember that,’ Judy said.
    ‘They circled us,’ Ada said. Their wide faces had pushed in close, sides shunting against each other like rocking canoes.
    Judy pulled out more tattered feathers. A ditchy smell and gloopy leaves. ‘Cows never do that.’ Grit clattered in the grate like hailstones. ‘There can’t be much more of this,’ she said.
    ‘Cows always do that,’ Ada told her.
    The wind sounded louder in the chimney now. Judy scooped out a handful of grit. The smudges under her eyes were almost violet. A few grey hairs in her parting like frayed wire. So she had been stuck here all this time. Ada thought