Whispers Through a Megaphone by Rachel Elliott Read Free Book Online Page B

in the street: her clothes, her cheap jewellery, her cookbooks, even her bedding. Tomorrow, men in thick gloves will take them away and Miriam will be watching. Should she peer through the window? Wear black and stand in silence in front of the house? Her mother is inside the bags: her fingerprints, her handwriting, the fabric that covered her body, the beads that hung from her neck. But what about the bowler hat, Miriam? The one she found in a charity shop, the one she wore non-stop until her dying day, her final act. Why is that still here in your bedroom, watching you from the top of a chest of drawers?
    A desire to run outside and pull every bag back into the house rises into Miriam’s throat. It tastes of bile. She closes the curtains as far as they will close, gets into bed, switches off the lamp. Beside her, something is glowing. She opens her eyes. It is Boo’s luminous remedy, impossibly bright. She immediately falls asleep.

8
IT WAS FINE AND IT WAS NOT FINE
    F or his birthday, Arthur and Stanley had bought him a ticket to see Leonard Cohen. Ralph looked for a second ticket in the envelope but there was only one. Sadie had bought him a black shirt, a pair of trousers, three pairs of socks and a feng shui owl for his office.
    “Thank you,” he said, with the presents on his lap. “They’re all lovely.”
    Sadie was pressing a bag of frozen peas against her face. “You’re welcome.”
    “Why the owl?” he asked, holding it up to inspect it.
    “It represents wisdom. Helps you acquire it, apparently.” She tried to smile. Her sneer was another small failure.
    “Right.”
    Putting aside the matter of the swollen eye and frozen peas, Sadie looked beautiful this afternoon. She was wearing old jeans and her I Love New York T-shirt. Ralph remembered her buying the T-shirt from a store near Central Park while they were on holiday three years ago—their first holiday alone since the twins were born. She put the T-shirt on there andthen, in the middle of the store, pulling it down over her white long-sleeved top. He preferred her like this, natural and relaxed, but by the time their guests arrived this evening she would be dolled up and pretty in heavy make-up. What had happened to the woman he went to New York with? Yes, the cracks were beginning to show, but as they drank cocktails in their Tribeca hotel, called his parents to check on the boys, hunted for paperbacks in the Strand bookshop, walked through Central Park to the Guggenheim Museum, they were happy. Well, perhaps not happy, because happy is difficult to define, but they respected each other. She was in old jeans and old trainers, with a heart on her T-shirt and a hot dog in her hand. It was simple, it was easy. She took his photo in the park because she liked him.
    “Anyway, I’d better get changed,” said Sadie, leaving Ralph alone in the kitchen with Arthur, Stanley and the cocker spaniel.
    “I know it’s your birthday, Dad, but we have to ask,” said Stanley.
    “Ask what?”
    “Did you hit Mum?”
    “Of course not. I would never hit your mother.”
    “What the fuck happened then?” said Arthur.
    “Why do you feel the need to swear all the time?”
    “Just answer the question.”
    “We were messing about. I was tickling her.”
    “Tickling her?”
    “Yes. Haven’t you ever tickled anyone?”
    Stanley wanted to say actually yes, I’ve been tickling Joe Schwartz and he’s been tickling me. Instead, he found himself asking if anyone fancied a glass of Ribena. Telling his parents that he was gay wasn’t the problem—he knew they wouldn’t care. The problem was telling them something personal,revealing, sexual. Did they really need to know the intimate details of his private life?
    “No thanks,” said Ralph. “I’ll have a lager, though.”
    “I’ll have a lager too,” said Arthur. “But no fucking Ribena. What are you, eight years old?”
    “People of all ages drink Ribena. Stop trying to show everyone you’re a grown-up,