Black Feathers Read Free Page B

gales of a fortnight earlier – events no one mentioned – it had felt like an endless summer. Mornings and afternoons were chill by now but it was still bright enough that none of them wanted to be indoors at the weekend.
    Sophie sat in a deckchair reading a thriller. A wide-brimmed, floppy white hat kept the sun out of her eyes. Behind her on the terrace, well-insulated in his pram, Gordon slept. Angela was reading a magazine on a blanket on the grass and Judith was alternately running, skipping and dancing or stopping and losing herself for long moments in the tiny details of the life of the garden. For a full fifteen minutes she had been on her stomach watching wasps eat their way through a fallen pear. Each of them wore a skin-tight yellow and black uniform and walked with an agitated mechanical twitch. Their black antennae wavered unceasingly and their yellow mandibles cut through bite after bite of pear flesh.
    Louis, walking past with a wheelbarrow full of hedge trimmings and fallen leaves, saw what she was doing.
    “You be careful, Jude.”
    She looked up at him.
    “They’re like soldiers, Daddy. Look how pretty.”
    “They’re not so pretty when they sting you. Don’t get so close.”
    Mesmerised by the wasps and their work, she rested her chin on the backs of her hands.
    “Judith.”
    “What, Daddy?”
    “Back away from them a little, would you?”
    Not looking up, she scooted backwards, somehow keeping her head on her hands. Her skirt rucked up, exposing the backs of her smooth thighs and white knickers. As young as she was he could already see her mother’s shape in her. As he walked on towards the compost heap the wheelbarrow bumped up and down over the uneven grass, eliciting tinny rumbles. He wondered if Judith would still be so unselfconscious in ten years and dreaded the complexities that time would no doubt bring.
    When he’d dumped the load, he abandoned the wheelbarrow and walked over to Angela’s blanket. She too was lying on her front, bending one leg up until the heel of her sandal touched her backside and then letting the leg straighten until the toe bounced off the grass. Louis squatted beside her and glanced at the article she was reading.
    “Sports day diets?” He struggled to register the implications. “I’m sure we’ve got some Bunty annuals in the loft. Mighty Mo and Watson the Wonder Dog were great.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dad.”
    “Wholesome children’s books, Angela. Instead of pre-teen Cosmopolitan .”
    “It’s not like that.”
    “How would you know?”
    Angela tutted.
    “It’s just a magazine, Dad. I’m not turning anorexic.”
    When she said nothing else, Louis stood up.
    “Fine.”
    He wandered over to Sophie’s deckchair and sat down beside her on the grass. She didn’t acknowledge his arrival.
    “ You still love me, don’t you, Soph?”
    He waited a long time for the reply.
    “Hmm?”
    “I asked you if, out of all the females in this family, you were the one who still loved me.”
    After a few moments, Sophie managed to turn her head from the seductive pages of her book.
    “Female family what?”
    “Forget it.”
    Rising, he walked the last few paces to the terrace where Gordon was warmly swaddled. He wanted to look into the lodestones of his eyes but the boy was deeply asleep, one tiny fist held beside his head in a baby power-salute. Louis smiled.
    “I’m glad you’re here, mate. Balances things up a bit. One day, we’ll be able to discuss rugger and you can come home from school knowing there’s a safe haven in your old man’s study.”
    Louis thought about the suggestion. Half joking, he added:
    “Don’t take that too literally, by the way. I may be working and not able to stop straight away. And you must always knock – everyone has to. But once you’re in, well, then you’ll be in the safe haven.”
    Suddenly content, Louis backed quietly towards the rear wall of the house and took in the scene; everyone