Heaven's Light Read Free Page B

eyes going back to the jacket.
    Jessie Barnaby warmed her hands on a mug of hot water, willing the doorbell to ring. Haagen had left his keys, just like the last time. They lay on the floor beside the mattress. They must have fallen from his pocket when he’d pulled on his jeans, struggling towards the door, desperate to makethe eleven o’clock meet. They’d both overslept, same old scene, Haagen getting in a muddle with the alarm settings on the electric clock. Haagen-time, she’d taken to calling it. Two parts vodka to one part smack.
    She got up and began to circle the empty living room. The basement flat was sparsely furnished and even in midsummer the damp was almost tangible, a permanent presence, the lodger that had never left. It made everything smell. It made everything sticky. Whatever she did – aerosols, joss sticks, an hour or two’s madness with the electric fire – the damp was always there, sour, malevolent, occasionally foul. She sipped the water, pulling Haagen’s heavy army greatcoat around her, trying to ease the cramps in her shoulders and back. From time to time, barefoot on the greasy lino, she began to shudder, and then she had to pause, tensing herself, shutting her eyes, squeezing hard until the spasm went away.
    It had been like this before, often before, but never this bad and never this long. She’d woken up early, four in the morning, dawn, and she’d wanted to tell Haagen then, but he’d been out of it, his thin body curled round hers, his breath featherlight on the back of her neck, and she’d propped herself on one elbow, smoking a couple of roll-ups until sleep had finally returned with the whine of the milk float in the street outside. She was there to take care of Haagen. He needed to rest. He was truly all she had.
    The television in the corner flickered briefly and for a moment she thought it was going to give up again but then the signal strengthened and Southsea Common slipped back into focus and in close-up came the rows and rows of faces with whom she’d shared the last hour or so. The Queen. The Queen Mum. Prince Philip. Charles. Anne. The television was a cheap portable, a trophy from one ofHaagen’s less successful break-ins and the grainy black-and-white pictures somehow added to her icy sense of detachment. These people were real, she knew they were. They were close, too, just up the road. But caged inside this tiny set, emptied of all colour, they’d become somehow remote, visitors from outer space.
    She sipped at the water and wondered about risking a slice of toast. Haagen had rigged up a little two-ring electric stove, bypassing the meter, and she knelt beside it, careful not to touch the bare wires. She thought there were a couple of slices of bread in the kitchen next door but when she went through to check she found the mice had got there first.
    Beside the stove was the glass jar Haagen had brought her back the last time he’d been to Amsterdam. It was brown and fluted, and on one side it carried a gaudy stencil of a canal scene. Lately, Jessie had taken to using it as a candle holder. The flame from the candle threw a strange golden light through the glass, and if she got on her knees and looked hard at the stencil she could almost persuade herself that the barges on the canal were moving. She lit the candle now, warming her hands over the open throat of the jar. It was the only present Haagen had ever given her, and she protected it with a fierce reverence.
    She carried the jar back to the living room and slipped under the blanket, staring across the room at the television. A big grey ship was ghosting past the war memorial while the commentator talked about a unique moment of history. Then the picture began to flicker again and Jessie thought of Haagen, how he was getting on, whether he’d remember which pub to go to. They were open all day today. It was part of the celebrations. She started to shiver again, and then the trembling became uncontrollable