Jellicoe Road Read Free Page A

don’t have anywhere to go these holidays?”
    “I want you to take them under your wing, Taylor.”
    “I don’t have wings, Hannah.”
    She stares at me. Hannah’s stares are always loaded. A combination of disappointment, resignation, and exasperation. She never looks at anyone else like that, just me. Everyone else gets sultana scones and warm smiles and a plethora of questions,and I get a stare full of grief and anger and pain and something else that I can never work out. Over the years I’ve come to accept that Hannah driving by on the Jellicoe Road five minutes after my mother dumped me was no coincidence. She has never pretended it was, especially during that first year, when I lived with her, before I began high school. In year seven, when I moved into the dorms, I was surprised at how much I missed her. Not living in the unfinished house seemed like a step farther away from understanding anything about my past. Whenever I look for clues, my sleuthing always comes back to one person: Hannah.
    I take the list from her, just to get her off my back.
    “You’re not sleeping.” Not a question, just a statement. She reaches over and touches my face and I flinch, moving away.
    “Go make yourself something to eat and then get to class. You might be able to make second period.”
    “I’m thinking of leaving.”
    “You leave when you finish school,” she says bluntly.
    “No, I leave when I want to leave and you can’t stop me.”
    “You stay until the end of next year.”
    “You’re not my mother.”
    I say that to her every time I want to hurt her and every time I expect her to retaliate.
    “No, I’m not.” She sighs. “But for the time being, Taylor, I’m all you have. So let’s just get to the part where I give you something to eat and you go to class.”
    At times it’s like sadness has planted itself on her face, refusing to leave, an overwhelming sadness, and sometimes I see despair there, too. Once or twice I’ve seen something totally different. Like when the government sent troops overseas to fight, she was inconsolable. Or when she turned thirty-three. “Same age Christ was when he died,” I joked. But I remember the look on her face. “I’m the same age my father was when he died,” she told me. “I’m older than he will ever be. There’s something unnatural about that.”
    Then there was that time in year eight when the Hermit whispered something in my ear and then shot himself and I ran away with that Cadet and the Brigadier brought us back. I remember theBrigadier’s hard face looked as if he was trying with all his might for it to stay hard. Hannah didn’t look at him and I remember it took a great effort for her not to look at him. She just said, “Thanks for bringing her home,” and she let me stay at her unfinished house by the river. She held on to me tight all night because somewhere in the town where the Brigadier found us, two kids had gone missing and Hannah said it could have easily been me and the Cadet. They found those two kids weeks later, shot in the back of the head, and Hannah cried every time it came on the news. I remember telling her that I thought the Brigadier was the serial killer and it was the first time I saw her laugh in ages.
    Today there is something going on with her and I can’t quite figure it out. I glance around the room, noticing how tidy it looks. Even her manuscript seems shuffled neatly in a pile in one corner of the table. She’s been writing the same novel ever since I’ve known her. Usually she keeps it hidden, but I know where to find it, like those teenage boys in films who know where to find their father’s porn. I love reading about the kids in the eighties, even though I can’t make head or tail of the story. Hannahhasn’t structured it properly yet. I’ve got so used to reading it out of sequence but one day I’d like to put it in order without worrying that she’ll turn up and catch me with it.
    She sees me looking at