The Idea of Perfection Read Free Page B

one wrote the letter.
    She gestured vaguely, and Harley got her hand ready to shake, but she was too late, and in the end they did not touch. The gestures hung like a mistake in the space between them.
    We weren’t expecting you, Coralie cried, and got her hands out of the way on her hips.
    Till later on, type of thing. Round tea-time.
    She was shouting, and standing too close, as if proving she was not afraid.
    I stopped the night, Harley said. In Badham.
    Like an ectoplasm, the thought seemed to form in the air: where the prison farm is.
    She heard the words come out in a jerk like a cough, too loud again.
    I used to have family there, she said impulsively, and wished she had not.
    But they’re gone now, she added quickly.
    The shop woman said Oh! again. Then she waited for more. Being so close, and being so short, she had to tilt her face up towards Harley.
    She was prepared to wait. She had plenty of time. She was more than willing to wait for a brief version of the life story, and in particular as it impinged on family, and Badham. She was sorry for the sound of that first oh, Harley could tell, and had forgiven her the unravelling tee-shirt. Now she wanted to be friendly. She had a warm attentive look on her face, getting ready to hear all about it.
    But Harley did not find it as simple as that. She could see that this Coralie Henderson found other people easy to like, their stories always worth hearing. She was probably a gossip, but that was just a nasty way of saying she found people and their lives interesting.
    Harley felt herself tighten against Coralie’s warm curiosity. She knew she had gone a hard ugly red that made her eyes look small and desperate.
    In the corner the fan changed its tone as if the air had grown thicker. A knitted baby’s bonnet suddenly slipped down from a pile on to the floor and Coralie bent down to pick it up again.
    Look, she said, like someone beginning a confession.
    Lorraine Smart, lovely woman, known her all my life, do anything for you.
    She was smoothing away at the bonnet, where one of the ear-flaps kept popping up behind her fingers.
    But her place, where you’re staying, it’s not real flash.
    Harley tried to think of something reassuring to say.
    That’s okay, she said. I don’t like things flash.
    But Coralie did not seem convinced. She took her glasses off, cleaned them on a doily.
    You could have my spare room, you know, she said. Fresh curtains, the lot.
    She looked at Harley.
    Maybe you’d rather be on your own, though.
    Harley could feel her feeling her way. She seemed a kindly woman, this Coralie, and was trying to set her at her ease. It was no fault of hers if Harley Savage was never at ease.
    There was another pause.
    We’ve got a lot of interest in the Heritage thing, considering, Coralie said.
    She pressed her lips together as if putting on lipstick, thinking.
    We’ve got Leith Cousens, and Glad Fowler and Felicity Porcelline. And then we’ve got Freddy Chang, and of course little Helen Banks. Bert Cutcliffe from the school. And we’ve got old Mrs Trimm, she goes right back to well before the War.
    She was nodding and smiling as if everyone knew little Helen Banks and old Mrs Trimm.
    Harley tried to make an interested noise. It came out a pitch higher than was quite appropriate.
    That’s good, she said.
    She cleared her throat.
    Wonderful, really.
    Outside somewhere, a crow made a long agonised noise like someone being slowly strangled.

CHAPTER 2
    THERE HAD BEGUN to be a little atmosphere in the butcher’s shop. It had got so that Felicity tended to put off going there. The problem was, the butcher was in love with her.
    She hesitated outside the dusty window of the closed Karakarook Bakery. She wished there was something to look at, something to make hesitating look natural, but it seemed to have been a long time since the Karakarook Bakery had been open for business, and there was nothing in the window but a few shelves with a lot of dead flies on