The Insect Rosary Read Free

delighted to be having a conversation at last, set his cup down and pulled a chair up in between Agatha and Donn.
    â€˜No, no time for a stopover. We were just so eager to get here after all that getting ready, sorting out the packing and stuff. It took us about a month, getting the house sitter organised and, wow, just choosing what to bring. We’re here a while, I know, but it’s always an upheaval. Holidays, why do we do it to ourselves?’ He laughed his tight, nervous laugh. ‘But it’s going to be great, seriously. It’s going to be great.’
    Donn held his cup out for a refill. ‘It will be busy when Bernadette gets here.’
    Agatha snorted.
    â€˜What?’ said Nancy. ‘What do you mean, she’s coming? After us?’
    Donn shrugged and held his cup out. Nancy took the teapot over, filled his cup and returned with the milk. She sat down heavily at the table and held her hands together. Elian started coughing and spitting tea back into his cup.
    â€˜God, sorry. There’s something in the bottom of this cup. What the hell is it?’ He spat again.
    Agatha crossed herself and looked up to the ceiling.
    â€˜It’s tea leaves, Elian,’ said Nancy, quietly.
    â€˜Oh.’ He flushed.
    â€˜Does your boy not talk?’ asked Donn.
    Hurley kept his face turned to the window.
    â€˜Not much,’ said Nancy.
    â€˜Doesn’t take after his da then.’
    Elian tried to laugh but it turned into a nervous cough. Nancy wanted to hide somewhere and cry all the tiredness and disappointment away.
    â€˜I think we might have a lie down before dinner,’ she said. ‘Where are we sleeping?’
    â€˜In the best bedroom. Bernadette’s family can have the girls’ bedroom.’
    â€˜All of us in one room?’ asked Elian.
    Agatha nodded, ‘All of you in one room. The house hasn’t got any bigger.’
    â€˜But Bernadette isn’t going to be here at the same time, is she?’ asked Nancy.
    â€˜How would we know?’ said Agatha.
    â€˜Let’s get the bags upstairs,’ said Nancy. They must have got it wrong. They were confused. Bernadette couldn’t be coming at the same time. Someone would have said something.
    Elian held the bags and gestured with his head for Nancy to open the door. Hurley followed them out of the room and up the stairs.
    â€˜Hurley, go back and close the parlour door, please.’
    He frowned, but he did it. The hallway that Nancy had thought would impress Elian wasn’t commented on. She’d forgotten how dark it was when the outer door was closed. The large, peaked glass panel in the ceiling above the stairs was covered in leaves and moss, giving a green undersea tinge to the stairs. The stair carpets were worn to creamy threads in the middle, still brown and red at the edges. Nancy led them in silence to the best bedroom, and hesitated before she opened the door. It wouldn’t strike them as the best bedroom.
    She pointed back down to the first, smaller landing. ‘The bathroom is there, if you want it.’
    Elian and Hurley looked blankly back at her. She opened the door.
    The room had two windows, one facing the front drive and the other facing a field on the left of the house. Or the right as you approached it. She wondered how she had described this room, if she had at all. Her parents had slept in this room and she didn’t really come in here much. The one thing she remembered was a commode hidden inside a normal looking chair.
    â€˜Wow, what an old chair,’ said Elian, with no enthusiasm at all.
    She decided not to tell him. The bed had fresh bedding on, at least. She didn’t remember the last time she’d slept in a bed with sheets and scratchy woollen blankets. If Elian called it quaint she might thump him, but looking at him he didn’t look like he was going to say anything else for quite some time.
    â€˜Where am I sleeping?’ asked