The Kind Folk Read Free Page A

prices were much lower and the building trade considerably more prosperous, but now he hardly feels entitled to the apartment—the two generous bedrooms, the extensive main room, the fitted kitchen and bathroom that would be at home in a store display. Beyond the window the late April sunlight glints on the edge of the sea across the bay, where the horizon sprouts a windmill that might be fingering the sky for substance. When he moved in Luke had a wide view of the sea, but tall buildings have risen in the way—monolith monsters, Terence calls them. Everything about the apartment brings to mind the family Luke presumed was his own in more ways than it is. He's Sophie's lover and the father of her child, he reminds himself as she joins him at the window and takes his hand to rest it on her ovoid midriff. "Anyway," she murmurs, "we know our baby's ours."
    "We know and it will."
    "Don't say it, Luke. Parents who call their children that, you'd think they didn't want them to be people."
    "He or she," Luke amends, going down on one knee to lift Sophie's voluminous blouse and kiss her just above the navel. "That's you in there if you can hear me."
    He presses an ear against her belly and hears the tide of his own blood. When he can't distinguish any movement he gets to his feet, hoping Sophie feels appreciated. Since their encounter with Brittan she has done her best to comfort him with her words and her touch, with favourite meals and singing songs from her repertoire and playing Bach transcriptions on her guitar, but he senses that she thinks she hasn't done enough—that he has lost more than just a blood relationship. Perhaps holding her will reassure more than any protests of Luke's, and he's resting his cheek against hers when his phone breaks the silence.
    It's singing 'June is busting out all over,' which Maurice used to sing on Luke's birthday even though it isn't in that month. Now the ringtone feels like an attempt to cling to his childhood, and so does having listed Freda as mum. Before he can decide what to call her she says "It's only me."
    "Hello." This sounds worse than incomplete, and Luke makes haste to say "How are you getting on?"
    "I've been to the hospital where you were born." Less defiantly than she offered the last phrase she says "They've looked into their records, but they can't see how there could have been a mistake. Maurice wants to leave it now. I don't know what you think."
    "Whatever's best for the family."
    "We hoped you'd say that. We can go on as we always have, can't we? And your, and Maurice says to tell you he's sorry if he was a bit abrupt when he spoke to you. He was getting used to it, that's all."
    "So long as he has."
    "We must get together soon, all of us. Have you heard from, has Terry been in touch?"
    "I haven't heard from him since your show," Luke says and feels ashamed of his choice of words.
    "We've been trying to contact him but he hasn't answered our calls. Maurice would have gone over but our firm's working on a big job for the council. If you speak to Terry you'll let him know the news, won't you?" Presumably taking Luke's pause for assent, she says "Oh, and Mr Brittan's show rang up."
    "What do they want now?"
    "She wasn't very pleasant. They've found out what you are."
    The words sound even odder when Luke paraphrases them. "What I am."
    "Someone who saw the show today knows you're on the stage. The girl thought we should have told them before they had us on."
    "If they give you any more trouble, Freda—" The name feels unwieldy in his mouth, and he blunders past it. "You put them straight on to me."
    "I did give them your number. Don't be too hard on them. They're only trying to do their best for Mr Brittan."
    Luke and Sophie say goodbye to her, and then he opens the address book on the phone screen. He ought to have grown out of some of the things he's written—he ought to prove he can. Freda Arnold replaces mum, and in another few seconds her husband is listed as