The Quarry Read Free

from the local health people?’ She still holds me, her hands on my forearms. She blows once, quickly, out of the right side of her mouth, attempting to shift some black hair from near one eye. Holly has collar-length straight brown hair, which she dyes black.
    ‘We’re getting some help,’ I tell her. ‘Though there seems to have been some sort of mistake with his last Work Capability Assessment. He was too ill to get there and we got a letter a week later saying he’s been put back on the able-to-work register. I think. Guy wouldn’t let me see the letter.’
    Holly lets go of me and turns away, shaking her head. ‘Jesus fuck.’
    ‘I wish you didn’t swear so much.’
    ‘I wish there wasn’t so much to fucking swear about.’
    The door is half open behind me. Across the hall the stairwell window facing the front of the house is as tightly shut as it can be but its frame is wonky and it admits both draughts and sound – and leaking water, too, if the weather is from the south. I can hear a noise of crunching stones from the driveway beyond.
    I nod backwards. ‘Somebody else,’ I tell Hol.
    We go out onto the landing, to look. Out beyond the slope of the front garden lawn, the straggle of assorted, unkempt bushes and the stone gateposts guarding the drive – the left one tipped precariously, as though trying to block the entrance, replacing the long-sold-off gates – a swell of ridged brown field hides most of the city; only the triplet towers of the Minster and the spire of St Thomas’s church show dark grey above the brown corduroy of the land.
    A large white Audi swings round the loop of driveway in front of the house, narrowly avoids hitting Hol’s little red Polo and scrunches to a stop out of sight below, right by the front door.
    ‘Buzz Darkside’s arrived, then,’ Hol says.
    She means Uncle Paul. As we start down the stairs the Audi’s horn blares quickly, twice. It is quite loud. Moments later a bell jangles distantly in the kitchen, as though the house is answering back.
    I can tell the difference between the sounds of the bells for different rooms. ‘Dad’s awake,’ I tell Hol as we get to the bottom of the stairs. A car door slams.
    ‘Thoughtful as ever, Paul,’ Hol mutters, though her pace quickens as she approaches the door, where a shadow is looming. Her hand is out towards the handle but Uncle Paul opens the door himself, breezing in, kicking it shut behind him. Paul is below average height for a man but carries himself bigger. He looks tanned and has naturally black curly hair he keeps tidily short. He works out a lot, he says, though his face looks a little puffy. Hol thinks he’s had work done, certainly on his teeth and probably on the bags he used to have under his eyes. He’s about thirty-nine. They all are, because they were in the same year when they went to uni and this was their home in term time. Only Guy breaks this pattern; he’s a couple of years older.
    ‘Hey, Hol. Kit! Wow. You look even bigger! Here, take this.’ He shoves an old battered-looking leather briefcase into my arms. ‘We can get the rest later. Hol.’ He leans in, kissing her, cheek against cheek, while Holly cooperates resignedly. ‘How’s my least favourite movie critic?’
    ‘Fuck off, Paul.’
    Uncle Paul looks at me as he lets Hol go. ‘Aww, her first words.’ He pulls in a breath as he steps back to take in Hol’s appearance. ‘Great to see you too, petal.’
    ‘If this is about Kinetica , it was still shit.’
    Paul shakes his head. ‘Grossed one-fifty worldwide, for a budget of thirty. Slightly south of thirty, actually. If that’s shit let’s hope they all are.’
    ‘So it’s shit that grossed one-fifty worldwide. Still shit.’
    Paul smiles broadly at her. ‘You are welcome to your biased, bitter and basically totally bizarre opinion.’
    Paul is a corporate lawyer for Maven Creative Industries. Maven Creative Industries make high-concept cinema (movies, according to Uncle