The Rhyme of the Magpie Read Free Page B

you want it back?” I asked, facing the sink. “Want to give it to Beryl next?”
    He sighed. “You believe what we’ve done is wrong, but it isn’t. How can you think that of me or of Beryl?” I heard that edge of determination in his voice.
    “It isn’t what I think, it’s what I saw. And no telling how long it had been going on—before Mum was gone, perhaps?” It was an evil thing to say, but it ate away at my insides every day, weakening me, and I couldn’t stop it from escaping.
    “You’ve no right to accuse me of betraying your mother—it isn’t true, and you know it isn’t. In your heart you know.” I had no heart, didn’t he realize that? “I could never replace Anne.”
    “Bugger off,” I muttered.
    “Is that any way to talk to your father?”
    I couldn’t look over my shoulder, afraid to see the pain I’d caused. I wiped my nose on my sleeve. “Bugger off, sir.”
    A moment of silence. “Well,” he said, sighing, “that’s more like it.” He walked to the door. “I love you, Jools.”
    —
    My hands shook as I made another mug of tea. I stepped out onto the small stone terrace, slipping my palm-sized copy of the 1937
The
Observer’s Book of British Birds
into a pocket, and rang my sister.
    Bianca should never leave her phone in reach of tiny hands.
    A string of nonstop, incomprehensible sounds came out of the phone. When there was a hairsbreadth of a pause, I dived in. “Hello, Emmet, it’s Auntie Julia. How are you, baby? Aren’t you a clever boy? Is Mummy there? Can you fetch her for me?”
    A shriek pierced my ear. I heard Bee make calming noises, while Emmet’s sobs faded into the background. “Jools? Sorry about that. He’s getting too quick for me, that boy.”
    “Bee, he is going to speak English someday, isn’t he?”
    “He’s only two—give him time. I’m glad it’s you. Listen, I was going to ring this evening.”
    “Congratulations—it’s a boy,” I said before she could get any further.
    “Sorry?” Her voice was wary.
    “I saw four magpies this morning. I know I’m not pregnant, so it must be you, and it must be a boy.”
    This should’ve been a video call, so I could see the gobsmacked expression on her face. But almost as good—I heard her utter a word she really shouldn’t be saying around a two-year-old. “Bloody birds, can’t they ever let me be the first to tell the news? And you don’t know for certain that it’s a boy.”
    “They haven’t been wrong yet, have they?”
    Score another for the magpies—I pumped my fist in the air. But my exultation was short-lived, because there was no one to share it with. I thought of the joyous occasions at home with Mum and Dad each time Bee discovered herself pregnant.
    “Bee, are you and Paul staying the course? What’ll it be—Ellery? Elvis?”
    “Paul doesn’t even know—he’s got an opening this evening.” Bee’s husband ran a modern art gallery in St. Ives, where art galleries outnumbered residents. “You haven’t told Dad, have you?” she asked.
    Bianca wouldn’t stop believing I would get over this. When Rupert and Beryl married, and I was practically incoherent with anger, my sister had said to me, “But, Jools, he’s so lonely, and Beryl’s been on her own for ages. Can’t you just be happy for them?” No, I couldn’t—I didn’t know how. The thought of Mum gone and my dad with Beryl, strangled me. But Bee’s life was full of children and husband and work and art, and so I didn’t blame her for her lack of outrage. I certainly had enough outrage for both of us.
    “Now that you mention it,” I said, “Rupert stopped by here today. How do you suppose he knew where to find me?”
    A moment of guilty silence from my sister. In the background, I heard Emelia shouting, “Emmet, no!”
    “Look, it isn’t as if you entered the witness protection program,” Bee said. “You moved twenty miles away from home and didn’t even change your name. Anybody can find