The Shock of the Fall (Special edition) Read Free

you have then you will know that he is a keen gardener. Only he doesn’t have a garden. That’s kind of funny if you think about it. But it isn’t that funny because he rents a small allotment a short drive from their flat, where he is able to grow vegetables and a few herbs like rosemary and some others that I always forget.
    That week we spent ages there. Sometimes I would help with the weeding, or sometimes I would sit at the edge of his patch of allotment and play Donkey Kong on my Game Boy Color, so long as I kept the volume turned down. Mostly though, I would just wander about lifting stones to look at insects. I liked ants the best. Simon and I always used to look for ants’ nests in our own garden. He thought they were brilliant, and he pleaded with our mum to let him have an Ant Farm in his room. He usually got his way. But not that time.
    Granddad helped me lift the bigger paving slabs so I could see the nests. The moment a slab was lifted the ants would go mental, scurrying around passing secret messages to each other and carrying their tiny white and yellow eggs underground to safety.
    Within a couple of minutes the surface would be completely deserted, except for maybe a few woodlice wandering clumsily through to see what all the fuss was about. Occasionally I’d poke a twig down one of the little holes, and in an instant a dozen soldier ants would be back out on the offensive, prepared to give their lives for the colony. Not that I ever hurt them. I only wanted to watch.
    After Granddad had finished weeding or pulling up vegetables or planting new ones, we’d carefully place back the slab and head home for our tea. I don’t remember us ever talking. I know we must have done. But what words we shared have escaped from my memory completely, like ants down a hole.
    Nanny Noo made nice food. She is one of those people who tries to feed you the moment you walk through the door, and doesn’t stop trying to feed you until the moment you leave. She might even make you a quick ham sandwich for your journey.
    It is a nice way to be. I think people who are generous with food have a goodness about them. But that week or so that I stayed with them was very difficult because I had no appetite. I felt sick a lot of the time, and once or twice I actually was sick. This was difficult for Nanny Noo too, because if she couldn’t solve a problem through the stomach – like with a bowl of soup or a roasted chicken or a slice of Battenberg – she felt out of her depth. One time I spied her standing in the kitchen, hunched over the untouched dishes and sobbing.
    Bedtimes were hardest. I was staying in the spare room, which never gets properly dark because there is a street lamp outside the window and the curtains are thin. I would lie awake each night for ages and ages, staring through the gloom, wishing that I could just go home, and wondering if I ever would.
    ‘Can I sleep in here tonight, Nanny?’
    She didn’t stir, so I walked in slowly and lifted the corner of her quilt. Nanny Noo has one of those electric blankets on account of her cold bones. It was a warm night though, so it wasn’t plugged in, and next thing I knew I was letting out a quiet yelp as my bare foot pressed down onto the upturned plug.
    ‘Sweetheart?’
    ‘Are you awake, Nanny?’
    ‘Shhh, you’ll wake up Granddad.’
    She lifted the quilt and I climbed in beside her, ‘I stood on the plug,’ I said. ‘I hurt my foot a bit.’
    I could feel the warmth of Nanny’s breath against my ear. I could hear Granddad’s rhythmic snoring.
    ‘I can’t remember anything,’ I said at last. ‘I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what I did.’
    At least I wanted to say that. It was all I could think about, and I desperately wanted to say it, but that isn’t the same thing. I could feel Nanny’s breath against my ear. ‘You stood on the plug, my poor angel. You hurt your foot.’
    When I went home it was just Mum and Dad and me. On our first