The Thief of Broken Toys Read Free Page A

Philip, Pete, and other people, he
knew them all but had stopped knowing them
so well after Toby died. A few acknowledged
him, and Franz tried briefly to engage him
in conversation, but he always wanted to be
somewhere else. Somewhere quieter. After
staring at the sea for a few minutes — Toby
haunting him with sandcastles and orange
crab-fishing lines, calls for ice cream and
startled giggles when the waves splashed
him — he turned and started walking inland.
    A few minutes later he saw Elizabeth. Just a
flash of her hair to begin with, moving behind
a window and lurking in the shadows beyond.
He stood outside the Flag & Fisherman, a pub
they had rarely frequented together because
it was favoured by the younger generation
from the village. Like every pub in Skentipple
it possessed an undeniable aged charm, but
went out of its way to advertise its large screen
for viewing sporting events, and its three-pints-for-the-price-of-two happy hours. He
frowned and tried to peer in the window. It
had
been her, he knew from the way his heart
was thumping and a flush slowly faded across
his face.
    Pressing his face to the glass and shading
his eyes, he scanned the pub’s front bar. As
he saw a youngster gesture to him and say
something to his laughing friend, Elizabeth’s
face became clear to him. She was sitting by
the old fireplace, slouched back on a bench
with a large glass of wine on the table on front
of her. Beside her sat Jason, the fisherman,
his old friend. His large weathered hand
rested on her leg, and she was leaning into his
shoulder, laughing at something he was still
saying. His lips moved soundlessly, Ray’s ex-wife’s shoulders shook, and she found humour
in Jason’s company.
    Ray wondered how many glasses of wine
she’d had before this one. He’d tried turning
to drink, but found that it only brought Toby’s
memories closer to him, and changed his
dreams into nightmares that lingered through
the following day’s hangover. He had no idea
whether Elizabeth had resorted to alcohol.
She’d never been a big drinker before, but
losing Toby had made new people of them
both.
    He stayed there for a few panicked seconds,
angry at Jason — who had once been his friend,
lost now in the same casual way as his wife —
and raging at Elizabeth. When she looked up
and saw him, her expression changed into
something awful. The laughter faded, leaving
behind a painted-on smile, and she seemed to
pause
, growing so motionless that she was his
only focus, and the rest of the world orbited
around her. Then her mouth fell open. Ray did
not hear the name that tumbled out.
    Making his way back across the harbour
toward the hillside, he tried to understand
why he felt so angry. He’d known about Jason
and Elizabeth for a couple of months. But this
was the first time he’d seen them together.
And as he climbed the steps and steep paths
toward his house, he came to realize what
troubled him so much. It wasn’t Jason’s big
hand on her thigh, with all of its implications,
and it wasn’t the fact that she appeared so
at ease with another man. It wasn’t even his
mumbled comments and her easy laughter.
    It was the idea that Elizabeth was moving
on. She had left him alone out in the street,
and after what they had been through, she
could still find it in herself to laugh.
    By the time he reached his house, he was
crying. And by the time he’d managed to
unlock the door, fall inside and slam it behind
him, he knew what he had to do.

2
    We rise from the sad house with the crying
man and submit to the breeze, now carrying
the growing chill of dusk. The sun is setting
behind the opposite valley ridge, silhouetting
the sparse trees growing up there in defiance
of the storms that sweep this coast. They
throw long shadows out across the valley, and
if the confusion of buildings and water was
not so extreme, they might even be visible
down there. But street lights are