Toby's Room Read Free Page A

was too awful for tears. She’d been frightened of him and he hadn’t cared: Toby, who’d always protected her. She saw his face hanging over her, the glazed eyes, the groping, sea-anemonemouth; he hadn’t looked like Toby at all. And then, when he pulled her against him, she’d felt –
    Downstairs, a door opened. Voices: people wishing each other goodnight. Footsteps: coming slowly and heavily, or quickly and lightly, up the stairs. The floorboards grumbled under the pressure of so many feet. Two thuds, seconds apart: one of the men taking his shoes off. Then silence, gradually deepening, until at last the old house curled up around the sleepers, and slept too.
    Not a breath of wind. A fringe of ivy leaves – black against the moonlight – surrounded the open window, but not one of them stirred. Normally, even on a still night, there’d be some noise. A susurration of leaves, sounding so like the sea that sometimes she drifted off to sleep pretending she was lying on a beach with nothing above her but the stars. No hope of that tonight. An owl hooted, once, twice, then silence again, except for the whisper of blood in her ears.
    Was Toby lying awake like her? No, he’d drunk so much wine at dinner he’d be straight off to sleep. Imagining his untroubled sleep – Toby’s breath hardly moving the sheet that covered him – became a kind of torment. After a while, it became intolerable. She had to do something. Reaching for her nightdress, she got out of bed and let herself quietly out of her room.
    On the landing she stopped and listened: a squeal of bedsprings as somebody turned over; her father’s fractured snore. She tiptoed along the corridor, avoiding the places where she knew the floorboards creaked. She’d made this groping journey so often in the past: the unimaginably distant past when she and Toby had been best friends as well as brother and sister. He’d shielded her from Mother’s constant carping, the comparisons with Rachel that were never in her favour, the chill of their father’s absence. And now, for some unfathomable reason, he’d left her to face all that on her own.
    Outside his door, she hesitated. There was still time to turn back, only she couldn’t, not now, she was too angry. Something had to be done to dent his complacency. She turned the knob and slipped in. Once inside the room, she held her breath. Listened again. Yes, hewas asleep, though not snoring: slow, calm, steady breaths. Not a care in the world.
    She crossed to the bed and looked down at him. Like her, he’d left the curtains open; his skin in the moonlight had the glitter of salt. Leaning towards him, she felt his breath on her face. She knew there was something she wanted to do, but she didn’t know what it was. Jerk him awake? Shock him out of that infuriatingly peaceful, deep sleep? Yes, but how? There was a jug of water on the washstand near the bed. She twined her fingers round the handle, raised it high above her head …
    And then, just as she was about to pour, he opened his eyes. He didn’t move, or speak, or try to get out of the way. He simply lay there, looking up at her. In the dimness, his light-famished pupils flared to twice their normal size, and forever afterwards, when she tried to recapture this moment, she remembered his eyes as black. Neither of them spoke. Slowly, she lowered the jug.
    The chink, as she set it down on the marble stand, seemed to release him. He reached out, closed his hand gently round her wrist, and pulled her down towards him.

Two
     
    Every window gaped wide, as if the house were gasping for breath. Barely visible above the trees, a small, hard, white sun threatened the heat to come. Mother’s precious lawn had turned yellow, with bald patches here and there where the cracked earth showed through.
    Elinor chased clumps of pale yellow scrambled egg around her plate. It was absolutely necessary that she should appear to eat, but so far she hadn’t managed to force one