Creatures of the Pool Read Online Free PDF Page B

job.”
    “He’ll do,” says my father.
    “What job is that?” my mother asks Lucinda.
    “I’m in the central library.”
    “I used to work with books when there were more bookshops. Philip Son and Nephew. I was there for—” My mother’s wistfulness abruptly deserts her. “The library’s the council, isn’t it?” she realises aloud. “Careful what you say, Deryck.”
    “No need. I’m not a spy for them,” Lucinda says.
    My father’s impatience appears to have left the conversation behind some time ago. As soon as I straighten up with all the items I can risk carrying, he heads for the stairs. At the top he veers into the back bedroom. Around a desk bearing a computer, shelves and much of the floor are loaded with research. Last time I saw the room I was glad he was keeping his mind alive since his retirement, but now I’m seeing evidence of an obsession. “Put them anywhere there’s space,” he says and demonstrates, then lowers his voice. “Why’s she here?”
    I wonder if he means to hide his research from her—from any stranger. “Because I am.”
    “You’re stuck with her, you mean.”
    “I wouldn’t put it like that, no. Would you say you’re stuck with my mother?”
    “We’re both stuck with what we turn each other into,” he says and grimaces for silence as we hear footsteps on the stairs. He scowls downhill at the Collegiate, a Victorian Gothic building patched at the back with aggressively anonymous concrete. “There’s another place the city’s taken care of,” he complains. “Left it to rot till the arsonists got in. I’ve seen places on the stage look more real than that.”
    He pokes at the computer mouse with a plump stubby thumb, and his site fades into view on the monitor. It shows the oldest engraving of Liverpool, with a few dozen buildings clustered between the Castle and, closer to the river, St Nicholas’s Church. Just a couple of streets are distinguishable, leading virtually from the water’s edge to the wild slopes that rise to Everton and Edge Hill. The image dissolves into an engraving in which the streets have spread alongside the Mersey and the Castle has been ousted by a church above a dock that extends a pier into the river. The pier and most of the buildings apart from the church of St Nicholas fade away, erased by a photograph of the familiar waterfront around the Liver Building and its gigantic tethered birds, and then the skyline starts to crumble. In a few seconds only a wasteland remains, from which question marks rise like huge serpents slithering out of the earth.
    I have to be impressed by my father’s computer skills, which are certainly in advance of mine. We’re still on the home page when my mother and Lucinda look into the room. “We thought we’d bring you boys your tea,” my mother says, then notices the display on the screen. “If they’re going to play with their toys we’ll go down again, shall we? It’s a long time since I’ve had a really good chat about books with someone who knows about them.”
    “Is that your site, Deryck?” Lucinda says, handing me one of the four Don’t Knock the Dock mugs. “I’ve been wanting to see what was on it.”
    “Why?” says my father. “Watch where you’re putting that, Gill.” He moves his mug away from the keyboard and squints over his shoulder at Lucinda. “Where’d you hear about it?”
    “Gavin told me.”
    “You’ve been advertising it wherever you ride,” I point out to him.
    “I’ve got to change it after the stuff I’ve been finding out lately,” he says and presses his lips wide and almost grey as if he thinks he’s said too much.
    “Will it be a bit more balanced?” my mother hopes aloud.
    Perhaps he thinks that she’s suggesting he’s the opposite. As he continues to mum, invisible fingertips try the window beyond the computer—rain does, at any rate. It lets Lucinda change the subject as she gazes downhill under the blackened sky. “Do you think they