Damascus Read Online Free PDF Page B

He should be more careful. Nothing lasted for ever, and William’s brother was always trying to sell the house, so it was only today that there was this. Tomorrow there might be something else entirely.
    â€˜I want to go out,’ William said. ‘And I want you to come with me.’
    â€˜Why?’
    ' Just in case.’
    â€˜Just in case what?’
    Just in case, in the absence of an overnight miracle, William stepped outside the front door and turned red in the face and found it hard to breathe and clutched his heart in his hands while he hyperventilated and his knees gave way, just like the last time and the time before that. Luckily, on both those occasions, Spencer had been there to save him, catch him, carry him back inside.
    Spencer pushed back his chair. He stood up and went looking through cupboards, ignoring packet soups and cornflakes and upended tins of beans, until he eventually found some loose teabags. He brought them back to the table. He dropped them into the pot.
    â€˜Look, William,’ he said. 'I’m sorry, but today’s not a good day. My niece Grace is coming for lunch. There are lots of things I have to do.’
    â€˜Let’s do them together.’
    â€˜There’s something urgent I have to do outside, by myself. I can’t afford to waste any time.’
    â€˜So why are you making more tea then?’
    William may have been more than twice Spencer’s age but he wasn’t born yesterday. In fact, Spencer was so absent this morning that he even went to fetch another mug down from the cupboard, the one with thick green and white bands which said
Glasgow Celtic Football Club
-
For Ever
.
    'I have a guest,’ Spencer said.
    Busying himself with the extra mug, re-filling the teapot, Spencer suddenly looked less tired, more eager for the day. And then it began to dawn on William, quite slowly at first, hardly believable in fact, until gradually the awful and obvious truth became increasingly clear to him.
    â€˜It’s a woman, isn’t it?’ he said, amazed. He rubbed his eyes. ‘It’s Jessica, isn’t it? I knew this would happen.’

    It is the first of November 1993 and somewhere in Britain, just outside Penarth or Holyhead or Dover, close to Redruth or Havant or Tenby, it’s the last day of the holidays and Spencer Kelly (12) wants to hold Hazel Burns (12) by the hand. This is the meaning of life. He wants to sit beside her on a sand dune and hold her hand and then kiss her. Just kissing, in a nice way, on her cheek perhaps and then a little bit at the top of her arms.
    The thought of it makes his chest and the corners of his mouth hurt, and this is happening right now, with the seaside wind in his hair and the seagulls wheeling above. If he can kiss her this once then he’ll always have kissed her, and everything which follows will be different. The sun will stay out and the wind will drop. His father won’t mind when he doesn’t practise his football, snooker, running, basketball for the end of century Olympics, because a kiss with Hazel Burns will be equally as good. It’ll be like the winning goal or try or run in the last and deciding game of the Carling Premiership or the Heineken League or the Sharjah trophy. It’s to be the one moment which instantly changes everything.
    Spencer and Hazel are out walking on the dunes, alone. Nobody knows where Philip is, but Mr and Mrs Kelly are playing bowls on the front (Mr Kelly 44 Mrs Kelly 9). Mr Burns has hired a small yacht and is sailing. Mrs Burns, not knowing when her husband will next have time for a holiday, is sitting in the bow of the boat scanning the horizon for storms. Rachel is on the beach teaching basic boxing stances to Olive, who only stopped reading when Hazel told her she’d better walk somewhere before she lost the use of her legs.
    â€˜Mummy said you had to look after me.’
    â€˜Mummy says lots of things.’
    â€˜You’re