Every Seven Years Read Online Free PDF Page B

put
the mug down again, empty, I tell her that
my mum never said anything about that.
    She hums. It was a secret. They married
on the mainland, didn’t they, Tam. Tam?
Didn’t they? In secret. Tam gives her nothing
back and that makes her sort of
snicker. Because of their families, you
know. Because she had a lot of money and
houses coming to her and he had nothing.
Her family didn’t trust him. But, you
know, it didn’t work out and no kids so,
no harm done. They’re getting divorced
now. Aren’t we Tam? Tam? Tam, are you
not going to speak at all?
    Tam is so uncomfortable that he cannot
speak. He is eating biscuit after biscuit to
keep his face busy. He is doing a strange
thing with this head, not nodding or shaking
it but sort of jerking it sideways in a
noncommittal gesture.
    Karen frowns at him. She doesn’t understand.
She gives up trying and turns
her attention to me. So, what is going to
happen with your mum’s funeral?
    I tell her: I’m flying her out of there.
I’m taking her to London and I’m going
to have her cremated there. Karen says,
Wouldn’t it be easier to have her cremated
nearby and then take her to London?
    Tam came here to kill you, I say.
    Karen says do I want another biscuit?
    I actually wonder if I said that out loud
because she hasn’t reacted at all. But then
I look at Tam’s face and I know I did say it
out loud. Karen lifts the plate and offers
me another one, her face a perfect question:
biscuit? That’s how they do things on
the island.
    Tam stands up then, knocking his chair
over behind him. The sharp clatter on the
stone floor ricochets around the kitchen.
He turns to the door and walks out,
through the hall and out of the front door,
slamming it behind him. A skirl of wind
curls around our ankles.
    Apropos of nothing, Karen says to me,
This was Paki Harris’s house.
    I eat a biscuit and when I’ve finished I
say, I know.
    Karen nods. I don’t know if you ever
discussed him with your mum?
    No.
    She puts a hand on my hand and
cringes, tearful again. Do you know who
your father is, Else?
    We never discussed my father.
    Hm. Karen doesn’t know what she can
and can’t say.
    It just falls out of my London mouth:
You think Paki raped my mum and that’s
why she ran him over?
    Karen sighs. I don’t know, she says, I
don’t know what happened. Not for me to
know. But, Else, I think this house might
be yours.
    I don’t want it.
    It’s worth a bit of money—
    I don’t want it.
    Karen looks at me and I can see she’s
glad. She likes the house. She belongs here.
These are not sometimes houses.
    I was so mean to you when we were
young. I’m sorry.
    And I say, Oh! Forget it! because I’m
flustered.
    But she can’t. She’s been thinking about
it, a lot, she says. But she is really sorry. She
was jealous, because I was an incomer. It
seems so free to me back then, she says, to
not be part of all of this—
    Aren’t you worried, Karen? I blurt, Tam
invited me here to stab you in the neck!
Doesn’t that concern you? You’ve just let
him leave. Where’s he going?
    She looks fondly towards the front
door. Gone to get drunk, I think. It’s a
rough week. Our divorce is final tomorrow.
    And I understand finally. He wanted
her killed today so he could inherit this
house. And if I committed the murder I
couldn’t inherit from a woman I killed. It
would be his outright.
    I think he still has a thing about you.
    Really?
    Yeah.
    I don’t think so.
    Well, you’re wrong.
    I look at her and realize that she’s nice,
Karen. She’s not bitter. She is tied to this
place and always will be. She accepts what
it is to be from here and of here. There’s
no escape for Karen, not from my rapist
father’s house or from Tam who wanted
to kill her. She accepts where she is and
who she is and what had happened. She’s
like my mum. Karen is winning her