Her Fearful Symmetry Read Online Free PDF Page A

checked her watch. By now Martin must have found her letter. She took her mobile phone out of her bag and opened it. No calls. She snapped it shut. The rain streaked sideways across the train’s windows.
What have I done? I’m sorry, Martin.
But she knew she would not be sorry once she was home, and only Amsterdam could be home to her now.
     

February
    R
OBERT HAD given a special tour of the Western Cemetery to a group of antiquarians from Hamburg, and now he stood under the arch by Highgate Cemetery’s main gate, waiting for his group to buy postcards and collect their belongings so he could shoo them out and lock up. In the winter there were no regular weekday tours. He liked the subdued, workaday quality the cemetery had on these quiet days.
    The antiquarians straggled out of the former Anglican chapel that served as a makeshift gift shop. Robert shook the green plastic donation box at them, and they threw in their change. He always felt embarrassed at this little transaction, but the cemetery didn’t pay VAT on donations, so everyone at Highgate begged as enthusiastically as they could manage. Robert smiled and waved the Germans out, then turned the old-fashioned key in the massive gate’s lock.
    He went into the office and put the key and the donation box on the desk. Felicity, the office manager, smiled and dumped out the contents. “Not bad, for such a dreary Wednesday,” she said. She held out her hand. “Walkie-talkie?”
    Robert patted his mackintosh pocket and said, “I’ll bring it back.”
     
    “Are you going out, then?” Felicity asked. “It’s starting to rain.”
    “Just for a bit.”
    “Molly’s on the gate across the way. Could you give her these?”
    “Okay.”
    Robert took the pamphlets from Felicity and an umbrella from the stand by the stairs. He headed across Swains Lane. Molly, a lean elderly woman who wore green dungarees and an anorak, sat on a folding chair inside the Strathcona and Mount Royal memorial, which lurked in pink granite splendour just beside the Eastern Cemetery’s gate. She peered out of the gloom patiently and took the pamphlets from Robert, tucking them into the little rack that sat beside her. The pamphlets featured Karl Marx on their covers; he and George Eliot were the star attractions among the dead on this side of the cemetery.
    “D’you want to go in and warm up?” Robert asked her.
    Molly’s voice was slow, raspy, sleepy; she had a slight Australian accent. “I’m all right, I’ve got the heater on. Have you had your visit?”
    “No, I just got done with the tour.”
    “Well go on, then.”
    As he recrossed Swains Lane, Robert thought about the way Molly had said “your visit” as though it were now part of the official daily schedule of the cemetery. Perhaps it was. He thought about the way the staff had made space for his grief as if it were a tangible thing. Out in the world people drew back from it, but at the cemetery everyone was accustomed to the presence of the bereaved, and so they were matter-of-fact about death in a way that Robert had never appreciated until now.
    The drizzle turned to rain as Robert came to Elspeth’s mausoleum. He put up his umbrella with a flourish and sat down on the steps with his back against the door. Robert leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Less than an hour ago he had walked right past this spot with his tour. He had been chatting to the group about wakes and the extreme measures the Victorians had taken for fear of being buried alive. He wished that the Noblin tomb was not on one of the main paths; it was impossible to give a tour without passing Elspeth, and he felt callous leading groups of gawking tourists past the small structure with her surname carved into it. It had never bothered him when it was only her family’s grave-but he had never met her family. For the first time he properly understood why Jessica was so adamant about decorum in the cemetery. He had been inclined to tease her about