Hungry Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

me up when you've been home for the van.'
    'Just as you like,' Benedict said in a tone that implied they should leave the women to themselves. His footsteps faded, sounding thin and prim, and then Craig tried to intervene. 'I know you didn't mean to hurt your mother, Hazel. We both realize you've got to be yourself, we've no right to try and keep you the way we'd have liked you to be, but at least you might leave us our illusions about ourselves.'
    Hazel grabbed his hand and Vera's. 'You're the two people I most care about in the world. I only say these things because I worry about you.'
    'No need to,' Craig said. 'If there's a God he can hardly blame us for not being equipped to believe in Him.' Both women looked reproachfully at him, and he resented feeling glad when Benedict came back.
    As soon as he was in the van, which was piled with tools and new timber, Craig said, 'So what did you want to talk to me about?'
    Benedict turned the key again as the engine sputtered. 'I thought you might like to see how I look after my customers. I hope you'll agree we deserve to succeed.'
    'Meaning,' Craig said as the van lurched forward, 'you're not doing as well as you think you deserve to.'
    'We could be doing better. We would be if I hadn't been landed with those alarms in lieu of payment when the firm was going bankrupt. I just need to liven business up, get myself a new van, smarten up our advertising, maybe employ someone part-time to deal with the work I'm not perfect at. I've worked out the initial costs. They wouldn't be outrageous.'
    'I hope your bank manager agrees with you.'
    'To be honest, he wasn't very encouraging. We owe the bank some money, unfortunately.'
    He halted the van at the end of the village. 'Then what do you propose to do?' Craig said.
    ‘I was rather wondering if you and Vera might be able to help.'
    'Able, possibly. What had you in mind?'
    'Three thousand would be ample to put the business back on its feet, and twice that would pay off the bank as well. We're talking about a short-term loan, you understand. I'm sure we'd be able to pay most, if not all, of it back by the end of the year.'
    'I can't comment until I've talked to Vera. I shouldn't raise your hopes too high if I were you,' Craig said as they climbed down from the van.
    The booksellers looked as if they'd been ready for bed. 'This is my father-in-law,' Benedict said, which didn't seem to please them much. They led the way into the bookshop, and Benedict snapped open the microcomputer that controlled the alarm system. 'Just as I thought, this is what you did wrong,' he said, and demonstrated with exaggerated patience. On the way out he stopped in front of a bookcase. 'Oh, have you fixed it? I would have done that for you,' he said peevishly.
    'Business is business,' he said as he restarted the van, 'but I do wish I could afford not to work for such people. Did you see what they'd put where the altar should be? A table full of books about superstition. Perhaps you don't think there's any difference.'
    Craig gave a noncommittal murmur as Benedict drove back to the hotel. The women had already left. 'Do remember I'm not asking for the money purely for myself,' Benedict said on the way to the cottage, mist drifting across the deserted main street into the headlights.
    Vera had gone to bed, and was asleep. Craig found that he'd wanted to talk, and felt lonely. He lay beside her, feeling the aches start in his bones, trying to fall asleep before their nagging prevented him. A stab of pain in his left calf brought him lurching awake, gasping. The plunge into sleep had felt like his fall into the disused mineshaft, his boyhood fall that was always waiting in his dreams when he was nervous. He peered at the room as moonbeams probed the curtains. He closed his eyes and drifted until an impression startled him. In the hotel restaurant he'd thought fleetingly that the diners didn't just all know one another. The feeling lingered that they all knew something