The Boy Under the Table Read Online Free PDF

the thought of that man being the boy’s father. If the boy belonged to someone else, if the man had taken what was not his to take, then where had he found the boy? And what did he want him for? He told her it was good to ‘feel a woman’s lips’ so whose lips had he been feeling?
    ‘Jesus Fuck,’ said Tina out aloud. The food rose in her stomach and she sucked heavily on the cigarette to keep the burgers where they belonged. She finished her cigarette without having to go outside. Arik was a good bloke. He knew how cold it was. She could imagine him looking up from his desk at the back and sighing in frustration at the thin curl of cigarette smoke filling his store. She was sure he would have kicked anyone else out.
    He had a wife and two little girls at home and he told Tina to go home every time he saw her.
    ‘You don’t belong here, Tina. You know things can only get worse. Go back home, go back to school. Do something else with your life.’
    Arik was studying to be a lawyer. He had plans. One day he would have a house in the suburbs and drive one of those cars that made you smile every time you got into it. One day his wife wouldn’t be cleaning other people’s houses while she took care of her kids and tried to study to be a teacher.
    Arik had a lot of one days in his future.
    He was a lot older than Tina, but when she listened to him talk Tina felt like a grandparent listening to an eager child. She didn’t have the heart to tell him what could happen to his dream life in the suburbs. All those painted fences and electric garage doors hid a lot of the same things you saw on the streets in the Cross. Just because the package was beautifully wrapped didn’t mean it wasn’t still full of shit.
    Tina never planned beyond that day, that hour, that minute. What for?
    The boy’s face drifted across her mind again. He couldn’t have been more than nine.
    Timmy had been eight, but he was a big eight. At least, he had been a big eight. He was really small towards the end. Just skin stretched over bones really.
    ‘This is my daughter Christina and my son Timothy,’ her mother had said.
    ‘Tim and Tina,’ laughed the man who they would come to know as Jack. Jack the do-gooder. Jack the Christian. Jack the substitute daddy.
    He thought a few months at church would turn them right back into a real family.
    A few sermons would make them forget everything that had happened before he arrived. It was almost funny. Some adults never grew up. They stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus but they held on to the idea of a kindly old man looking down from the clouds.
    Tina found it easier to believe in the Tooth Fairy. At least she performed a simple economic transaction. Your teeth for money. Easy.
    She wasn’t sure exactly what a belief in the kindly man in the sky got you. Her mother and Jack had prayed every night, begging for Tim to be saved. Jack believed, really believed right up to the end, that Tim would pull through.
    Tina watched her brother shrink and knew better. All she could hold on to was the anger that warmed her. It was still there right in the churning pit of her stomach. Nothing would ever make it go away.
    Tina hated Jack from day one even though he was good to Tim when he got sick.
    Jack hated her back. He wanted her to be something she couldn’t be.
    God wants us to keep our language pure, Christina. You do not need to use such profanity.
    It’s Tina, said Tina. Just Tina.
    You carry the name of our Lord, Christina. He was sent to save us. You should thank God every day for sending Him. God wants your gratitude. God wants us to humble ourselves before Him, Christina. You must pray on your knees. God wants you to attend church so that you may hear His glory, Christina. God wants, Christina, God wants.
    Fuck what God wants , Tina thought but she had chosen to keep silent in front of Jack. Her mother smiled at Jack and her mother laughed at Jack and her mother prayed with Jack. Her