The Devil's Music Read Online Free PDF

the shingle banks appear more uniform in colour, predominately orange-brown. The stones are glistening wet and slide beneath my weight. Smaller stones, like gravel, roll and bounce down the slope. I focus on the crunching sideways slip of each step. Unable to look across the sand towards the horizon, I can walk parallel to it.
        The sea has sculpted the shingle banks into curves and scoops. I will collect the smooth black pebbles. They warm in my hands and lend a weight to my pockets as I clamber over the rough wooden breakwaters. The breeze invigorates. Perhaps, after all, this will be all right.
        I tramp for a while then, testing my courage, lift the binoculars and look up. Careful to keep the blue arc of sky in my circle of vision, I move the binoculars steadily downwards until I find the smudged line of purple. The horizon: that distant place which both does and does not exist. Sunlight catches on the slow roll of a distant wave and throws into sharp relief the shadowy underside of its curl. Two flocks of Calidris canutus , Canute’s favourite bird, perform their characteristic aerobatics. One flock shows the dark plumage of their upper parts, the other forms a loose diamond of white as they turn and reveal their silvery undercarriage. Towards the mudflats another dense flock is feeding, long bills plugging in and out. Their continuous low twitter sounds close, intimate. A woman in a bulky waxed jacket and wellingtons is striding across the mudflats. She’s tall. Long, slender legs. I glance at my watch; time to head back.
     
    Muffled thumps and shrieks come from the caravan. The boys must be up.
        The twins are wearing nappies and vests. They bare their teeth and roar at me from under the table, scratching at each other with clawed fingers. They chase around the caravan, waving bits of toast and jam. The caravan rocks. I stand in the doorway, reluctant to step inside.
        ‘Why are you here again?’ the biggest kid asks, peering sideways at me up through his blond fringe.
        ‘Andy, sit down. I know you don’t like to be inside for more than five minutes, but you haven’t stopped fidgeting.’
        Susie’s hair is shoved back behind her ears. She’s surrounded by towers of folded bedding, miniature pairs of jeans and T-shirts, piles of what looks like shiny wads of folded plastic. Disposable nappies, I guess. Her voice strains, bright and brittle, above the kids’ noise. Her tea has skinned over. Her egg sits untouched in its egg cup. Now she’s crying again, leaning her forehead on one hand, face hidden in a scrunched-up tea towel. Her other hand, nails bitten, cuticles ragged, lies on the narrow table amongst a collection of multicoloured socks neatly sorted and rolled into pairs. How can she stand all this?
        When she was about six, Susie used to press straight lines into the sleeves of her bottle-green school jumper. Every Sunday. The way our mother had done. And she pinned back her fringe with a round plastic slide. It irritated the hell out of me, the way that slide dragged down because it was too chunky for her thin hair. She was always fiddling to get it just right.
        Susie’s still in the tea towel. Buses and Beefeaters. I slide in beside her at the rickety table and contemplate putting a hand over hers. Instead, I dig a teaspoon into the sugar and load it.
        ‘Susie.’ Crystals tumble over each other. I tip the spoon. Sugar sprinkles from the edge of the spoon back into the bowl. ‘I shouldn’t have come.’
        ‘What?’ She lifts her face from the tea towel. It’s a mess, bloated and wet. ‘Aren’t you going to help me?’
        I can’t imagine why she might need my help. I get up to cut myself a slice of bread and open the caravan door wide. The biggest boy tumbles out on to the wet grass. Susie seems not to notice. Getting to his feet, he stands with a hand shoved down the front of his pyjama bottoms, clutching his willy.
        Susie has