The Fantastic Book of Everybody's Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page B

evening, staring at her computer screen, but she cannot work, cannot concentrate on her own words. She avoids all her friends and relatives apart from Olga. Olga she sees much more often than she normally would, and Olga’s husband Danny. So far the subject of Sol has not come up. She both wants and doesn’t want it to. She would love it if Olga one day told her that Sol had maimed several of the people he’d done work for. Then she could feel lucky. But she would hate it if Olga complimented him, orsaid how well she got on with him, how mild-mannered and charming he was.
    For two months, nothing is said that is of any interest to her, either positive or negative. Then one day she is at Olga’s house at the same time as Olga’s sister Eve. Eve is leafing through a hard-covered notebook, laughing. Olga and Danny are talking about the company that has been given a government mandate to manufacture the smallpox vaccine; they are debating its competence. Eve interrupts with a question: ‘Who’s Sol Barber?’
    Her heart bucks, like a horse before a wall of flame. ‘Sol?’ she says casually.
    â€˜Our joiner,’ says Olga, gesturing around the room. ‘All of ours. Why? Oh!’
    â€˜He wasn’t at your wedding, was he?’ says Eve.
    â€˜No,’ says Olga. ‘He must have found that once when he was working here, and added his own contribution.’
    Eve frowns. ‘Isn’t that a bit odd?’
    â€˜I suppose. Still, he obviously meant well. It’s a nice thing to write.’
    â€˜Can I see?’ she asks, extending her hand.
    Eve shrugs and hands her the notebook. She recognises it as the one that was circulated at Olga and Danny’s wedding reception, for well-wishers to write messages in. She remembers that she wrote, ‘It’s a grand life if you don’t weaken’ – one of her grandfather’s favourite mottos. Not very suitable for a wedding, but she isn’t good at gushing exclamations. She told Olga so at the time and Olga said she understood, that it was a good slogan.
    She turns to the last page. Sol has signed and dated his addition. The date is six years after the day of the wedding. Above his spiky signature, he has written,
    Here in the world, anger is never pacified by anger.
    It is pacified by love. This is the eternal truth.
    Happy indeed we live, friendly amid the haters.
    Among men who hate, we dwell free from hate.
    (Dhammapada, ‘The Way of Truth’)
    â€˜I call that vandalising our private property,’ says Danny. ‘I wanted to sack him, but…’
    â€˜â€¦but we’d have been left with only half a wardrobe.’ Olga laughs. ‘Anyway, I think it’s sweet.’
    â€˜I didn’t know he was a Buddhist,’ she says. Her mind struggles with the impossibility of it. Four months before he attacked her, this was what he chose to write. How can the inconsistency not have occurred to him?
    â€˜He isn’t, as far as I know,’ says Olga. ‘Maybe he just thought it was a nice idea. Which it is. He’s done pretty well, considering.’
    â€˜Considering what?’ she says. This is why she has been skulking at Olga’s house for the past two months, for this moment.
    â€˜Well, you know. His background.’
    â€˜What about it?’
    Olga’s eyes widen. ‘You don’t know?’
    â€˜Another good reason to sack the bugger, far as I was concerned,’ Danny grumbles.
    â€˜His father’s in prison for manslaughter.’
    â€˜Really?’ says Eve. She smiles in a detached sort of way.
    â€˜Yup. He was a…what do you call it? Bailiff? He frightened money out of people for a living.’
    â€˜A debt collector,’ says Eve.
    â€˜Beat them up if they couldn’t pay. One of his beatings went a bit too far – the bloke died.’
    â€˜That’s one way to avoid paying your debts,’ Danny quips. No one