The Hook Read Online Free PDF Page A

I’m just trying to be sensible. You haven’t got anyone else to talk to, you haven’t got Mum now, you must listen.’
    Christy swivelled her legs out and turned away. Maisie could clear it up, or it could stay there, she didn’t care.
    It was wet when Mick first came to the fish farm and Christy’s boots slipped and creaked through the closeness of rain on warm grass.
    â€˜Trout love the rain. I don’t know if they think it’s the thud of something to eat, or if they just like the sensation, but they jump more when it rains.’
    She led Mick to the edge and the surface shrank back from a rim of ink-soft mud before the next breath of water came in.
    â€˜It’s not tide, it’s more like an over-full bath. And the lake over there is for coarse fishing, bream and perch and pike and all that sort of thing.’ She pulled Mick round. ‘Come and look at the kinky clothes the fishermen wear. We only sell a few in the shop, but we’ve got loads of catalogues.’
    Christy liked this sensation of being in charge with Mick. Usually he did all the talking and decidedwhere they would go and when; he even ordered for her when they went to restaurants, and bought her drinks without asking what she wanted. The fish farm was her domain, Mick was less significant here than a maggot. She flicked her hair back and walked tall, proud of her efforts and her father’s achievement.
    Mick followed her into the office.
    â€˜This is a grand set-up, Christy, living off the fat of the land and all. You’re one of the privileged, you know. D’you ever think about that?’ He put down the filleting knife he’d been looking at and ran his hands through her hair, tilting her head back. Blue, nearly black, streaks of tiredness lay beneath his eyes; Christy saw her warped reflection stare back from his pupils. ‘Privileged,’ he murmured again, and his teeth were a fence in his mouth.
    Christy stepped away talking fast.
    â€˜You can fish any time. There’s no season for rainbow trout, only brown, and it started in April. I’ll give you a card like all the members here have.’ She picked up the filleting knife, her thumb juddering along the ice-thin blade.
    Mick clasped her hands in his.
    â€˜Don’t do that. You’ll be cutting yourself and I’m liable to pass out if I see blood.’ He was smiling now right back to his eyes, and Christy laughed over-long in relief. ‘Will you come and fish with me at the weekend? Show me where the big ones hang around so I can be in one of those record-breaking photographs.’ He gestured to a row of snapshots, each one featuringa fish like a massive eye held aloft by jubilant fishermen.
    â€˜I can’t, I’ll be working with Dad on Saturday.’ She licked her thumb tasting salt and blood where the knife had nicked her. ‘He can’t manage on his own and on Sunday we usually go to Mum’s grave.’
    Mick whistled mock awe.
    â€˜You’re a good girl, Christy. I can’t lead you astray, can I?’
    â€˜This is my job, and Dad doesn’t have anyone else now.’ Christy heard the note of apology in her voice and stopped. Looking round for something to do, she opened the door of the freezer and began to count trout, her fingers sticking to ice-powdered skin as she stacked them.
    She had told Mick about Jessica in a tight voice that hurtled out of her one night before he took her home. The moon warped green through the windscreen and she gazed ahead, keeping her profile to Mick. She could feel his eyes on her as she talked; he didn’t touch her, he didn’t move, he didn’t speak until she had finished and was waiting small and worn-out in her seat.
    â€˜You can trust me,’ was all he said.
    Christy didn’t know how long she spent leaning into the freezer rearranging fish barrelled like lead balloons. The rattle of the motor filled her head. In the