The Hook Read Online Free PDF

bone-white gloom she reached deep into frost flakes for submerged fish, her arms chilling, each movement awkward. Finally she pushed herself back out into daylight and shut the door, skin flaring tightlike blown glass in the warmth of the shop, ears humming as they thawed.
    Mick hugged her, laughing.
    â€˜I’ve been trying to keep some kind of conversation going with your back while you were in there, and I thought it was getting somewhere, but you couldn’t hear me, could you? I was asking if I could come to your mother’s grave with you.’
    She knocked over a pyramid of fishing stools by the door, confused and slowed with cold. There was too much of Mick in this cluttered shop, leaning over her, taking a step further into her life.
    â€˜Yes, if you like, you can come this Sunday. We always go late in the morning.’
    A voice within her which she could not allow herself to recognise said: Thank God she’s dead. She would like him, all right, but not for me, she couldn’t bear me to have someone like him.

Chapter 3
    When she was a child Frank gave Christy things and Jessica took them away. Not always the same things, although there had been a rabbit, briefly. Frank brought it back from an auction as a present for the children. Christy knew it would be hers really because Danny was too small to look after it and Maisie didn’t like animals, she liked Barbie and Ken. The rabbit only stayed a day, long enough for Christy to name it Felt and tell her friends at school.
    When she came home, dropped off by a neighbour because it was Thursday and Jessica didn’t do the school run, Felt had gone. Christy didn’t like Thursday anyway. Jessica called it her day off. Usually she wasn’t there when they came home and Mrs Edge the cleaning lady made them tea. Jessica would arrive while they were sitting at the kitchen table and she always went up to her bedroom and changed before saying hello to the children. This Thursday she was at home to meet them and Christy ran to hug her firstbefore Maisie and Danny could reach her. But when Christy skipped into the garden to look at her rabbit, the hutch door was open and every sign of Felt had vanished. The hutch gaped dark and clean; Christy looked under it, shouting as she squatted.
    â€˜Mummy, quick. Where’s Felt? The dogs will get him.’ She careered across the small lawn, stopping and turning, desperate to find him.
    Jessica came out and knelt in front of her, holding her arms still for a moment.
    â€˜He’s gone, darling. He had to go. We can’t have a rabbit here. I’ve got enough to do.’
    Christy stared at her mother in disbelief then pulled herself away. She ran to the hutch and bent over it sobbing. Danny pottered across to her and patted her with his small warm hands. Jessica tried to hug Christy and was met with brittle outrage.
    â€˜You can’t possibly mind. You haven’t had time to get fond of the rabbit. That’s why I did it quickly. We couldn’t keep it, not with the dogs and everything I have to do already. It would have been me who looked after it. It always is.’
    Frank came home with a Peter Rabbit bowl to feed Felt from. He called Christy to take it out to her pet and when she told him the rabbit had gone he pinched the bridge of his nose hard and rubbed his eyes. Jessica sailed on through her day, bathing her children, cooking Frank’s supper, pretending not to hear Christy crying in Frank’s arms in the sitting room.
    When Frank tried to talk to her she spun round taut and stinging as a whip.
    â€˜I’m not going to discuss the matter any further. The rabbit has gone. You should never have bought it without consulting me first and the sooner everyone stops thinking about it the better.’ She sighed, smoothing her hands down the front of her dress, rubbing out the creases. ‘There is no point in making this fuss.’
    Christy could not bear to see her