The Kind Folk Read Online Free PDF Page B

room, they look not merely new but unused. The house begins to reverberate with the passing of another train, and Luke imagines the vibration is troubling the flimsy doors in the wall; he could almost fancy they're about to be flung wide to reveal a face. Maurice always seemed to think that Terence indulged his own imagination, and at the moment Luke could think he's right that you can have too much.
    He finds several days' worth of utensils and plates trying to lie low under the opaque water in the dingy metal sink. He hauls at the unpleasantly slimy chain to clear the plughole, which gurgles as if it's trying to imitate a chuckle without much of a throat while he sluices the unwashed items and consigns them to the draining-board. The window above the sink overlooks the yard, such as it is—a cracked concrete rectangle under the arch, occupied by bins and a few scrawny unsunned plants in boxes of soil. A wall about ten feet high, fanged with broken glass, bricks up the far side of the arch, where a door scaly with old paint is secured with a massive padlock. There's nothing in the kitchen to detain Luke, least of all the sight of an empty tin poking its round mouth out of the pedal bin and drooping the outsize lip of its lid.
    Another train goes over as he climbs the stairs, and he thinks the chipped banister trembles under his hand. He hurries upstairs into the insubstantial mass of sound, which feels as if it's accumulating in his brain. As he shoves the bathroom door open, an object with not much of a shape slithers to the floor. It's a ragged towel that he has dislodged from the rail on the wall.
    There's another movement, as soundless as it's violent—the struggles of a large black fly in a half-drunk mug of coffee beside the sink. Luke wouldn't bother venturing into the room except to identify the pillbox in the cabinet, which is ajar. When he slides the mirrored door aside, losing his reflection that's infected with a rash of spatters of toothpaste, he's dismayed to see how many medicines Terence was prescribed for high blood pressure and a heart condition. Both shower curtains have been tugged loose from several of their hooks, but Luke needn't imagine Terence wrenching them apart, having fancied that he heard an intruder in the house.
    His bedroom does suggest that kind of mental state. The quilt has flopped on the carpet, and the sheet has pulled free of the mattress; it's so crumpled that it could be describing the chaos of a nightmare. Clothes crouch on a chair at the foot of the bed. One door of the wardrobe is open, revealing suits and shirts lined up like images of Terence squashed lifeless—incomplete cut-out representations of him. They remind Luke of a story Terence used to tell, about an orphaned shadow that made its lair among clothes in wardrobes. Only one room is left—the front bedroom—and Luke pushes the door wide.
    The curtains are shut tight, which has to mean the figure he saw at the window was indeed a reflection, if he needed any proof. Although whatever colour they once possessed has faded pale as fear, they still darken the room, and he has to take care not to tread on the objects that clutter the floor. When he takes hold of the curtains the heavy fabric seems to stir in his hands; he could fancy that he has roused handfuls of parasites—encouraged them to hatch, perhaps. In a moment the sensation evaporates like the memory of a dream, and he drags the curtains as far as they will stagger on the rusty rail.
    He isn't prepared for the view from the window. Beyond the terrace opposite he can see the road bridge. Cars are racing past and, worse, over the spot where Terence's heart attack halted the van. Luke imagines the tyres rubbing out traces of the man he knew as his uncle, and he feels as though the loss has caught up with him at last, gouging a hollow at the core of him. He can't help hoping to find a keepsake as he turns to the room.
    A small desk stands in the nearest corner, hidden