The Lost Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

all, but her Facebook feed. ‘What about her?’
    Miriam didn’t meet her gaze and instead delayed her response by sloshing milk into mugs. ‘Well, it’s just that I don’t want her to think you’re taking advantage by hanging around too much, that’s all. She is a guest you know, and it’s my job to make sure she has a good stay.’
    Brodie felt her face flush, ‘I’m not bothering her, she asked me to go yesterday, and she wants me to go round there today too. She’s going to show me how to draw. She’s an artist.’ She was bridling at the inference that she wasn’t wanted.
    Miriam poured the tea, ‘An artist? Well, that’s nice. As long as you’re sure she’s happy to have you around. Will you take this in to Esther and tell her I’ll be there with her breakfast in a minute?’
    Brodie scraped her chair backwards along the hard floor and stood slowly, hoping that both the noise and the gesture would demonstrate her reluctance. It was lost on Miriam who just passed her the sippy cup that Esther drank from. Brodie took it, her lip curling with distaste as she ventured into the sitting room.
    Esther sat as she always did in her chintz-covered chair, plucking and pinching at the arm cap as if something upon it profoundly offended her. Brodie found this incessant habit both repellent and irritating. The gesture suggested a contained malevolence, tempered only by the impotence of Esther’s condition. As Brodie approached, the old lady’s eyes flicked away from the cottage door, which she watched almost constantly. She appraised the black clad cuckoo with a withering look.
    Brodie skirted the chair with extreme caution and placed the tea on a side table. She whipped her hand away with whistle stop speed lest the old woman should reach out and grab her with her one functional, claw-like hand. It was hard work for her to suppress the shudder that threatened to reveal her fear of the woman.
    ‘Miriam says she’ll be in with your breakfast in a minute.’ It was statement for which she received a curt nod before Esther resumed her vigil of the door.
    Brodie struggled to imagine who would want to willingly visit the old lady. She had a fleeting mental image of the grim reaper, complete with scythe, popping in for tea. ‘We can live in hope’ she muttered cruelly under her breath.
    Once free of Miriam’s fussy ministrations she escaped into the garden. Breathing in the prospect of her few hours of freedom like a condemned man might relish his last meal, she walked towards the holiday let and tried to push away the niggling worries that begged her to contemplate her burgeoning attraction to Elaine. Perhaps she was looking for a mother figure? It wasn’t weird, she told herself, it really wasn’t. She just really liked her and she needed a friend, especially now. Elaine seemed like the first adult she had met who had time for her, who wasn’t more concerned with something – or someone – else. Even the social worker was always looking at her watch and willing Brodie’s time away
    She thought Elaine was pretty. She had merry eyes and dimples when she smiled. It made Brodie want to copy her and smile back, and that didn’t happen very often. If she were honest, the vast majority of people irritated the hell out of her, but she was drawn to Elaine and she had no real idea why.
    *
    Elaine lay on the grass, propped up on her elbows, watching the fascinating, prickly girl who sat cross-legged and diligent, quietly struggling to capture the essence of a tree with pencil and paper.
    ‘Relax, just let your mind guide your hand’ Elaine said, as the girl scowled and scrubbed at the paper yet again with her dwindling eraser.
    Brodie rolled her eyes, ‘It’s easy for you to say, you can do it.’ She pointed at the delicate drawing of a beech tree that Elaine had completed with a few strokes of her pencil.
    Elaine laughed, ‘Yes, but I couldn’t draw like that when I was fifteen. I had to go to college and