The Miracle Inspector Read Online Free PDF

seemed unimaginable that there was once air travel, freely available to all. You turned up at an airport, climbed aboard a plane, strapped yourself in and in a few hours you were there, all the way at the other side of the world, where you could explore and wander at will. Now, the paperwork alone would take longer than the flight. But anyway, there were no flights to be had because of terrorism.
    There were still ships, trains, cars. But few countries allowed visitors by those routes because of what they might bring: terrorism, disease, unpleasant ideas. He imagined going to Australia and inadvertently infecting that beautiful, happy, liberal country with his ideas. He imagined somehow managing to get on to a ship and arriving in Australia and then spoiling it all by doing to a woman what he had wanted to do to Joanna Jones. He had behaved despicably. He had frightened her.
    ‘Lucas? What are you looking for in there? You want something to eat?’
    Maybe Angela was frightened of him. She was worried because he was looking in the cupboard and she thought he couldn’t find the Marmite or something. Maybe she didn’t have sex with him to pass the time. She had sex with him because he was her husband and she was frightened of him. She did it to please him. She did it because when the women sat around in the women’s groups and talked about what life was like, she realised that other women’s husbands beat them. She did it not because he had blue eyes and she fancied him rotten, nor even because she was bored and she wanted to pass the time. She did it because she was frightened of him.
    ‘Lucas? Should I cook you something?’
    ‘Don’t you want to be something more than a housewife, cooking for me?’
    She was hurt by that, though she tried not to let him see it. He’d assumed that men were more intelligent than women but then he’d never been forced by law to sit around the house all day waiting for something to happen. If the incarceration didn’t make you stupid, it would certainly make you cautious. You wouldn’t want to reveal that you knew anything. You wouldn’t want to invite criticism or do anything that would invite a beating. Maybe women just seemed stupid. He had hurt two women in one day and it made him feel guilty and depressed.
    She said, ‘You want to go upstairs? Let’s go up and have a cuddle.’
    ‘I’ll have a shower. I’ll be up later, OK?’
    Was that the first time he’d ever turned her down? He couldn’t remember another time. He went into the bathroom. He took off his clothes, he ran the water. He soaped all over his body. He washed his hair with the shampoo. He conditioned his hair. He thought about Joanna Jones bending over, water running down over her plump little bottom and dripping down her thighs. He thought about all the various possibilities that would be available to him if she were here now, blushing and bending over. He washed himself off with the soap and then he turned the shower water to cold for the last half a minute.
    He went into the bedroom in his towel. Angela was lying on the bed reading something. She closed it and tucked it under the bed as he came in. He hadn’t known she kept a journal. Not that he minded.
    She was in her dressing gown with nothing underneath. She turned to look at him. She smiled at him.
    ‘You look better,’ she said.
    ‘You don’t look so bad yourself.’
    He threw the towel on the floor and jumped on her. She was warm and his skin was cold. She shivered and giggled and grabbed hold of him. He made love to her. He realised how much he loved her. He told her, over and over, ‘I love you, Angela.’ He really meant it. She meant everything to him.
    Afterwards he heated up a pizza and made them a salad and they shared a bottle of wine and they lay in bed and watched TV – one of those nature programmes Angela liked because she said it made her glad she wasn’t a puma or a lion, having to struggle just to survive.

Chapter Six ~