The One Safe Place Read Online Free PDF Page A

large safety pin, and Darren thought he saw a new bruise on his chest. Above the cables of the neck, the old man's face looked like an elongated mask of perished whitish rubber, cracking at the forehead and too loose below the ears. Most of his remaining hair sprouted from his nose, and Darren knew without having to venture within reach that his grandfather's breaths would be sucking it in and out. He tiptoed to the end of the bed and squeezed the old man's feet hard.
    "Ow, you—" his grandfather wailed, and added something full of syllables, though it was mostly saliva that emerged. One hand groped over his chest and made him wince, then fumbled at the safety pin before eventually locating his eyes, which he flicked open with his nails. The eyes looked drowned. "Who is it?" he mumbled. "Are we there yet?"
    For a few seconds Darren only watched, queasily fascinated by what his grandfather might say or do next. When the eyes began to retreat behind their lids he said, "It's Darren, granda."
    "Dandy? Thought the Jerries got you."
    "Darren." The boy felt as though he was shouting to find himself. "Dee ay ar ee en."
    "Oh, Phil's lad." The old man had discovered one of his ears and cupped a hand behind it. He succeeded in focusing on Darren, but not for long. "Sending boys to fight Jerry now, are they? Expendable, that's us, and never even asked who we want to fight for. Sent soldiers to put down the workers, old Two Fingers did. At least Adolf wants to share the money round a bit and take it off them as shouldn't have so much." His eyes narrowed, squeezing trickles of moisture down the channels of his face. "Who did you say you was?"
    "Darren," the boy said, and had to repeat it again before his grandfather's suspicion died down. "You don't mind me hearing. You told me about the sergeant. Tell again, go on."
    "What bloody sergeant? What are you on about, lad?"
    "You know. The one you got killed when he kept picking on you."
    "Keep your voice down. You want your head seeing to, saying things like that about a man."
    "It's all right, granda, there's only us. You can tell."
    The old man rolled his eyes until he identified his surroundings or at least appeared satisfied with them, then began to push the quilt down and kick feebly at it. "Hey up, then. Get in so you can hear."
    "I can hear here."
    "Hear, hear and yoicks and tally-ho and chin, chin, old chap." What Darren presumed to be his grandfather's caricature of an officer was so savage that the last word turned into a racking cough, at the eventual end of which the old man wiped his cheeks and chin, not very accurately. "Scuttle off and let me try and sleep. I can't remember. It was just a tale."
    "It wasn't. You said." Darren felt betrayed. "He picked on you to go first in a minefield, remember, and you got these twigs in your hand."
    "Is that a fact? That was cute of me."
    "Yes, and it was dark, but you could see better than him, and you crawled along till you saw this mine on your left, then you stuck the twigs in the ground and pretended they was a mine you'd nearly bumped into, and you went along till you were nearly on top of the real mine and he couldn't see it because you were in the way. Tell what happened to him then."
    "Aye, I remember him. Eyes like a spaniel when you'd given her a good kicking. Come here first. Losing me voice. Can't speak up."
    The coughing did seem to have affected him. Darren didn't need to go too close; he knew all his grandfather's tricks. He took a step forward, clenching his buttocks, and a door crashed open downstairs. "Darren!"
    His grandfather dragged the quilt up. "What's that? Who's got in?"
    "It's only da. Your son, granda, Phil." Darren was trying to reassure himself too, but it didn't work. "Darren?" his father was yelling. "Where are you, you little fucker? What have you been up to? There's some cunt and her kid hanging round outside."
    "I heard him go in your da's room," his mother yelled.
    His father pounded up the stairs, and