The Taste of Apple Seeds Read Online Free PDF Page B

Don’t faint now, I told myself; it was a narrow jetty, I would drown.
    “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. Please excuse me, please.”
    I knew that voice. The whooshing got quieter. In front of me stood the young lawyer in his tennis gear; I was so angry I could have been sick. Mira’s dim-witted younger brother, what was it they used to call him?
    “Oh, it’s the Wimp!” I tried to sound calm.
    “I know, I frightened you and I’m really sorry.” His voice became steadier and I could hear a spark of irritation in it. That was fine. I looked at him and said nothing. “I didn’t follow you or anything like that—I always come here to swim. First I play tennis, you see, and then I go for a swim; my partner never comes, but I’m always here on the jetty; I didn’t see you until I got down here and then I saw you were sleeping and was about to go again, but you grabbed my trainer—of course you didn’t know it was my trainer, but even if you had I wouldn’t have held it against you because, after all, it was me who frightened you, and now . . .”
    “My God, do you always go on like that? Even in the courtroom? Have you really got a permanent job with that law firm?”
    Mira’s brother laughed. “Iris Berger. I was only ever the Wimp to you lot, and it doesn’t look as if that’s ever going to change.”
    “I suppose not.”
    I bent down and reached for my basket. Even though Mira’s brother had a nice laugh I was still furious. I was also hungry, and I wanted to be alone and not have to talk. And no doubt he wanted to talk about the will, what I was planning to do with the house, and tell me that I should have it insured and about everything in store for me when the will came through. But I didn’t want to talk about it now, didn’t even want to think about it.
    When I stood up again, basket in hand and mentally composed to give my great speech, I was surprised to see that Mira’s brother had already trudged halfway up the embankment. He trod heavily up the slope. I smiled.
    There were patches of red sand on the right shoulder of his white T-shirt.
    After the picnic I tidied everything away into the basket, took a final glance at the river, the lock, the boats; the second one had moved a little, but I still couldn’t make out the whole name—something ending in “-ethe,” Margarethe maybe, that was a good name for a boat. I climbed onto Hinnerk’s bike and rode back to the house. To my house. How did that sound? Weird, and fake somehow. The wind blew snatches of a chiming bell across the pasture but I couldn’t hear how late it was. It felt like early afternoon, one or two o’clock, maybe later. The sun, food, anger and fright, and now the head-on wind made me tired. After the petrol station I turned onto the pavement, then dismounted on the drive. I hadn’t locked the gate, and I waded through the forget-me-nots and leaned the bike by the kitchen door. I let myself in with the large key. A brass clanking, another brass clanking, and then I was in the cool hallway. The stairs groaned, the banisters moaned, it was hot and sticky below the roof. I threw myself onto my mother’s bed; why had it been freshly made? A purple pillow twinkled beneath the broderie anglaise. The holes were flowers. Holes in the pillow. The point of broderie anglaise was what wasn’t there. That was the art of it. If there were too many holes, there would be nothing left. Holes in the pillow, holes in the head.
    When I woke up, my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. I staggered through the left-hand door into Aunt Inga’s room, which had a washbasin; brackish brown water spluttered petulantly into the white sink. In the mirror I looked at the pattern the pillow cover had made on my cheek: red rings. Gradually the water flowed more evenly, slowly getting clearer. I splashed water onto my face, took off my sweaty clothes—dress, bra, knickers, everything—and enjoyed standing there naked in Aunt Inga’s room, the