This Must Be the Place Read Online Free PDF

touch.
    The bony Botticelli bent down, picked up some kind of wrench and brandished it at me. ‘Hold it right there!’ she shouted.
    I stopped in my tracks. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, and almost followed this with, I come in peace , but stopped myself just in time; might I be just a little bit stoned still? It was possible. ‘I mean you no harm.’
    ‘Don’t come any closer!’ she yelled, waving the wrench. Jesus, the woman was jumpy.
    ‘It’s OK,’ I said soothingly, holding up my hands. ‘I’ll stay right here.’
    ‘Who are you? What do you want?’
    ‘I just met the kid out on the road. He said you had a flat tyre and I came to see if I could help. That’s all. I—’
    She half turned, still keeping her eyes on me, and let off a long speech, to the kid, in French. Ari replied and I noticed that he didn’t seem to stammer in French. Interesting, I caught myself observing. Non , Ari kept saying, in a slightly exasperated tone. Non, Maman, non .
    ‘How did you find me?’ she shouted.
    ‘Huh?’
    ‘Who sent you?’
    ‘What?’ I was confused now. We seemed to be stuck in a bad spy novel. ‘No one.’
    ‘I don’t believe you. Somebody’s put you up to this. Who is it? Who knows I’m here?’
    ‘Look,’ I said, fed up now, ‘I have no idea what you’re … I was just passing and I saw a kid all on his own at the side of the road and I stopped to see if he was OK. He mentioned the flat and I thought I’d come see if you needed any help. By the looks of things,’ I gestured towards the van, ‘you’ve got it covered so I’ll head off.’ I raised my hand. ‘You have a good day.’ I turned to the kid. ‘Goodbye, Ari. It was nice meeting you.’
    ‘G–’ he tried, ‘g-g-g—’
    I looked him in the eye. ‘You know what you can do if you get tripped up by the first letter of a word?’
    Ari looked at me, with the trapped, ashamed gaze of a stutterer.
    ‘Substitute something easier, something that launches you off on a different sound. I’ll bet,’ I said, ‘that a smart boy like you can think of lots of other ways to say “goodbye”.’
    I turned and headed off down the track.
    Behind me, Ari shouted, ‘See you!’
    ‘Perfect,’ I threw back over my shoulder.
    ‘ Hasta la vista! ’ he shrieked, jumping up and down.
    ‘You got it,’ I said.
    ‘So long!’
    I turned and waved. ‘Take care.’
    ‘Au revoir!’
    ‘Adios.’
    I got around the first bend before I heard feet behind me. ‘Hey!’ she called. ‘Hey, you.’
    I stopped. ‘Are you coming after me with your monkey wrench? Should I be scared?’
    ‘What’s that you’re carrying? Is it a camera? I know it’s a camera. I want you to take it out and remove the film, here, in front of me, so that I can see you do it.’
    I stared at her. My main thought was for Ari: should he really be living with someone so totally loco? No wonder the kid had challenges with verbal fluency, living with a mother suffering such extremes of paranoia, such delusions, such fears. A camera? Remove the film? Just for a moment, though, as we looked at each other, something flickered across her face that seemed familiar: the slight dipping of her eyebrows into a frown. I’d seen that expression before. Hadn’t I? Did I know this woman? A disconcerting notion, when you’re in the middle of nowhere, thousands of miles from home.
    ‘Is it a camera?’ she insisted, pointing at my hands.
    I looked down and saw, to my surprise, that I was holding Grandpa’s taped box. I must have reached for it as I got out of the car. He’d always liked a little air, had Grandpa.
    ‘It’s not a camera,’ I said.
    She narrowed her eyes, for all the world like a police interrogator. ‘What is it, then?’
    I gripped the now-familiar cube of cardboard, taped over its planes, slightly softened at the corners. ‘If you must know,’ I said, ‘it’s my grandfather.’
    She pursed her lips, raised her eyebrows: a minuscule arching inflection of her face.