Tree of Hands Read Online Free PDF Page A

quite simple and you’ll be fine. I’ve written down both addresses for you.’
    She waited for the storm of protest but none came. Mopsa was in euphoric mood, anxious to please, graciously prepared to be unselfish. Of course she would have a taxi, of course she would be all right. She was sorry she had insisted on Benet’s coming back with her the night before, but things felt different at night, didn’t they? On a brightmorning like this one you could hardly believe how bad you had felt at night, how disorientated and alone and afraid.
    Benet came back by the same route, the same short cut through back streets, as that by which she had taken Mopsa to the Royal Eastern Hospital in Tottenham. The traffic piled up as she was waiting to turn out of Rudyard Gardens into Lordship Avenue – there were roadworks in progress at the junction – so, taking her place in the slow-moving queue, she was able to look around her at this district where she had once lived.
    It was very much changed. The trees in Rudyard Gardens had been pollarded and had become an avenue of beheaded trunks. The rows of houses were no longer inhabited, their doors and windows boarded up with sheets of corrugated metal. Mopsa would have called it a slum. On the far side of Lordship Avenue the sun shone out of a hard blue sky on to the blocks and terraces and single tower of a housing estate called Winterside Down. When she and Mary and Antonia had shared their attic in Winterside Road, the estate had not yet been built. There had only been their road overlooking a stretch of desolate land extending from the gasworks to the canal.
    Her car and the three ahead moved slowly up to the junction. A black Dobermann pinscher was strolling over the pedestrian crossing. It reached the Rudyard Gardens side and the traffic began to shift again. Just at this point, Benet remembered, she had used to catch the bus that took her down into the City and the offices of the magazine she had been working for. If it hadn’t been for James, for hurrying to be with James, she would have turned into Winterside Road and parked the car, for just as the traffic began to move she saw someone she knew. Tall, heavily-built, fair, getting on for forty now probably – what was his name? Tom something. Tom Woodhouse. He had had the garage next to the house where their flat was and once or twice she had rented a car from him. Benet wound downthe window, called his name and waved but the traffic roar drowned her voice. She watched him in her rearview mirror as he went across the zebra crossing and got into the cab of a parked van.
    James wasn’t in the croupette or even in his room but in the children’s playroom chalking on a blackboard. When Benet came in, he didn’t run to her or hold out his arms but only smiled a radiant and somehow mysterious smile as if he and she were together in some secret conspiracy. He said to a small girl: ‘That’s my mummy.’
    â€˜We’d like him to have one quiet night in here before he goes home,’ the sister said.
    Mopsa arrived at twelve. She looked pleased with herself, almost jaunty. They had done no tests on her at the Royal Eastern, only examined her and questioned her and made a new appointment for three days’ time.
    â€˜I shall risk it on my own in your house tonight.’
    â€˜It would be a great help if you could.’ Benet felt absurdly grateful. ‘It’s very brave of you.’
    Suddenly Mopsa had become the sensible no-nonsense woman who stayed by herself in strange houses night after night. ‘I shall take a pill. I shan’t know a thing till morning.’
    James ran about playing all day. By six he was asleep, rather pale, breathing heavily, exhausted. One more night and he could go home.
    â€˜I ought to be there now,’ said Mopsa, looking at her watch. ‘I expect your father’s been phoning. I expect he was worried when I wasn’t