Triskellion Read Online Free PDF Page A

half open and full of scone, looked at his grandmother and mumbled.
    “Not with your mouth full, dear. What has your mother been teaching you?”
    Adam wiped the remaining jam and crumbs from the corner of his mouth with a knuckle. “Oh … sorry, Gran. Can I get a soda?”
    Celia Root appeared not to understand, or not to hear. “Sweet with plenty of milk after the shock you’ve had.” She opened a drawer in the long table and took out a knitted cosy, which she fitted snugly over the teapot.
    Rachel giggled. “Gran, why are you putting a hat on the teapot?”
    Celia looked at Rachel blankly, then back at the teapot and laughed out loud as if she had momentarily grasped the absurdity of the tea cosy from Rachel’s point of view. Seeing her eyes glittering, Rachel caught a glimpse of the handsome woman her grandmother must have been forty yearsbefore; the one Rachel had seen in those black and white photographs.
    The old woman put her hand on the back of Rachel’s, and looked her in the eye. “You are so like your mother,” she said.
    Rachel blushed, enjoying the compliment, basking in the warmth of her grandmother’s approval.
    Granny Root turned and smiled at her grandson. “Whereas Adam, I think, takes more after his father.”
    Adam, who was feeling nervous and vulnerable, as though he were making a bad impression, did not take this comparison very well. “Right,” he snapped back, “except I haven’t walked out on my family, have I?”
    Rachel dived in. “C’mon Adam, that wasn’t what Gran meant. It wasn’t all Dad’s fault, anyway. Let it go.”
    “I may have some orange juice in the pantry,” Granny Root said loudly, desperately trying to change the subject.
    “So Mom
made
him get a girlfriend?” asked Adam, his voice thick with sarcasm.
    “Adam, you’re being a pain.”
    “And who do I get
that
from, Rachel?”
    Celia Root backed her wheelchair away from the table, moved over to the other side of the room and busied herself with an old radio on the windowsill. Outside, the golden light had turned to bronze and the sky had gone a dull blue-grey. The air was still heavy though, and Rachel felt short of breath. She held her hands up in surrender, trying to placate her brother. “Adam, Dad wasn’t happy.”
    “Great. So now, none of us is.” Adam stared intently at the pattern of flowers bordering his plate and rolled the remaining crumbs of scone around with his forefinger.
    Granny Root could stand no more. “Children, please. You’re very tired.” She raised a hand to silence them and, with the other, turned up the volume of the radio. “Please … the wireless. I never miss this…”
    A rich voice like that of a Shakespearean actor began to intone words that sounded like gobbledegook to Rachel and Adam.
    “…issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency at one seven three oh on Friday, thirteenth of August. There are warnings of gales in Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire, Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger…”
    Rachel and Adam looked at their grandmother, confused.
    “It’s the shipping forecast,” she said. “Sounds like there’s a storm coming.”

I n the village, the landlord hurriedly took down the umbrellas from the deserted benches outside The Star. The raindrops grew heavier, sticking the shirt to his back and bouncing off the long, waxed bonnet of the burgundy-coloured Bentley parked outside. The landlord made for the entrance, stepping daintily to avoid slipping on the wet cobbles in front of the pub, and slammed the heavy wooden door behind him.
    Another thunderclap. Then the sky opened and the rain came down in torrents, lashing against the windows of The Star and washing away the dust of a long, hot afternoon.
    From his vantage point high in the old oak, the boy watched the landlord go inside. Then nimbly, unhindered by the damp branches and dense foliage, he climbed his way down, limb by limb, to the foot of the tree.
    He stopped