We That Are Left Read Online Free PDF Page B

Theo and Theo would find a way to spoil it. Theo only liked people liking things if he had thought of them first. He closed his eyes and counted faster, 4913, 5832, 6859. Then suddenly there was a loud clatter of boots and the shutters banged open. He turned his head away, keeping his eyes squeezed shut.
    â€˜For God’s sake,’ Jessica said, disgusted. ‘I can still see you.’
    Unhappily Oskar opened his eyes. He hugged the encyclopaedia to his chest.
    â€˜I knew you were here,’ she said. ‘You think it’s such a big secret but we all know. Eleanor thinks you must be soft in the head. She says it’s like wanting to sit in a coffin.’
    Oskar looked past Jessica at the books sprawled on the library floor. He had once overheard a lady telling his mother that the reason Eleanor Melville refused to let her children call her Mama was because she deplored the institutional inequality of the mother-child relationship, and his mother had laughed so hard he thought she might choke. He wanted to ask her what was so funny but he knew she would only want to know what he was doing hiding behind the sofa in the first place.
    â€˜Why did you throw the books?’ he asked.
    Jessica frowned. Oskar always asked the most idiotic questions. ‘Because I felt like it. Why do you hide yourself in here like a corpse?’
    â€˜Because I felt like it. I like the books.’
    â€˜Only freaks like books more than people. When you’re grown up you’ll probably marry a book.’ Shoving his legs out of the way, she clambered onto the window seat. She could see the garden and, above the woods, the top of Grandfather’s Tower like a cut-out bit of paper against the sky. Grandfather Melville had wanted to be buried with his wife in the tower but she had said it was ungodly so instead he had made them burn up his body like they did in India and scatter the ashes from the top. Sometimes, when she saw dust on the skirting boards, Jessica wondered if there were still bits of Grandfather Melville in it, blown inside by the wind. ‘Marjorie Maxwell Brooke wants to marry Theo,’ she said. ‘When she talks to him her voice goes funny.’
    Oskar did not know what to say to that. ‘Is it tea time?’ he asked instead.
    â€˜Mama and Mr Connolly aren’t back yet. I expect they’ve had a smash.’
    â€˜Don’t say that.’
    â€˜Why not? Cars smash all the time, especially when they’re driven by someone as stupid as Mr Connolly.’
    â€˜I didn’t know Mr Connolly was stupid.’
    â€˜Of course he’s stupid. He thinks Mama likes him because he’s charming when really she only likes him because he has a brand-new motor car and he hasn’t done anything to annoy her yet.’
    Oskar thought of Godmother Eleanor and Mr Connolly laughing together beside the fire after tea the day before, Godmother Eleanor’s fingertips touching her lips as though even the laughing was a secret. Once, when Oskar was little, he had asked his mother why the people who came to stay at Ellinghurst were never the same and his mother had said that Godmother Eleanor changed her friends as often as most people changed their vests.
    â€˜She hasn’t changed you,’ Oskar had pointed out.
    â€˜No,’ she had said, smiling. ‘I think she’s stuck with me.’
    â€˜Stuck in your vest.’
    â€˜Completely jammed.’
    It had made them laugh to think of Godmother Eleanor flailing blindly about with her arms over her head, tangled up in her Mother vest. If Jessica had been his friend he could have told her and made her laugh too. It was a funny story.
    The suddenness with which Jessica leaned over and snatched the book from his arms startled him. She stared at it, wrinkling up her nose in disgust. ‘Truly? The bloody encyclopaedia?’
    Oskar blinked. He had never heard a girl swear before.
    â€˜What’s the matter?’