by John Harvey
'What do you want me to do? Break down in tears? Beg for you to stay?'
'Something like that.'
'Bollocks!'
'That's my expression, not yours.'
'There'll be none of this, you know, hobnobbing at the side of the A10.'
'Why d'you think I'm going?'
To the surprise of both of them, Will kissed her on the forehead; once, quickly, then stepped away. 'Seriously, you'll do well.'
'Thanks.'
'Now ...' He was glancing round towards his car.
'I know, the family awaits.'
As had become their habit, a habit she would have to break, Helen lit another cigarette and watched him drive away.
76
Ruth had bought the new tabletop easel and a set of canvases on her last trip into Cambridge, taken out her watercolours from where they'd been packed away. Sitting over by the bay window, taking advantage of the light, she was copying Matisse's Anemones and Chinese Vase as well as she could. She had a vase of her own on the table, a not dissimilar design and round, like the original. A striped cushion also, though the colours were different. And, anyway, the Matisse had been done in oils. Beautiful, she thought, and beyond anything she could ever hope to achieve. But then, few people could.
She set down her brush for a moment to listen to what was playing on the stereo, one of the Goldberg Variations, the 25th, the adagio, the pianist's touch so light, the tempo so slow it seemed as if it might falter and stop, slip over some unseen, unfathomable edge, but of course it never did.
In the small silence between that piece and the next, and before she could resume painting, Ruth thought she heard a noise. A sound, like a door opening or closing, on the floor above.
It had been so long.
Quietly, not hurrying, she crossed towards the stairs.
The door to the smaller bedroom was ajar.
The sound of the piano rose up, faintly, from below.
Ruth eased the door wider and stepped inside. The girl was standing before the mirror, stooping a little, her back towards Ruth, looking at her face in the glass.
Ruth's breath caught in her throat.
'Beatrice?' she finally said.
Slowly, as if time were stopping, the girl turned towards her mother.
'Who else did you think it was?' Beatrice said, and smiled.
* * *
JOHN HARVEY is the author of eleven Charlie Resnick novels and the Frank Elder series, and is a recipient of the Silver Dagger Award, the Barry Award, and the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement, among other honors.
Jacket design by Vaughn Andrews
Jacket photograph © Frank Lukasseck/Getty Images
Author photograph © Gilles PLAZY/Opale
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt www.hmhbooks.com
* * *
