A summer with Kim Novak Read Online Free Page B

benches. Nurses whizzed by and smiled benignly at us.
    ‘The rounds always take time,’ said my father. ‘They have a lot on.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘You have time to go comb your hair. There’s a loo over there in the corner.’
    I went and combed my hair with my new steel comb. I had broken off five of the teeth from the slim end so I could pick the locks on the loos at the railway station. It didn’t work, but that wasn’t the point. The important thing was that I had a steel comb and it had those teeth missing. If you were a girls-sider and didn’t have a steel comb, you were worth less than a burst bicycle tube. It was what it was.
    ‘We can go in soon,’ said my father when I came back out.
    ‘I know,’ I said. ‘But there’s no rush.’
    ‘You’re right about that,’ said my father.
    She tried to hug me, but I caressed her arm instead, which was just as good. My father sat to her right, and I to her left.
    ‘We brought some grapes,’ said my father.
    ‘Lovely,’ said my mother.
    I put the Pressbyrån bag on top of the yellow hospital blanket.
    ‘How’s school?’ asked my mother.
    ‘Good,’ I said.
    ‘You’re taking the day off?’
    ‘Yes.’
    She peered into the bag and then closed it again.
    ‘And how are things at home?’
    ‘No problems there,’ I said. ‘Dad burns the gravy sometimes, but he’s getting better every day.’
    My mother smiled and, as if that were very taxing, she closed her eyes. I looked at her. Her face was greyish-blue and her hair looked like wan grass.
    ‘No problems,’ I repeated. ‘Is there a loo here?’
    ‘Of course,’ said my mother in a tired voice. ‘It’s out in the corridor.’
    I nodded and walked out. I tried to shit to no avail for twenty-five minutes, and then I went back in.
    My mother and father were sitting very close to each other, whispering. They fell silent when they noticed me come in. I sat on the chair to her left.
    ‘Are you going to Gennesaret soon?’ my mother asked.
    ‘Yes, we are,’ I said. ‘Henry and I have already been over and put things in order.’
    ‘I’m glad that Emmy and Henry are taking care of you.’
    ‘Yes,’ I said.
    ‘Henry’s getting along well,’ my father said.
    There was a pause.
    ‘It was nice of you to visit,’ said my mother.
    ‘Oh, it’s no bother,’ I said.
    ‘I think we’ll get going now,’ said my father. ‘So we can catch the quarter-past bus.’
    ‘Do,’ said my mother. ‘I don’t need anything here.’
    ‘I’ll come by tomorrow after work,’ said my father.
    ‘No need,’ said my mother.
    I got up and patted her on the forearm and left.
    I took out the Colonel Darkin books and counted them. Yes, right. Six of them. Six black waxed-paper notebooks with forty-eight pages in each. Five of the notebooks were finished; the sixth was almost done and dusted.
    I stuffed the completed adventures back into the plastic bag and pushed them far inside my underwear drawer. It wasn’t an ideal hiding place; I had often thought of finding something better—maybe I could bury them in a bag out in the forest. Further along in the dry ditch: they would be as safe as houses there.
    But I hadn’t got around to it. Of course, the underwear drawer was much safer now that my mother was in hospital. My father wasn’t the one who rooted around in my things. He hardly ever came into my room at all.
    I’d created Colonel Darkin about two years ago. Linda-Britt, my fat buck-toothed cousin, had given me one of those notebooks as a birthday present because she thought I should keep a diary. She told me she kept one herself and found it very enriching.
    There weren’t even any lines in the book, which was strange since she wanted me to write in it. So I used a ruler and divided each page up like a comic book, four panels per side, all on the right hand side of the page, forty-eight parts; and with that I was on my way with Colonel Darkin and the Golden Gang . It was an adventure story set between