Beneath the Earth Read Online Free Page A

I’d like to have a job that gives me a clothing allowance. I’d like to effect real change in the places that matter. I’d like to help those who need help.
    And you’ll do all those things, she told me. With your brains, you can do anything you want to do, be anything you want to be. Thanks, I told her. I didn’t want to do any of those things, of course. But it made me feel normal to say them aloud.
    She made two cups of tea and put too much milk in mine. She offered me a slice of cake, home-made, but I said no. You need to eat, she said. There’s not a pick on you. Did you miss me, she asked. While I was away, did you miss me, did you think of me? I thought of you every day, I said, even though I hadn’t, for I felt no urge to be cruel to her. I suppose you blame me for the things that happened to you, she said. Nothing happened to me, I told her. You were moved from place to place, you had no home of your own. You must blame me for that. I don’t blame you for anything, I told her. You’re a good boy, she said, stroking my face. You were always a good boy. Her fingers were rougher than I remembered them.
    I stayed for an hour. I was happy to stay that long. And then I was happy to leave. You’ll have to let me know how you get on with all those things you want to do, she said, trying to put a five-euro note into my hand, but I made a fist of it and kept it close against my side. I didn’t want her money. I will, I said. I hope we can start again, she said. I hope so too, I told her, turning my phone on for it was evening now and the calls would start soon. Can I see you again sometime, she asked me. I could phone you and we could meet for lunch. You have my number, I told her.
    It was raining as I walked home. When the phone rang in my pocket, I thought it might be her but no, it was a man. Where do you live, I asked him. Smithfield. I’m only ten minutes from there, I said. Can you come over immediately, he asked me.
    I can, I said.

The Country You Called Home

    The brick crashed through the front window shortly after midnight and Émile woke with a start, his heart pounding, his eyes raw from interrupted sleep. The room was dark and as he reached across for the wristwatch that lay on the bedside table, he knocked it off and heard it land on the wooden floor with a heartbreaking crack.
    â€˜No!’ he whispered to himself in dismay.
    His father had given him the wristwatch two weeks earlier as a present for his ninth birthday and he treasured it. Looking down now, he saw that the glass that covered its face had shattered, scattering splinters across the floor. The watch wasn’t new, of course. It had belonged to his grandfather, William Cross, who had bought it more than fifty years before on the morning he left Newcastle to begin a new life in West Cork. He’d passed it down to his son, Stephen, who in turn had given it to Émile, telling him that he needed to take great care of it for it was a precious family heirloom.
    And now it was broken.
    The boy put his head in his hands, wondering how he would ever tell his dad.
    A moment later, he heard his parents’ bedroom door open and the sound of their feet running along the hallway into the front parlour of their small cottage and Émile remembered the noise that had woken him in the first place.
    He jumped out of bed, his left foot landing on one of the small shards of glass, and sank to the floor, curling his foot around to examine the damage. A small chip, like a piece of broken ice, was half submerged in the ball of his foot and he turned his thumb and index finger into a pair of pincers to pull it out. A spot of blood appeared in its wake but he pressed his hand against it and when he took it away again it had disappeared. Standing up, he tested his weight on the injured foot before opening his bedroom door and following his parents into the parlour.
    â€˜Ã‰mile,’ said Marie, turning