Cold Eye of Heaven, The Read Online Free Page A

grandmother’s. Then he pulls his hand through the loop of the bag, settling it in at his elbow. Martina hadn’t thought much of Clery’s – a dear hole, was what she always called it.
    He won’t fall, he won’t fall. He imagines what he must look like now,dithering along the garden path like a half-pissed tightrope walker, testing each step as he goes. He wonders should he keep his foot light, in case he needs to regain his balance, or should he put the weight down on it, to secure his position? He thinks of the two boy scouts who called to the door during the last big snow in the eighties and tries to remember what’s this they’d said was the trick to keeping the balance? Something about turning the toes of one foot inwards or was that outwards? A picture comes into his head then; an upright skier padding along in the snow. He turns in his right foot and proceeds.
    At the gate Farley pauses, holding on to it for a moment while he peers up and down the endless road. A mile and a half long – someone once told him. He sees others who have ventured out, moving at intervals, gingerly along, keeping close to the railings. Even the younger ones seem a bit wary, although most of the snow has skulked off during the night. Only a few grey humps remain, along the shaded side of the road, caught against a wall or tucked into a kerb, like mounds of dirty underwear waiting to be brought to the laundry.
    You’d think they would have sent
someone
. A grandchild, a neighbour, a lackey even. Or had the Sloweys run out of lackeys by now?
    He moves off. Gaining a bit more confidence as he goes, he loosens his stride and firms up his footfall. The lukewarmness of a fizzy sun on his face. No boy scouts this time to see how the old folk are faring. Conroy would have said that’s on account of all the child molesters that’s going these days. Kiddie fiddlers, Conroy used call them; a term Farley always found a bit hard to stomach. Years ago they’d say a child was interfered with. But then again, that’s probably not strong enough either. He straightens his toe, his two feet realign – he won’t fall, he won’t fall.
    His eye grazes ahead, pausing on houses where he knows old people live on their own. People he might never have even spoken to, beyond an occasional nod or a ‘not a bad day after’ in passing. But he watches out for them just the same, the way he knows they watch out for him. Older people are like that, he reckons. A combination of concern and competitiveness. Who gets through a cold spell, who perishes. Who’s been unlucky,who’s been a fool. It keeps them going. That touch of glee in Mrs Waugh’s voice last night when she broke the news about Frank, for example. Or the way you’d see some fellas in the pub hop on the obituaries in the paper before they’d so much as read another word. Often it would be the fellas in the worst shape who’d be keenest to read, like they were half-expecting to find their own names in there. There was a time you could rely on the house itself to keep you informed. A wisp of smoke from the chimney; a bottle of milk not lifted from the doorstep. Now bar banging down a door and sticking your nose right in, it’s near impossible to guess who’s in and who’s out. Who’s lying on their own at the bottom of the stairs. Who’s turning into a human iceberg right outside their own back door.
    He leaves the estate for the main road where he waits at the kerb for a pause in the traffic. Farley knows he could stand here all day waiting like Moses for the Red Sea to cut him a passage. Or he could walk on down the road to the pedestrian crossing maybe fifty yards or so away. But he feels tired, a bit weak even, and fifty yards just seems way too far. All the sudden fresh air, he supposes. One tingling cheek, like a dentist’s anaesthetic beginning to wane. He’s as happy to have the