Every Seven Years Read Online Free Page A

go and confront
Karen. Tam says let’s go.
    I’m in Tam’s work car, a big police
Range Rover. He isn’t working today, he
says, so it’s no bother to drive me around.
He’s very angry about the book. He wants
to know how she got the book to me. I tell
him about the ceremony, in front of everyone,
how she turned and HAHAHA’d into
my face. He gets so angry he has to stop the
car and get out and walk around and
smoke a cigarette. I watch him out there,
walking in the rising wind, his shoulders
slumped, orange sparks from the tip of his
cigarette against the backdrop of the grey
sea like tiny, hopeless flares.
    When he gets back in he takes a hip
flask out of the glove box. He has a sip and
gives it to me, as if drinking in a car is okay
now, because he’s so angry. I drink to
please him. I feel it slide down into me and
pinch the sharp edges off my hangover. It
is comforting to have my anger matched.
He nods at me to drink more and I do.
The alcohol warms me and eases my
headache and just everything feels a little
easier, suddenly. Being angry feels easy and
the future feels unimportant. What matters
is stopping Karen.
    When he finally speaks Tam’s face is
quite red. He tells me that we will find
Karen and take her somewhere. We will
not even ask about the note or the book;
that would be a chance for her to talk herself
out of trouble. If we asked she’d say
she knew nothing about it. She’d blame
someone else. She’d plead ignorance. We
will simply get her alone and then, immediately,
we’ll do it: we will stab Karen in
the neck. We will get away with it because
we’ll be together. We will be one another’s
alibi. We’ll decide which of us will do the
stabbing when we get there. But I already
know.
    He drives and he asks me about the
book and I tell him it had never been
taken out since I recovered it from the
gorse bush and took it back to school. He
remembers how upset I was back then. He
says it was devastating for him, too, because
I just left and I was his only friend.
She ruined his life, too, because she chased
me away. I know this is true. Back then
Tam became fixated on me to a degree
that wasn’t comfortable. It wasn’t always
benign. In vino veritas : if I hadn’t had that
drink from his hip flask I might not suddenly
know that I didn’t really leave despite
Tam. It was partly because of him.
He was too intense back then. His love was
overwhelming, and I never realized that
before.
    Tam parks in a quiet back street in the
town. He has finished his cigarettes. He
needs more so he goes off to the shops
while I go into the school and look for
Karen. He says just pretend that you left
something in there. I watch him walk
away from the car and he is scratching his
head and his hand is covering his handsome
face.
    Karen Little isn’t in today. The librarian’s
position is part time, the school secretary
explains. Karen only works Monday, Tuesday,
and half day on Wednesday. Then she
tries to segue into a rant about government
cuts but she can see I’m not listening.
Then she stops and seems to realize
that I’ve been drinking. She waits for me
to speak, cocking her head like a curious
seagull. Then she guesses: did I leave
something yesterday? I’m supposed to say
I did but, at just that moment, I think of
my mum laying in a dark drawer in a
mortuary fridge and, to be honest, I just
sort of turn and walk away.
    Out in the car park Tam is waiting with
the engine running. I get in. Karen’s not
there, I tell him. She’s at home. He starts
to drive and I realize that he knows where
she lives. But he’s a cop in a small community.
He probably knows where everyone
lives. And then I wonder why the engine
was running, before he knew she wasn’t
in.
    We drive out of town, onto the flat,
wind-blown moor. I steal a glimpse at
Tam. He’s furious. He’s chewing his cheek
and for some reason I think of Totty.