Night Music Read Online Free Page A

in the pressure of his lips on hers. These were the moments that made it all worthwhile, that made her feel as if he was restored to her. That everything in the past had been an aberration.
    ‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’
    Matt lifted his head. ‘If you don’t know by now, Anthony, we wasted all that money on your biology lessons.’
    Laura slid from her husband’s grasp and picked up the tray with the cake. ‘Your father and I were talking about the future,’ she said, ‘how good it’s looking.’
    There were times, thought Matt McCarthy, adjusting himself surreptitiously, when he was pretty pleased to be married to his wife. He watched her as she went into the drawing room, totting up her attributes: waist still narrow, legs shapely, something classy informing her walk. Not a bad old stick, all told.
    ‘You not going out?’ he asked his son. ‘Thought you’d be long gone by now.’ It took him some moments to grasp that Anthony was not wearing his usual complicit grin.
    ‘Shane gave me a lift back from football.’
    ‘Nice for you.’
    ‘I saw your van outside Theresa Dillon’s.’
    Matt hesitated. ‘So?’
    ‘So – I’m not stupid, you know. And neither is Mum, even though you act like she is.’
    Matt’s convivial mood evaporated. He fought to keep his voice light. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘Are you accusing me of something?’
    ‘You told Mum you were coming straight from the builders’ merchants. That’s fourteen miles the other side of the church.’
    So this is it, Matt thought. His anger was partially offset by pride that his son wasn’t a fool and that he wasn’t afraid of his father. That he had grown some balls. ‘Listen, Inspector bloody Clouseau, I stopped off because Theresa rang and asked me to give her an urgent quote for putting in some new windows, not that it’s any of your business.’
    The boy said nothing, just stared at him in a way that told Matt he was disbelieved. He was wearing that ridiculous woollen hat, low over his brow.
    ‘After she rang me I worked out there was nothing I needed from the builders’ merchants that I couldn’t get tomorrow,’ he added.
    Anthony looked at his feet.
    ‘You really think I’d treat your mother like that? After everything she’s been doing for this family – and that old man?’ He might have had him then – he saw uncertainty in his eyes. Matt’s response was instinctive – never admit, never explain – and had got him out of God only knew how many holes.
    ‘I don’t know, do I?’
    ‘No, you don’t. So next time use your brain before you open your mouth.’ He had him now. ‘You’ve spent too much time in the village. I told your mother we should have brought you up somewhere busier.’ He tapped his head. ‘People round here have got nothing going on in their lives, so they like to make up stories, let their imaginations run riot. Bloody hell – listen to you! You’re as bad as those old women out there.’
    ‘I saw her with you before, remember?’ Anthony said, angrily.
    ‘So I’m not allowed to flirt with anyone now, right? Talk to a pretty woman? Shall I look at the ground as I walk so I don’t catch anyone’s eye? Perhaps we can ask Mrs Linnet to knit me a burka.’
    Anthony shook his head.
    ‘Listen, son, you might be sixteen, but you’ve still got a bit of growing up to do. If you think your mother would prefer me to be some kind of poodle, you don’t understand very much about human nature. Now, why don’t you go and find yourself something more useful to do than playing Miss Marple? And get a bloody haircut.’
    As he slammed the kitchen door, Anthony’s back was bent with defeat.
    The afternoon slid into dusk and then darkness, the densely woven blanket of night creeping down until the house, with the trees and fields, was smothered in the immutable black of deep country. Behind the glowing windows of the McCarthy house, the mourners had shown