The Darkening Hour Read Online Free

oak coffin, all seem now the first steps of a moral descent that the
other three were embarking upon as soon as they turned their backs on the blackened graves.
    It was the end of October, one year ago.
    We hadn’t realised that by the time we lowered her into the ground it would be dark. We hadn’t predicted either, after the Indian summer, that it would be raining. We stood, a
forlorn group, caged beneath the branches of plane trees in the churchyard. The first yellow leaves of autumn span down and stamped themselves on the surface of her coffin like parking tickets.
    Simon and Anita assailed me as I leaned on the river wall. I was gazing across the dark water thinking about my name.
    Theodora.
    Daddy chose it, so I had been told, when I was born. God’s Gift. He’d given me a gold chain with the name on it, that I wore always, the metal warm against my throat. I was
Daddy’s Gift from God. Siblings are always assigned labels in families, roles that define them. I was the the Selfless One. And so it fell naturally upon me to take responsibility when our
mother fell ill, to organise her funeral, and to take care of Daddy.
    I stared over the river wall, letting my tears fall into the murky depths. It felt like an affront that the world could carry on as normal when we had just buried our mother. Pleasure cruisers
ploughed upstream, music blaring, sending waves slapping against the pilings. There was a narrow stairway on the opposite bank. I thought how one could walk down those stairs straight into the
shift and swell of the Thames, and how this would be a relief in some ways. A reprieve from the dull ache of grief which was made all the more weighty by the mantle of provider I wore.
    Simon’s arm was around his latest fling. Simon was the Fun One. The Footloose and Fancy-free One. He taught English to foreign students. I suspected he only did it in order to pick up
women. He enjoyed his single life far too much to get attached to them. I wondered whether this one liked my little brother or if she was hoping he would be her ticket to British citizenship. What
on earth was she doing at our mother’s funeral?
    ‘So,’ Anita began, ‘Terence has taken Daddy over to the pub. We need to decide where he can stay until we sort something out.’
    ‘He’s staying with me, of course. I’m hardly going to evict him the night of Mummy’s funeral.’
    ‘I’m not suggesting you would,’ said Anita. ‘But is he OK in the flat? Can he look after himself?’
    ‘I don’t just leave him there. I do keep an eye on him.’ Anita’s failure to understand just how much I’d been doing for Daddy astounded me.
    ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but you were going to let Leo move into the flat, I thought, and—’
    ‘To be honest I wouldn’t trust Leo to live on his own, the way he is at the moment,’ I said, immediately regretting it.
    She raised her eyebrows, exchanged a glance with Simon. Anita was the Pretty One. She skated over life, unaffected by the obstacles and demands that the rest of us had to deal with.
    ‘Look,’ she said now, ‘all I’m saying is, we’re aware you’re working, and you’ve got Leo to worry about, so if needs be Richard and I could have Daddy
– well, not for too long, just until we sort something out. But he could stay . . .’ she shrugged ‘. . . a few nights.’
    ‘And you know I’d have him if I had my own place,’ said Simon.
    ‘It’s fine,’ I said. And it was. One of us could and should take Daddy. It was a duty. A privilege, even. Not a sacrifice. If they couldn’t see this, it was their
loss.
    ‘Good,’ said Simon. ‘That’s great, Dora. He’s best off with you.’
    ‘And as long as you make sure he gets out and about,’ Anita added. ‘He mustn’t be allowed to languish now Mummy’s gone.’
    ‘What are you saying?’
    ‘Just that he can’t sit all day in the flat doing nothing – he needs stimulation.’
    ‘You’re suggesting I might neglect