The Day of the Storm Read Online Free

piles of old books, and cardboard boxes and ashtrays which nobody ever remembered to empty. But the letter was on the middle of Stephen’s blotter and instantly visible.
    I picked it up. An airmail envelope, Spanish stamps, an Ibizan postmark. But the writing was unfamiliar, pointed and spiky, as though a very fine pen had been used. It had been sent to the old flat, but this address had been crossed out and the address of the bookshop substituted in large, girlish, handwriting. I wondered how long the letter had lain on the table by the front door, before one of the girls realized that it was there and had taken the trouble to forward it on to me.
    I sat down in Stephen’s chair and slit the envelope. Inside, two pages of fine airmail paper, and the date at the head was the third of January. Very nearly a month ago. My mind sounded a note of alarm and, suddenly frightened, I began to read.
    Dear Rebecca,
    I hope you do not mind me calling you by your Christian name, but your mother has spoken to me of you a great deal. I am writing because your mother is very ill. She has been unwell for some time and I wished to write to you before but she would not let me.
    Now, however, I am taking matters into my own hands, and with the doctor’s approval I am letting you know that I think you should come out to see her.
    If you can do this, perhaps you will cable me the number of your aeroplane flight so that I can be at the airport to meet you.
    I know that you are working and it may not be easy to make this trip, but I would advise you to waste no time. I am afraid that you will find your mother very changed, but her spirit is still high.
    With good wishes.
    Sincerely,
    Otto Pedersen.
    I sat in unbelief, and stared at the letter. The formal words told me nothing and everything. My mother was very ill, perhaps dying. A month ago I had been asked to waste no time but to go to her. Now it was a month later, and I had only just got the letter and perhaps she was already dead—and I had never gone. What would he think of me, this Otto Pedersen whom I had never seen, whose name, even, I had not known until this moment?

2
    I read the letter again, and then again, the flimsy pages rustling in my hands. I was still there, sitting at his desk, when Stephen finally came downstairs to find me.
    I turned to look up at him over my shoulder. He saw my face and said, “What is it?”
    I tried to tell him, but could not. Instead I thrust the letter at him, and while he took it, and read it, I sat with my elbows on his desk, biting my thumbnails, bitter and angry, and fighting a terrible anxiety.
    He was soon finished reading. He tossed the letter down on the desk between us, and said, “Did you know she was ill?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œWhen did you last hear from her?”
    â€œFour, five months ago. She never wrote letters.” I looked up at him and said, furiously, choked by the great lump in my throat, “That was nearly a month ago. That letter’s been lying in the flat, and nobody bothered to send it to me. She may be dead by now and I never went, and she’ll think I simply didn’t care!”
    â€œIf she had died,” said Stephen, “then we’d have surely heard. Now, don’t cry, there isn’t time for that. What we have to do is get you out to Ibiza with all convenient speed, and let—” he glanced down at the letter again—“Mr Pedersen know you’re arriving. Nothing else matters.”
    I said, “I can’t go,” and my mouth began to grow square and my lower lip tremble as though I were a ten-year-old.
    â€œWhy can’t you go?”
    â€œBecause I haven’t got enough money for the fare.”
    â€œOh, my dear child, let me worry about that…”
    â€œBut I can’t let you…”
    â€œYes, you can, and if you get all stiff-necked about it then you can pay me back over the next five years and I’ll charge