The Kindness Read Online Free Page B

begging for stories. There’s a worn patch of grass beneath it, down to the earth in the middle, scuffed by his foot pushing them to and fro beneath their canopy of blossom and leaves.
    The garden was wet with rain after they had been and gone, as though it too had been rinsed of her presence. Their efficiency was astounding. He became increasingly agitated as he tore through the rooms, opening drawers and searching behind cupboards. That night, unable to sleep, he wandered barefoot across the wet grass. The sky, cleared by the rainstorm, was ablaze with stars. The granary windows glinted silver at him and he shivered as something rustled in the apple tree. His bare arms looked freakishly white as he reached inside the hammock. Mira’s shoe was caught in its folds, the strap still buckled, so it must have slipped from her foot, a damp wad of blossom stuck across the toe.
    The blossom is gone from the trees now, replaced by hard little fruits, the hammock is streaked with mould and should probably go too.
    In the orchard the air will be sweet with ripe plums, but he doesn’t go there to pick them. Beyond the plum trees and the damsons there’s a tree that Julia planted. He tells himself not to be ridiculous – of course it’s still there – but can’t bring himself to check in case it isn’t. It’s a pear tree, carefully transplanted from Cromwell Gardens, special because it was given to Mira at her Naming Day.
    Julia had written their daughter’s name in silver italics on the invitations: Mira Eliana , and they waited until April to throw the party so that people could spill out on to the patch of lawn. They had stumbled over what to call this event since Christening would have opened the door to frenzied entreaties from Gwen, Julia’s Catholic mother. They settled on Naming Day and Mira’s snowy dress was lovely as any christening gown.
    Mira was carried round the sitting room like a doll by older children, Julia more relaxed about this sort of handling than him. She was a robust baby, already able to support her own head, but still . . . The bluish pulse, beating like a guppy beneath the tender skin of her fontanelle, had caused him deep pains only a few weeks before when invited to hand her to anyone other than Julia. When Julia’s father Geoffrey waddled in to the hospital to incant her with his brandied breath, he wanted to find a way to say: ‘No, she’s too new.’
    Lucky for them Geoffrey rarely left the shambolic caravan behind the recreation centre in Vernow where he sometimes got work on the grass but more often didn’t. At Mira’s naming party he wasn’t to be parted from the table where the champagne was poured for the toast. Julia’s mother Gwen fixed her gaze pointedly at her daughter’s chest: ‘Are you sure you’re producing enough milk for the baby?’
    Mira barely cried all day. You’d have to be a fool, or just plain spiteful, to suggest she was hungry. Julia was so strung out by her parents’ presence that a twitch started at the outer corner of her eye.
    Everyone wanted their photograph with the baby, he had to leap in to shield her eyes from their flashes. Turn them off, he said. His own mother in a black dress and glittery tights arrived bearing armfuls of bright tulips and Michael, his hand proprietorially resting on the small of her back, was beautifully courteous in his weekend tweed with leather patches on his elbows.
    Un-Godmother Freda brought her guitar as well as the pear tree and in her thin breathy voice sang a song she’d written for Mira. It was from the point of view of the tree and made Julian want to laugh and Julia cry. ‘Mira, my dear, a golden pear just for you . . .’
    From a poster on the wall beside his desk a cartoon Skye terrier with heartbroken, improbably fringed eyes looks out from beneath the scarlet petticoat of his Queen. Geddon, Her Majesty’s Best Friend . Julian shakes his head at him. His knack of giving family pets daft accents and