Woodhill Wood Read Online Free

hurried down to the far sink to strain the pan. A huge column of steam erupted from the sink as the water and potatoes poured forth, hiding her face behind a wall of rising. From the depths of this cloud she spoke again. "Did you hear what I said?" She was temporarily blinded, feeling around on the fitment for a space to put the empty saucepan. Then, with her hands free, she snatched the glasses from her face and rubbed them briskly on her long white skirt.
    Gurde retreated out of the heat before she had time to put her glasses back on and return his stare. He hurried over to the small table against the far wall of the dining room. It was the only other object that could be squeezed into the space. The woven mats, cutlery and side plates were quickly retrieved and slid into position.
    The next command bellowed from the kitchen. "Matty. Go and get your father."
    He wandered back into the hall and knocked on the study door. There was no reply. He pushed it open and stepped into the musky smell of worn tobacco and wood smoke.
    The father was sitting in the deep chair by the fireplace. The fire was long dead, so the father was reading under the light of the tall carved lamp. As the man sat there, with a thick book split open in his lap, Gurde could understand why the juries so often agreed with his arguments. There was a determination in the way he turned the pages. Gurde knew that such an appearance of confidence was misplaced. The man needed the image and cultivated it, especially when young women were within earshot, demonstrating his control over the twists of meaning and implication.
    Despite the impression that the father tried to nurture, he could not disguise the fact that he had no real presence in the room. That was what betrayed him. The room would have felt the same without him.
    Roger Duff had recently started wearing a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, chosen to make him look more distinguished, but they just made him look older. Grey hairs covered where the glasses looped over his ears. As always, he was wearing a striped white shirt and a dark tie. The suit jacket was hanging on the back of the door.
    He looked up and took off his glasses with a slightly embarrassed tug.
    "Yes?"
    "Er.. Happy birthday, Dad."
    "What? Oh, yes. Thank you, Matt. Anything else?"
    "Did you like the card?"
    "Card? Oh, yes. Fine. Fine."
    "Dinner's ready."
    "Already? Damn! I'll be through in a minute."
    He continued staring and, when Gurde didn't move quickly enough, he raised his eyebrows to emphasise his wish to be left alone. Gurde smiled nervously and retreated back into the fresh air of the hall.
     
    The pine table had now acquired several dishes of steaming vegetables. The blinds on the windows had been drawn. Gurde slid into position, half-way down the bench on the far side, and waited for the others to arrive.
    The mother strode in carrying a hot flan dish between the oven gloves and slid it on to the mat in front of her chair. She sniffed and flicked the strands of thick black hair from her forehead.
    "Where's Ben?" she said.
    "I don't know... upstairs I..."
    "I thought I told you to get him!"
    "No... you.."
    "Never mind!" She stripped off her oven gloves and threw them on to the small table. Then she marched out into the hall and shouted her other son's name up the stairwell. She came striding back in, took a long knife from the small table and moved to the flan.
    "Have you told your father?"
    "Yes."
    "Where is he then?"
    Gurde shrugged and reached for a plate. Patricia Duff only had two moods: frantic organisation and bitter sullenness. Gurde preferred the sullenness.
    She began to slice the flan. After two cuts she sighed, dropped the knife on to the table and left the room to shout up the stairs for a second time.
    "Ben! Come down now!"
    A small voice called back from above.
    "Coming Mum."
    Gurde listened to the jumps as the younger brother bounded down the stairs. One.. two.., that was the first flight, ..thump..., the three step