Close to Hugh Read Online Free Page A

was meant. You’ve been looking at that jacket for so long … It was your luck, waiting for you.”
    “Lucky for the Clothes Closet it was me that bought it, because some of the people in there would not think of giving that money back, and you know who I mean.”
    He knows, he knows exactly who she means. The Asians , the Natives , the blacks . Here’s where he wants to smack her upside the head, but she’s an old woman. How do you go about changing her now?
    “I thought of giving it to the Conservative Party,” she says. “They really need it.”
    Hugh’s teeth tap together tenderly. It makes him feel like a dragon, a tempered, brutal force that helps smaller beings, but someday might eat them. Or burn them to ashes.
    “ You really need it,” he says.
    She pulls the hundred taut between her fingers, staring at it. You don’t see a lot of those around. “What would Hugh do?” she asks.
    No, that’s his own ear’s Hugh . Ruth’s just saying you .
    “Take us out for dinner, is what you’d do,” he says. “If I were Hugh.”
    She shakes her head, says she’ll think about it. What would be best. “I’ll go to the hospice now, and I’m working tonight, catering. Must be off!” Out she goes.
    Okay, next thing. Over to Curios & Curiouser, old Jasper’s antique/junk shop, next porch over on this touristy, flower-hung Main Street, Yourtown.
    Jasper is hanging his own lights, birdlike on the top board of a worn stepladder. He should not be up there, not after a long, late lunch. He’s brought his wineglass out onto the porch with him, forgetful of yardarm convention. Watching Jasper’s thin limbs tremble on the ladder is physical pain; hurts you in the head, the hands, the legs.
    Hugh can’t remember when Jasper did not drink. Was a time, Ruth says. Long ago, she and he were almost, or sometimes, a couple. Jasper at the stove in Ruth’s kitchen, wineglass in hand, telling rude jokes that Hugh and Della did not get—later, Newell explained them. Jasper’s shop is in trouble, that troubles Ruth. Hugh too. The old guy can’t be allowed to sink. The cheque is ready. Hugh wrote it out first thing and put it in his pocket with Ruth’s hundred dollar bill.
    A frail grey hand quivers, stretching out and searching behind him, and Hugh takes it. Jasper descends, legs not shaking so much once he’s on the ground. They go through to the little cash desk at the back, Hugh tripping on Jasper’s heels past jars and tea-chests stacked on brittle chairs; sliding pyramids of boxes, mahogany and ormolu, ivory-inlaid and trick-trapped, Jasper’s specialty being things in which to put other things. A litter of orders and accounts and bills crowds the clear desk space down to six inches at the drawer’s edge. Jasper doesn’t sit at his desk anyway, even when drinking. Always agitated.
    Hugh takes the cheque out of his shirt pocket, neatly folded in half. Unfolds it, still warm from his chest, and puts it on the desk.
    “Pay me back when you can.” (Jasper wouldn’t take it if he didn’t say that.)
    Jasper’s wattley throat works. “Ten thousand—you—it’s too much.”
    Hugh can’t be bothered to argue today. Trots out the unassuming smile, the shrug he learned from Newell. That will win Jasper over. “Cluttering up the bank. Useless unless it’s used,” Hugh says.
    “You—you can trust me for it.”
    “I know, but don’t be worried. It’s nothing. I like your store, that’s all. I need to buy my curios somewhere, and you’re handy.”
    Out of the store again before Jasper can cry. That would be unpleasant.

6. GUESS HUGH’S COMING TO DINNER
    Heading out onto the porch, look, there’s Newell himself, crossing the street. His head lifts to the evening breeze, hair swooped back and cheekbones strong—matinee idol superimposed on a ten-year-old boy, to Hugh’s eyes. Hugh’s oldest, dearest friend, his Ruth-brother.
    Seeing him, Newell calls, “Hugh! Just who I want. Help me pick a bottle of