Interpreters Read Online Free Page A

grey skirt, white shirt, maroon cardigan,grey and maroon striped tie, grey felt hat. She tries to open the door but it is locked. It is never locked. She knocks. After a while the door is opened by the woman who cleans for us once a week.
    It’s odd – I haven’t thought about that woman for decades. Mrs Prior. That was her name. I remember asking her why she never went to the toilet. I couldn’t understand why my question – couched in genuine admiration for her mighty bladder – should have caused so much offence. I don’t think she liked us much. In my memory, she and Brown Owl have merged into one – grey curls, fat calves and a general air of disapproval.
    The six-year-old me goes into the house and shuts the door. Mrs Prior looks at me. ‘Your mother’s not here,’ she says. She sounds irritated and anxious all at once.
    ‘Where is she, then?’
    ‘She’s gone away for a rest.’
    ‘When’s she coming back?’
    ‘I don’t know – you’ll have to ask your father when he gets home from work.’
    ‘Will she be back tomorrow?’
    ‘I very much doubt it.’
    ‘When, then?’
    ‘I’ve told you, I don’t know. I was just rung up and asked to come along to be here when you and Max got home from school. I don’t know who it was I spoke to, I’m sure. It wasn’t your mother. And it’s not as though I haven’t got anything else I should be doing today. It’s my afternoon for the Nunns at number one. I don’t suppose they’re best pleased. I’ll be off as soon as your father’s home. So wash your hands and sit down and have a biscuit and a glass of squash. And then get on with your spellings or numbers or something quiet. Max’ll be home from his swimming lesson shortly.’
    Mrs Prior was talking rubbish, I was sure of that. I knew my mother hadn’t gone away for a rest. Why should she needa rest? She wasn’t tired at all. She was always racing around. I knew exactly what had happened.
    My mother had told me and Max that lying was a terrible, unforgivable thing. I couldn’t remember who had lied to whom or what about, but it must have been something quite major. There were things called white lies, she had told us, which were all right sometimes, but lying – proper lying – was always wrong. Lying destroyed people’s lives, she had said, looking as if she was about to cry. It destroyed whole countries. We couldn’t quite see how lying could do that much damage but we hadn’t said anything. It was best not to when she was in that kind of a mood. But some time in the weeks leading up to her disappearance she had lied to my grandmother. I had listened to the phone call, sitting halfway up the stairs in my dark blue brushed-nylon nightie, and I knew, as I heard her tell her mother-in-law that Max and I would not be able to go and stay with her in Oxford after all as we were both ill and weren’t up to travelling by train, and then elaborate wildly on the story, that something terrible was happening. We weren’t ill at all. It was a complete lie. And not even a white one. If anyone wasn’t feeling well, it was her , not us. We had tried not to stare at her when she had come home from the dentist some weeks earlier, her face bloated and mottled, her mouth a mess of pulpy red and nothingness where once her teeth had been. She’d had to keep wiping away the blood-flecked spit that trickled from her swollen mouth. She still couldn’t speak very well, her ‘s’s were funny. But now she had smart new plastic teeth and, though for some reason she wouldn’t speak to our father, wouldn’t eat with us and seemed generally angry about everything, she wasn’t really any more ill than we were. And we were fine.
    After she put the phone down, she had gone into her bedroom, sat down on the floor, and started to cry. I crept on to her lap and put my arms around her but she didn’t stop. She didn’t even put her arms around me. Max broughther a cup of tea with four sugars in, even though we