After the Fall by Norman Charity

Author:Norman, Charity [Norman, Charity]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC000000, book
ISBN: 9781743433133
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2012-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-two

January was breathless. We spent the nights spread-eagled like intergalactic starfish under our mosquito nets, longing for the cool of the morning. Sometimes we’d trudge down to the river and sit gasping as the cold water rushed around us.

Under that burning sky, Kit was truly at peace for the first time since I’d known him; perhaps for the first time in his life. I had to work flat out during the long school holidays, but he threw himself into his role as house-husband with galling competence. To my delight, Sacha gave up most of her summer holidays to help. With their father and sister—and sometimes even Bianka—at their beck and call, my lucky sons had the best summer of their lives.

In early February, Pamela Colbert invited us for Sunday lunch. Her grandson was visiting and she wanted some playmates for him.

It was a shimmering day. Sacha drove her brothers on the quad bike through our fields and across the river, Kit and I following on foot. Singing warlike songs, the three children rushed downhill through parched summer grass and across the vineyards, accompanied by a zinging orchestra of cicadas. The Colberts’ place was a 1970s bungalow with picture windows, deep eaves and a garden straight out of a magazine. Finn and Charlie tore off their clothes and began to cavort in the sprinkler, coloured light arching over their heads.

‘There have been small boys playing under that sprinkler for over thirty years,’ said Pamela, who’d come out to meet us. ‘Ah, William!’

A boy emerged from the house; perhaps seven or eight, he stared at the twins, arms held stiffly by his sides. He had delicious auburn hair in a short back and sides, like a grown man, and dark eyes. When Pamela beckoned he marched solemnly up to us and held out a hand.

‘My grandson, William. This is Martha, Kit, Sacha, and these are . . .’ Still talking, she steered him towards Finn and Charlie, who were ballooning up their shorts with water.

Finn was the first of the boys to speak. ‘Wanna havva go?’ he asked courteously, offering the sprinkler. ‘It’s great. You fill your shorts, see? It looks like your bottom’s a’normous melon.’

Pamela chuckled. ‘William won’t be shy for long. Come on in, the rest of you. Glass of wine?’ She led us into the taupe gloom of the kitchen, where she had a bottle of white chilling in the fridge. ‘William is home-schooled— poor Hannah’s very protective, understandably—so I’m keen for him to have a bit of rough and tumble. Lemonade, Sacha?’

‘Please!’ Sacha looked around. ‘Anything I can do to help?’

Pamela made a face that said bless. ‘Well—could you take this out to the boys?’ She watched as Sacha left, carrying lemonade. Home-made, inevitably. ‘Credit to you, that girl. Is she still seeing a lot of Tabby Mills?’

‘Not so much, actually,’ said Kit. ‘She’s not, is she, Martha? That friendship seems to have fizzled out a bit.’

It was true. Sacha had talked about Tabby constantly for the first school term, but we’d not heard of her since Christmas.

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