Clovenhoof 02 Pigeonwings by Heide Goody & Iain Grant

Author:Heide Goody & Iain Grant [Heide Goody & Iain Grant]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Humour, Religion, Supernatural
ISBN: 9780957175495
Amazon: B00EGP9UNS
Goodreads: 18915395
Publisher: Pigeon Park Press
Published: 2013-08-09T23:00:00+00:00

Michael stood in the living room with Clovenhoof and Nerys while Mrs Thomas went to the kitchen to prepare what she had described as a ‘light supper’. In his stomach he felt one of those nameless emotions that he had never suffered as one of the angelic host. He didn’t want to stay standing up because he felt he was in the way, too obvious. He didn’t want to sit down either because that would suggest a sense of comfortableness that he simply didn’t feel.

Mrs Thomas’s gaze (and hands) had lingered on him too long as she greeted him at the door. The woman had the eyes of a raptor and less feminine modesty than her daughter who, even now when her mother was in a completely different room, clung to him like a lovesick teenager. He knew it was all an act on Nerys’s part but did she have to make it so… immersive?

He couldn’t now remember why he agreed to come with her to Wales, into this well-furnished Venus flytrap. He could just close his eyes and imagine himself somewhere else: back home, lounging on the sofa and watching trash TV with Andy, or down at the gym, doing reps on the weights with Andy, or up at the Moo Moo Club, throwing some dance floor moves. With Andy.

"Take a look at this," said Nerys, wheeling him round to face the fireplace and the mass of photos arrange on the mantelpiece and the wall above it.

"Very nice," said Michael automatically.

"No, take a look," said Nerys firmly.

Michael sighed internally and regarded the photographs. The largest was a wedding picture of a stubbly jug-eared man with a woman who looked superficially like Nerys, assuming Nerys had been subjected to expensive quantities of fake tan, cosmetic surgery and eyebrow plucking. Michael surmised that this was Catherine with her footballer husband. Arranged around that were smaller images, of the Thomas sisters or Mrs Thomas herself. Many were from a decade or more ago: prize-giving ceremonies, a gymnastics event, school presentations and holiday snaps. There were other family members in certain shots and the occasional family pet. It took Michael a while to find Nerys and then saw her university graduation photo in a small oval frame next to a modest-sized picture of Mrs Thomas and Nerys’s Aunt Molly that must have been twenty years old or more.

"Yes, very nice," said Michael.

"You’re not seeing it, are you?" said Nerys.

"That’s because he’s a doofus," said Clovenhoof, who was experimentally sniffing a houseplant he had picked up.

"Really?" said Michael. "What have I missed?"

"It’s a graph," said Clovenhoof.

"My mother’s love-o-meter," said Nerys coldly. "The bigger the picture, the higher up, the more she loves you."

"I’m sure that’s not true," said Michael generously. "And it’s not as if you’re the lowest or the smallest. Look there’s one of…" He peered closer. "…Twinkle."

"Great! I’m one rung higher on the ladder than someone else’s – oh, crap!"

She dropped Michael’s arm and dashed from the room. Michael frowned at Clovenhoof.

"She’s left the dog in the car," said Clovenhoof, nibbled at the houseplant and immediately spat it out.

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