Jakob's Colours by Hawdon Lindsay

Author:Hawdon, Lindsay [Hawdon, Lindsay]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2015-04-08T23:00:00+00:00

Long Before

AUSTRIA, 1931

Lor dreamt of her mother that night for the first time. As if in doing so she might drift further into the madness Dr Itzhak said tainted her. Vivienne was crouched down beside her feet, lacing her shoes. She caught a loop in her hand, wound it around the lace, yanked hard to form a tight bow, then trailed her long fingers down the length of Lor’s shoe before moving on to tie the other. Once she had done so she returned to the first shoe, pulled at the bow, unlaced it and began again. Lacing and relacing her daughter’s shoes over and over. When Lor woke she could not envisage her mother’s face. Of her features, there was only a whiteness.

She was not taken outside again until the following weekend. The insulin shots prevented it, lulled her into that strange soporific state. But the next time the young nurse came for her Lor asked if they might once again walk down to the lake. As they had done the first time, they ambled across the grounds, past inmates who rocked and soothed themselves with the chatter of their own voices, and once again followed the path around and down to the water’s edge.

When they reached the workshop Lor asked, ‘May I?’ and the young nurse hesitated, then nodded slowly as if deciding there could be no harm.

Outside the workshop there was a stack of coarsely cut logs, set neatly in a rectangular block. They had been warmed in the sunlight and now scented the air with sycamore dust. There was an axe on a hook and a heavy garden spade resting against the wall. The wisteria vine clung to the brickwork, still empty of leaves and flowers, not yet budding. Lor wondered if when it did the flowers would cover the only window, lightening the room with a lilac hue as they had in her own house. She hovered on the shallow stoop before pushing the door wide open and stepping inside.

It was beautiful to her, the clutter, familiar. She allowed herself to walk the four walls, lifting objects here and there, examining them: a shard of green glass; a moonstone, smoothed by lapping waves; the skeleton of a leaf, so delicate she hardly dared to hold it in the palm of her hand. She moved to the centre of the room, her eyes roaming from one colour to the next, to the changing shift of each shade.

Behind her, the nurse fidgeted. They should go now, she said. They had stayed long enough.

‘Please,’ Lor begged. ‘Just a moment longer. Just a moment.’

A toolbox lay open on a table beside the bed. A pile of planed shavings scattered the floor beneath it. Someone had carved a wooden spoon, had woven limb bark into a shoe, cut and stripped a small fishing rod. Lor stood over that table, saw a silver blade beneath a handful of loose nails, felt claustrophobic with longing.

‘Please,’ the nurse said, ill at ease. ‘Come now.

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