Mandarin Summer by Fiona Kidman

Author:Fiona Kidman [Kidman, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780143776765
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2013-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

Seven

So life got lonelier, but as it did, my curiosity increased. My parents worked so hard between the Barnsley household and their piece of land that I hardly saw them. My mother continued to serve the Barnsleys at mealtimes and I received my meals alone at the end of the kitchen table. Hardly anyone spoke to me now, and I slunk like a cat amongst the shadows of this strange household and my ears were becoming just as sharp.

In the evenings my mother would come to my bedroom when I was on the verge of sleep. Her eyes would be heavy with fatigue, the fine chiselled bones of her face draped with soft skin camouflaging the bright quick look I had known.

The night of the picnic she came to my room and stayed briefly. When my lids were heavy and she thought that I was so near to sleep that it did not matter, she said to me in a quiet yet intense way, ‘Who was it Emily? Who did it?’

Then when I opened my eyes to look at her she withdrew as quickly as she had spoken. I knew she did not want to know, that she was testing herself in deep and dangerous waters and that if she did not drown on the first moment of impact she would run as if the wave had never caught her. So I kept silent.

And she had less to fear than perhaps she thought, for the truth was that I didn’t know. Indeed, as I lay there, I was not even sure whether sleep had already begun and if it was another of my fevered dreams. How long it was to be before I knew that at that time, she too was beginning to be parted from reality.

I had heard Thomas scampering through the undergrowth calling out in temper at his sister all along the path. I was sure it was not he who had pushed the boulder down upon me. Yet there was always the possibility that it was his very temper which had made him kick out at whatever was in sight. But then again, the boulder demanded more than an idle kick. And the path that they had taken towards the pool was below me and not above me, so that if anyone had pushed it they would have needed time to cover both paths.

Both Brigadier Barnsley and Schwass had had that time. Which of them was it, or was it either of them? Both had arrived at the pool independently of each other. I knew that because after the boulder had been pushed I had stood for a long time, very still, simply watching what happened below me. I had heard my mother calling. I had seen each and every one of them pass below but I had not moved. Maybe I was being perverse, but I had little will of my own. I knew for the first time that I was in real danger and it was not a pleasant feeling.

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