Mercury by Margot Livesey

Author:Margot Livesey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-06-22T04:00:00+00:00

4

ONE DAY SOON AFTER we moved here, Marcus rode his tricycle straight into Main Street. In the instant that he shot out into the lanes of cars, I was running after him, shouting, “Stop! Stop!” My love for him was like a skyscraper, dwarfing the danger. All that mattered was his safety. I had the same single, towering emotion when the police called at Thanksgiving to say the alarm had gone off at Windy Hill. You know what happened that night at the stables. What you don’t know is how it made me feel. When the police escorted me to the corner of Milton Street, I saw our house, dark except for the kitchen lights.

Who lives here? I thought. For a moment I was sure I’d step into rooms I’d never seen before.

Do you remember when we visited Edinburgh, we went to a pub called Deacon Brodie’s? You told me that Brodie had inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. By day he was a respectable cabinetmaker; by night he became a burglar, robbing the people who bought his cabinets. “Surely everyone feels like that sometimes,” you said. “Like inside us are two people who want completely different things.”

I was still sitting in the parked car, still trying to remind myself I was Marcus and Trina’s mother, when you appeared in your bathrobe. At the kitchen table I gradually returned to myself. I told you about the police, the glove. Suddenly it occurred to me that you might mention the break-in to Jack; he might tell Hilary; she might worry about Mercury. I could see you were bewildered when I swore you to secrecy.

What happened the next day was nothing I planned. The police came back early to finish their report and were gone by the time Claudia arrived. At lunchtime she and I were in the office, eating our turkey sandwiches. The clock above the filing cabinet sounded like a man with a little hammer. “Tell her, tell her,” he was saying.

Instead I praised last night’s pecan pie: not too sweet. Then I mentioned that the police had come by that morning. “There’ve been a couple of break-ins in the neighborhood,” I said. “They want us to update our security. I thought I’d make some calls.”

“That would be great,” she said. “The other day Helen was telling me about the summer two horses were stolen and a third poisoned. They never did find the culprit.”

So you were wrong, I thought. They did steal horses in Massachusetts. And Mercury was so well trained he would be easy to steal. I arranged for the workmen to come when Claudia was busy, minimizing work and cost. When she queried the latter, I invented a windfall. Some bonus stocks had finally matured. My Christmas present to the stables.

“Viv,” she said, “that’s so generous of you.”

I tried not to think about my credit card bill. That afternoon, when I rode Mercury, I raised all the jumps.

WHEN I WAS TRINA’S age, I loved

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.