Postcards From Berlin by Margaret Leroy

Author:Margaret Leroy [Leroy, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Suspense, Psychological, C429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780316738132
Google: wzb8Z6PGOq8C
Amazon: 0316738131
Publisher: Little Brown
Published: 2003-08-10T18:30:00+00:00

Richard and Daisy both spend the morning in bed: Richard has his newspaper, Daisy has a new video game and some coloring-in from school. She’s started on an RE worksheet, a Where’s Wally? style picture with lots of biblical figures. It says, “Jesus is lost in Jerusalem. Can you find him?”

I go up to the attic. There’s a frame I bought on impulse passing an art shop: simple, of stained black wood. I choose one of my pictures, selecting it almost at random. There are three children, imprisoned behind bars: They have distorted faces and large shadowed eyes. The bars are made from a woven texture of spiky lines like briers. At the edge of the picture, the lines are delicate, evanescing into nothing, but they’re solid, immutable, in the center, where the children are. I slip the picture into the frame. Immediately, it looks different. The thought enters my mind that this is a good drawing, perhaps the best I have done. I take it downstairs and hang it on the wall in the drawing room, beside the flower painting.

The phone rings and I worry automatically that it’s Sinead, that she’s stranded at a bus stop somewhere or she’s broken her ankle skating.

“Catriona, darling.” Gina’s resonant voice. She sounds more nasal over the phone. “Nothing special,” she says. “I’m just ringing for a chat. How are things?”

“OK.”

“And how’s my little Daisy?”

“She’s much the same. Still quite poorly.”

“Oh, dear,” says Gina. She sounds rather hurt, as though we have let her down. “I was really hoping she’d be better by now.”

“Well, we all were. It just goes on and on.”

“Is she eating any better?”

“Not really. It’s quite a struggle.”

“You ought to give her a nice English breakfast before she goes to school,” she says. “Bacon and eggs. You really should try it. You don’t want to listen to all that nonsense about cholesterol. I’m a very great fan of bacon and eggs.”

“I don’t think she’d eat it.”

“You don’t know that unless you try, Catriona,” she says.

I feel a surge of irritation: I want to let her know how bad things are — to make her understand.

“She still retches a lot,” I tell her. “And sometimes she forgets things. That frightens me.”

“Everyone forgets things sometimes, Catriona,” she says.

“Yes. But not like this. She says she can’t remember the words for things. Really familiar things. Like the names she’s given her cuddlies.”

Gina is brisk. “It sounds tike she knows just how to wind her mother up.”

I’ve had enough.

“I’ll get Richard for you,” I tell her.

For lunch I cook spaghetti. I make this often now, as it’s one of the few things Daisy will sometimes eat. I make a sauce of tomatoes and onions and peppers, and sieve it thoroughly, so there won’t be bits in it. I leave out the garlic, but it still smells good, a Tuscan smell of basil and warm olive oil.

Richard comes down. He’s showered, his hair is damp. He looks into the saucepan, raises his eyebrows.

“Spaghetti again? Pushing the envelop, are we?”

“It’s Daisy’s favorite.

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