Sidney Chambers and The Problem of Evil (The Grantchester Mysteries) by James Runcie

Author:James Runcie [Runcie, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

That night Sidney and Geordie decided to have a celebratory drink at a bar in the harbour, in a venue similar to one Sickert had referred to as ‘the kind of place a European prince visits just after he has been ruined’. They watched the boats bobbing and ringing under a chain of evening lights before enjoying a seafood stew. Sidney imagined Sickert painting the scene before going on to the circus, Graham Anderson as a young man in love, and Mademoiselle Alexis on the trapeze, waiting to jump, each character in the story unaware of their future or their fate, swinging briefly over the abyss.

There was paperwork to attend to the following morning, and Sidney managed to persuade the Chief of Police to let him see the prisoner once more, if only to say goodbye.

Celine was dressed in a pale blue slip, with no shoes or shoelaces or trousers with a drawstring, but was, in a curiously French way, still allowed to smoke. It wouldn’t take her long, Sidney thought, either to escape or to persuade everyone to let her off completely.

He began by apologising; for intruding into her detective work about her mother and for ‘spoiling the party’.

‘It wasn’t much of a party. But it’s over now.’

‘Perhaps it would have been easier to bring your foster parents over to Cambridge than take the painting to them. Have they seen it yet?’

‘They came last night.’

‘They didn’t tell us that.’

‘They are proud. And they think you are tourists.’

‘And do they think the painting is of your mother?’

‘They understand that I wanted to believe it. So they said it was. But we cannot know for sure.’

‘Perhaps it is better in the imagination.’

‘It is almost the same as memory, don’t you think?’

‘You need imagination to remember.’

‘I just wanted to think of a time when my mother was happy,’ Celine began. ‘I can picture her standing on the trapeze, holding the attention of the crowd below and then taking that leap into thin air, flying, even if it was only for seconds. I don’t want to think of her being hit by my drunken father or shot when the Germans took over the town. I want to imagine her there; la balance, la jetée, la liberté. That moment of flying and floating and being free. That is why I wanted the painting. It’s like watching your mother with her future still in front of her, the air unknown even though it surrounds her: all that it requires is the bravery to make the leap into who we are and will be.’

‘Did you ever plan to give the painting back?’

‘It was a stupid thing to do. But I hope she would understand. I too needed to do something rash and sudden; a great jump over everything that does not matter. We all have to do this at some point in our lives. Perhaps you have done this too?’

‘People talk about the leap of faith,’ Sidney began. ‘You have to dedicate yourself. Then, once you are committed, it’s almost impossible to go back.

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.