The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer

Author:Kate Hamer [Hamer, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780571313259
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2015-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

29

The morning after the baptising I don’t get out of bed.

I can still taste the river in my mouth. The bump on my head is bigger: it makes my eye half close up and I can’t stop longing for what I saw down there.

I don’t hear Melody tiptoeing up to the truck. The first thing that makes me know she’s there is her voice floating in.

‘Carmel, aren’t you going to get up today?’

I open my eyes. She’s standing outside, looking in and twisting her hands together. I can’t see the scrapes on her body now she’s dressed. There’s only one I can see that goes all the way from her hair to her chin. It looks like someone’s felt-penned her face.

‘Don’t you have to call me Mercy now unless it’s secret?’

‘No. Pa said we’ll keep it for special occasions. For the time being.’

I sit up in bed. ‘Oh.’

‘He’s scared you’ll run off again.’

I lie back on the pillows. It feels like I’ve been in a fight with Gramps and that I might have won, though it’s not certain.

She starts twisting her skirt around in her hands, holding onto the hem and sticking her fingers through the holes in the lace.

‘We were wondering about the school?’

‘Silver too?’

‘Yeah. Silver wants to do it. More than me even. She just won’t say, that’s all.’

My eyelids feel heavy, they’re going to drop down over my eyes any second now. I touch the bump on my head gently. There’s crusty stuff in the middle.

‘Maybe not today.’

‘Oh.’ She sounds disappointed. ‘What about tomorrow?’

‘Sure. Tomorrow …’

Then my eyelids clang down.

*

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