The Pure in Heart by Susan Hill

Author:Susan Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781446485231
Publisher: Vintage

Thirty-two

‘Who the hell’s sending you a parcel?’ Michelle threw the brown box at him as he came into the room.

Andy took it and turned it over twice. His name was on a printed label, with the correct address. ‘CIM-communications.com’ was the name of the sender.

‘I ’ope it ent a bleedin’ bomb.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’

‘Well, what is it then?’

‘How do I know?’

‘You expectin’ anything?’

He wasn’t. Michelle watched him closely. ‘Open it, why don’t you?’

‘I’m going out.’

In the front room Coronation Street was just ending.

‘I hate that bloody tune … waaw waaw waaw …’ Michelle bounced out of the kitchen. Three seconds later, the tune changed to gunfire.

Andy grabbed the brown box and went out before she could come after him, demanding to know more.

The only place he could take it was the Ox, and that was packed for a darts final, but he found a seat by the door to the lavatories, got a half-pint and looked at the parcel and the people around him. But those who were not round the darts board were in front of the television watching Chelsea go one up on Arsenal.

He ripped the box open with the edge of his front door key. A new mobile phone nestled among the wrappings. He took it carefully out and weighed it in his hand. It was very small and very light. Silver. ‘Cool,’ his nephew would have said.

Andy knew where it had come from and it felt like a ticking bomb in his hand.

He drank slowly from his glass. The box contained a charger, instruction booklet, guarantee. Nothing more.

A roar of approval went up from the darts watchers.

He didn’t dare start to fiddle with the keypad or try to find out how it worked. He didn’t want it near him. Having it meant a commitment to Lee Carter and his job and for days Andy had been having second and third thoughts about that.

He thought back to prison. He had a glimmer of understanding why people sent themselves back there. Not that he would, not ever. But the world was difficult. Freedom was difficult. Nothing was as he’d expected it to be, everything, once the novelty of being out had worn off, was either a shock or a disappointment. He felt aimless and frustrated. He wanted to get on with something … life, he supposed. Was this life? Hanging about the Dulcie, spending hours making half a pint of cheap beer last in places like this, sleeping crammed in with his nephew whose trainers smelled?

He rewrapped the mobile phone, finished his beer and looked across to the darts board. Boring. Andy had played them all in prison. Darts, ping-pong, pool … and darts took the prize for being the most deadly boring of them all.

The arrows flew, and hit the right segments of cork, thwack, thwack, thwack. Another cheer.

Andy went out into the drizzle, the package tucked away inside his jacket.

Nothing happened for two days. When he had an hour alone in the house he read the instruction booklet through and set the phone on to charge, hiding it under his camp bed.

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