The Greatcoat by Helen Dunmore

Author:Helen Dunmore
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Horror, Fiction
ISBN: 9781446474563
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2012-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

THERE WAS A place for his head between her chin and her breast. They lay for a long time like that, slowly returning to themselves. Perhaps they’d been asleep for a while. His hair was dark at the roots with sweat and his face was huddled against her. He must have got engine oil from the bike onto his hands and then run them through his hair, for she could smell the oil, and something else, like cordite after a firework explosion. He had twisted a length of her hair through the fingers of his left hand. When she stirred, it tugged like an anchor.

I must go home, she thought, I’ll be late.

Home … But where was home? Her mind struggled in a darkness that was new to it. It was as if Alec had entered her mind as well as her body, taken her and left himself there. He had possessed her. Possession, she thought, and her mind shivered for an instant in terror. But no, he was warm and breathing, as warm as she was. She would not think of anything different. They belonged together. Time had cracked, and given them to each other.

She shifted position, moving carefully so as not to disturb him. There was nothing in the world she wanted more than for him to stay there, where he was, against her. Her thighs were sticky. He’d come inside her and she’d held him tight, not wanting him to withdraw even though she knew they should be careful.

Home … But instead of the drab rooms of the flat, a grey stone farmhouse filled her mind. Its image developed. There was a line of washing blowing on the green, to one side of the house. The back door was half open and she found that she knew what lay inside. She knew the kitchen with the range that had to be black-leaded until it shone. Her fingers had learned the exact pressure to put on the cloth as she buffed up the surface. There was the Dutch airer that came down from the ceiling on thin twisted red-and-cream ropes. She knew how it swung, and how she had to loop the rope around the hook while she was hanging up the clothes, so that the rope would not pay out suddenly and dump the rack full of clean washing on the floor. In winter, the clean clothes smelled of her cooking. She didn’t mind baking smells, but she didn’t like it when her blouses reeked of roast meat.

As Isabel watched, the kitchen stopped being empty. Shadowy figures were starting to form, drifting like smoke at first and then spinning themselves into solidity. She snatched her mind away. They would dissolve if she didn’t look at them. Above all she didn’t want to see their faces. A sense of terrible urgency seized her and she shook Alec awake.

‘Alec! Alec! I must go home. Look at the time.’

He rolled over, away from her, and lay on his back bewildered, collecting his thoughts.

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