A Darkness Descending by Christobel Kent

Author:Christobel Kent [Kent, Christobel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense
ISBN: 9780857893260
Publisher: Corvus
Published: 2013-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

AS LUISA KNEELED ON the pale carpet in front of a German teenager and pulled patiently at the lacing of a pair of high suede boots in a dark red colour they called merlot, the thought sprang into her head that she was close to not wanting to do this for a living for much longer.

Under her right arm there was an ache: it didn’t worry her, it had been there on and off for two years. She was more or less intact apart from the breast going, they’d said, all that complicated mesh of tendon and muscle under the arm should function all right; the lymph had been minimally disturbed by the operation but it still might play up, and it did. Her own fault: they’d told her over and over she need only have the lump removed. Too late to start regretting it now. And she didn’t regret it.

Luisa sat back on her heels and smiled at the girl, whose mother sat beside her, stiff and anxious with a handbag on her knees. The boots were very expensive. The father, in a Loden coat and hat, was pacing on the pavement outside. The girl was eighteen or so, younger than Chiara. Looking into her eyes Luisa wondered if she was an only child, if she had a boyfriend. The girl gazed back and Luisa could see that she was on the verge of tears. Family arguments were so common on holiday: were they trying to make something up to her with this present? And for some reason Luisa thought of Viareggio, and red hair in a bathtub.

‘Do you like them?’ she asked, and the girl nodded slowly. ‘Stand up,’ said Luisa. ‘Walk about.’ She gestured down the length of the shop: mirrors everywhere. The girl walked away slowly and, still on her knees, Luisa studied the mother’s expression.

‘They’re expensive,’ said Luisa with the girl out of earshot; she grasped for her smattering of German. ‘Does she look after her things?’ The mother turned towards her eagerly. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘she’s a good girl.’ She glanced through the window towards her husband, standing now in his smart coat with his back to the window, hands clasped behind him.

‘Well,’ said Luisa. ‘I expect her feet won’t grow any bigger.’ The mother smiled sadly. ‘And the quality is very good.’ Luisa spread her hands and said no more: together they watched as the girl reached the end of the shop and stared at her reflection solemnly. Her back was to them so that she thought herself unobserved, but they could see her in the mirror, eyes fixed on the dark red boots. Luisa wondered if the mother could remember, even faintly as she herself could, a time when it seemed that anything could be solved by a new pair of shoes.

Then they both looked towards the window and as they did the husband turned, looked, nodded, and at last the mother smiled.

Luisa got to her feet, feeling a painful tweak under the arm as she supported herself, an ache in the back of her legs as the tendons straightened.

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