Crippen by John Boyne

Author:John Boyne
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312343583
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

It was a Tuesday evening in late summer and Hawley was alone in the back garden at 39 Hilldrop Crescent, strolling around with his hands in his pockets, disturbing the soil with the toe of his boot. Cora had left for the Majestic a few hours earlier for her regular performance there, wearing the red dress that had cost him six shillings a few months earlier. Recently, he had taken to closing the dental surgery on Tuesdays and returning straight home after Munyon’s closed. It wasn’t as if his practice made much money anyway, although that wasn’t his reason for the night off. In fact, this was the only evening in the week when he had the entire house to himself and he valued the peace and quiet which it afforded him. Over the past twelve weeks his life seemed to have gone further and further downhill, to the point where he could hardly wait for sleep to come at night, since it gave him some sweet relief from the daily grind. Only the first few seconds in the morning were peaceful for him as he slowly awoke, before he remembered how wretched his life really was.

Although his marriage to Cora had been a failure from the start, he could scarcely remember a time when he was as miserable as he was at this point. Her life seemed to revolve around only two things: the music hall and taking care of Alec Heath. He was not so jealous of the Majestic, because he knew it was still something which made her believe that she had a future in show business, something he himself had long believed to be a pipe dream. Alec, however, was a different matter. The boy seemed intent on being a constant annoyance to Hawley, being everything that he wasn’t and presenting such an obvious contrast to her ageing husband, so that he made him seethe with anger and jealousy.

Mornings were the worst. Alec would sit at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette, shirtless, with no thought for decorum or manners. His muscular body provided an unspoken rebuke to Hawley, who cowered in his own chair, nibbling at a piece of dry toast and sipping his tea nervously, a stranger in his own home. Alec seemed to relish the attention that Cora paid to him, and the manner of her flirtations was obvious when she spoke to Hawley while resting a hand on one of the boy’s bare shoulders. He desperately wanted to order him to cover up or stay in his room until he was dressed, but he was afraid that he would be laughed at and that then he would have nothing left to say in his own defence. And so he stayed mute, quietly seething, wishing that the boy would simply leave or find another couple to intrude upon.

From the back garden, he heard a distant knock on the front door and sighed. He glanced at his watch; it was only eight fifteen. Neither

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