Doctor Glass: A Psychological Thriller Novel by Louise Worthington

Author:Louise Worthington [Worthington, Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TCK Publishing
Published: 2022-04-10T23:00:00+00:00

16

AJ takes no pleasure in removing the nameplate from what was once James’s bedroom door.

He remembers having a hand-scribbled KEEP OUT sign on his bedroom door as a child. Not like this wooden, hand-painted sign, which probably cost a packet. James’s is written in black slanted letters, like a signature, and in one corner there is a little boy running with a cat.

Will Drew want to keep it?

Unsure of what to do with the sign, he tucks it under his arm and ventures down a set of concrete steps.

In Evie’s darkroom, there is a black box with a lid. Inside, there’s mainly photographs of Drew’s son, James, and weird-looking landscapes. Before switching on the bulb in the darkroom, he is struck by the luminous finger marks on the walls–—a child’s hands, finger-painted in fluorescent green and pink, starting at the floor and working their way up the walls and to the ceiling.

Evie and James must have had fun doing that, he thinks, then switches on the light and places the sign in the bottom of the box.

Back in James’s bedroom, on the inside door of the wardrobe, his ever-increasing height had been marked with dates and ages. The marks are in pencil; fine stripes one after the other, marking the passage of time and the rapid growth of a little boy.

AJ had never spoken to the lad, so he doesn’t know why it’s upsetting him to feel his absence and relics of his short stay here. He turns the radio up and gets on with pulling the multi-coloured bunting down from above the curtain rail, then makes a start on painting the wall. James is perhaps too young to paint or scribble on his bedroom walls like AJ had done as a kid. The four walls look pretty clean and fresh to AJ, but he’ll do what the boss says, to keep him happy.

He finds photographs, still in their frames, in the top drawer of the boy’s chest of drawers. The sunshine yellow of James’s hair is as bright as an egg yolk. He is sitting on a green stretch of grass. He guesses Evie was behind the camera, taking the picture.

In another framed photograph, James is sitting on a ride-on tractor with green wheels and a yellow seat. He straddles it like he’s riding the king’s horse. The plastic wheels catch on the grit and gravel, so he looks to be pushing hard to get to where he has to go. The wheels are rolling, and Evie is watching James push himself along like it’s the most amazing thing she has ever seen. Drew was there for that occasion, it seems, behind the lens.

AJ thinks about his own childhood: he had shared a room with his older brother, Jake, who liked to regularly remind him of what a stupid kid he was and what an amazing, clever guy his big bro was. Annoyingly, Jake had been right about being clever, as he’s made a mint in banking and works for himself, when he can be bothered, as a broker.

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