The Beresford by Will Carver

Author:Will Carver [Carver, Will]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orenda Books
Published: 2021-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY–TWO

Gail’s baby was the size of an avocado when she called Blair a bitch. Then another man was trying to hit her.

Mrs May had emptied Blair’s apartment after ten days of not seeing that kind country girl. She could have searched through all the woman’s belongings to find her parents’ details. She could have let them know that she had moved on from The Beresford and forfeited her small deposit. But that wasn’t how Mrs May did things.

She would wait. A week, maybe three, and Blair’s God-fearing mother and father would be on that doorstep, demanding to know what had happened to their daughter. They’d look ten years older than they felt, and all three people in the doorway of The Beresford would have the feeling that Blair Conroy would never be seen again.

Her parents would comfort themselves by saying that she was with God now. And Mrs May would know that she was not.

Abe still hadn’t moved out but was useful in taking Blair’s things to the local charity shop. Her clothes. Her books. They couldn’t get into her laptop so that was thrown away. It didn’t make sense, of course. Why would she leave without any of her personal possessions?

Mrs May never asked the questions. She just had to get the room ready for the next tenant.

Abe and Gail were talking in the library area. She had asked him more about Blair.

‘Mrs May said that you two had got close.’

He admitted that, and then riffed on the truth. Saying how she had led him on. She was showing him affection and then pulling back. Blair was a bit of a user. He would buy her things, and had lent her money.

‘I won’t see that again. I think that’s probably what she used to get out of here.’

Gail, matter-of-factly, just-for-something-to-say, wittered the words, ‘Sounds like a real bitch to me.’

It was nothing. A throwaway comment to show that she was on Abe’s side.

‘What did you call her?’

‘A bitch. The Blair Witch. The Blair bitch.’ She laughed at her own joke.

‘Are you laughing?’

‘What?’

‘You didn’t know her. You don’t call her a bitch, you hear me?’

Abe should have left. He should never have had another opportunity like this. Getting sick had been his missed cue to leave.

He got up from his chair and stood over the pregnant woman, snarling. She’d seen that look before a hundred times, when Castle wanted his sandwich or to turn her onto her front and fuck her dry.

Abe was mad.

He slapped Gail hard around the face.

He drew his fist back next, and Gail reacted to all the beatings she had taken over the years. She wasn’t going to lie down and wait for a man to stamp on her head. Not again. She had escaped that.

Another fight at The Beresford.

It was happening again.

A minute after it was finished, the doorbell would ring.

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