The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman & Gaiman

Author:Neil Gaiman & Gaiman
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2013-06-17T23:00:00+00:00

Lettie’s mother was prodding the huge fireplace with a poker, pushing the burning logs together.

Old Mrs Hempstock was stirring a bulbous pot on the stove with a large wooden spoon. She lifted the spoon to her mouth, blew on it theatrically, sipped from it, pursed her lips, then added a pinch of something and a fistful of something else. She turned down the flame. Then she looked at me, from my wet hair to my bare feet, which were blue with cold. As I stood there, a puddle began to appear on the flagstone floor around me, and the drips of water from my dressing gown splashed into it.

‘Hot bath,’ said Old Mrs Hempstock. ‘Or he’ll catch his death.’

‘That was what I said,’ said Lettie.

Lettie’s mother was already hauling a tin bath from beneath the kitchen table, and filling it with steaming water from the enormous black kettle that hung above the fireplace. Pots of cold water were added until she pronounced it the perfect temperature.

‘Right. In you go,’ said Old Mrs Hempstock. ‘Spit-spot.’

I looked at her, horrified. Was I going to have to undress in front of people I didn’t know?

‘We’ll wash your clothes, and dry them for you, and mend that dressing gown,’ said Lettie’s mother, and she took the dressing gown from me, and she took the kitten, which I had barely realised I was still holding, and then she walked away.

As quickly as possible I shed my red nylon pyjamas – the bottoms were soaked and the legs were now ragged and ripped and would never be whole again. I dipped my fingers into the water, then I climbed in and sat in the tin bath in that reassuring kitchen in front of the huge fire, and I leaned back in the hot water. My feet began to throb as they came back to life. I knew that naked was wrong, but the Hempstocks seemed indifferent to my nakedness: Lettie was gone, and my pyjamas and dressing gown with her; her mother was laying the table, getting out and arranging knives, forks, spoons, little jugs and bigger jugs, carving knives and wooden trenchers, and arranging them.

Old Mrs Hempstock passed me a mug, filled with soup from the black pot on the stove. ‘Get that down you. Heat you up from the inside first.’

The soup was rich, and warming. I had never drunk soup in the bath before. It was a perfectly new experience. When I finished the mug, I gave it back to her, and in return she passed me a large cake of white soap and a face flannel and said, ‘Now get scrubbin’. Rub the life and the warmth back into your bones.’

She sat down in a rocking chair on the other side of the fire, and rocked gently, not looking at me.

I felt safe. It was as if the essence of grandmotherliness had been condensed into that one place, that one time. I was not at all afraid of Ursula Monkton, whatever she was, not then.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.