The Scorpion's Head by Hilde Vandermeeren

Author:Hilde Vandermeeren [Vandermeeren, Hilde]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

38

At half past six in the evening, Gaelle was in the common room, which consisted of a small kitchen, a dining room and a sitting area with a TV. She was sitting at the table with the nine other residents of the unit and their nurse. Gaelle offered the cheese to Angela, who was sitting opposite her, but she just turned away and slurped her coffee. Gaelle put the plate back down and took a slice of cheese to put on her bread. When they’d sat down to eat, Gaelle had made an attempt to question Angela about the colours that went with the numbers, but Angela had started rocking in her seat and the nurse had told Gaelle to leave her alone.

When anyone spoke at the table, it was about something trivial, like the weather – shame it was so cloudy today, but it’d be better tomorrow. Or the bread – a bit stale. Or which programmes they’d watch on TV tonight. That resulted in a discussion, which the nurse tried to steer in the right direction.

Gaelle drank her coffee without taking her eyes off Angela, who still had three quarters of her sandwich to go and seemed to have forgotten that she was supposed to be eating it. Gaelle weighed up her chances. Right now, everyone was at the table, and then they would clear away and wash the dishes together, which would be the perfect moment to slip into Angela’s room and memorise the colours she’d painted in her picture.

Red, white, green, brown, yellow.

“I need to go to the loo,” Gaelle said. “I’ll help with the washing-up when I get back.”

The nurse nodded and Gaelle pushed back her chair.

“Can you hurry up, Angela?” she heard the nurse say. “You have an appointment with your therapist at seven.”

Gaelle looked at the clock. Ten to seven. She hurried out of the common room. Angela’s room was next to the toilets. Gaelle took a quick glance around as she stood outside Angela’s room, before slipping inside and closing the door. Angela’s room was the mirror image of her own: a simple space with, on one wall, a bed, a washbasin and a bedside table and, on the opposite wall, a wardrobe. She walked around the room, looking for the sheet of paper with the numbers.

It was nowhere to be seen.

From the common room, she heard the sound of laughter and of chairs being moved. Where was that damned picture? Tearing the wardrobe open, she saw part of the paper sticking out from under the blankets on the bottom shelf. She pulled out the sheet of paper and tried to focus on the colours and the numbers. The paper shook in her hands. The exhaustion and tension of the past few days made the figures dance before her eyes.

Out in the corridor, she could hear voices, people who had stopped to talk just outside Angela’s door. As quick as a flash, she slid the picture back under the blankets, closed the wardrobe, and, just before the door opened, she dived under the bed.

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.