Free Close Your Eyes by Michael Robotham Page B

stick?’
    ‘Nobody.’
    ‘But you said you beat someone with a stick.’
    ‘It’s just a turn of phrase,’ explains Julianne, but Emma has already launched into another story.
    ‘Casey Finster hit Beau Pringle with a stick and knocked out his tooth and Mrs Herbert made him write a letter to Beau’s parents, who said Casey had to pay for the orthodontist, but Casey’s father said Beau started the fight by throwing a rock, only it wasn’t a rock, it was a clod of dirt with a rock inside it but Casey didn’t know that so it wasn’t really his fault.’
    The entire sentence is delivered without her drawing breath.
    Charlie rolls her eyes and grabs her car keys. ‘Will you be here tonight?’
    ‘That depends,’ I say, glancing at Julianne. ‘Would that be OK?’
    ‘Sure.’
    Charlie kisses us both on the cheek. ‘Later, losers.’ And then she’s gone, throwing open the front door with a flourish and confronting the day like an actor walking on to a stage.
    Emma takes my hand as we climb Mill Hill Lane, heading for St Julian’s Primary School, which is opposite the church. Her questions, observations and statements become the background noise, which I occasionally punctuate with ‘uh-huh’ and ‘really’ to make her think I’m listening. Emma knows this but seems happy to leave her thoughts drifting like dandelion seeds, perhaps hoping one might germinate into a conversation. From somewhere in the hum and whirr I hear the words ‘hospital’ and ‘mummy’.
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘Will you be looking after us?’
    ‘When?’
    ‘When Mummy goes to hospital.’
    ‘Why would Mummy be going into hospital?’
    ‘For her historicalectomy.’
    ‘Do you mean hysterectomy?’
    ‘That’s what I said.’
    I don’t argue with her. ‘When is she going into hospital?’
    Emma shrugs. ‘Nobody tells me anything.’

8
    The windscreen wipers pause between each sweep across the glass. Rain, a summer shower, warm rather than cold, makes the villages blur and streak. Having passed through the southern outskirts of Bristol, I reach the coast road and follow the shoreline where the trees are stunted and bent by the prevailing winds.
    Across the Severn Estuary I can make out the mauve mountains of the Brecon Beacons. I grew up on the border of Snowdonia, a very similar landscape to this, where low islands, cliffs and shingle beaches were punctuated by wetlands. It was an idyllic childhood until I was sent away to boarding school at the age of twelve. I missed my sisters. I missed my mother. I even missed my father – God’s personal physician-in-waiting – an imposing yet compelling presence, quick to criticise and slow to praise. Every summer I would ride my bike to Abersoch and watch the teenage girls run shrieking into the waves, imagining that one day I might have the courage to sit down beside one of them. I fell in love with a girl called Carise who had a friend called Tessa; they would rub coconut oil on each other’s backs and lie on their stomachs, casually lifting their legs to kick at the sunshine.
    My mobile is sitting in a cradle on the dashboard. I have tried to call Julianne twice and left messages. She’s not answering. Avoiding me. Pulling over to the side of the road, I try again, typing the words: Emma told me you needed an operation. Please explain. Call me.
    I wait. A message pings back: Can’t talk now.
    I type: When?
    Later.
    I try to call her. She doesn’t answer. Why is she so bloody infuriating!
    All this time I’ve been worrying that there was someone else – another man, a new lover, my replacement – and now I discover that she’s sick. That’s why she invited me to live at the cottage.
    She needs a hysterectomy. I studied medicine for three years and I know enough to be worried. It could be bleeding, or fibroids, or a prolapse. She could have cancer. My stomach lurches. I’m the one who’s supposed to be sick and crumbling, jiggling my way through each day. Julianne never gets