Free The Possession of Mr Cave by Matt Haig Page B

were selective about what came out of your
mouth, you were also rather choosy about what went into it.
    Up until Reuben's death I had been so proud that I had
managed to raise a daughter who never bothered to check the
calorie content of a raisin before she dropped it into her mouth.
A girl with a healthy figure, who didn't aspire to be like the
skeletal clothes horses and starving pit ponies of the magazines.
    It had been a steady decline. A slowing down of your jaw
as it chewed. A mild flinch of regret as you swallowed. A silent
reading of ingredients and daily guidelines, assessing the
numbers with the studious eyes of a stockbroker.
    Once the rules were in place the decline steepened. And I
was left wondering how we were going to find a way back up
that slope. Yet every time I thought about reconciliation you
did something to further my anger.
    Angelica, for example.
    Now, I understand what I said when I saw her face staring
up at me from the kitchen bin but you must appreciate the
shock it gave me.
    To see an 1893 Heinrich Handwerck bisque doll's head
detached from its body and lying on a bed of carrot shavings
in a plastic bin liner would be quite a test for even the most
hardened antique lover. Of course, I shouldn't have gone on
about how much it had cost a decade before, or its current
worth now. This wasn't truly the point.
    The point was this: Angelica was a special part of your
childhood. You had chosen her yourself, at Newark
Antiques Fair. I had gladly risked a tantrum from Reuben
and sacrificed the chance to buy a pair of second-period
floral-encrusted Aberdeen jugs in order to see the smile on
your face.
    For years you mothered this doll – giving her a name,
combing her hair, removing and reattaching her handwoven
cape, talking to her as a living thing, nursing her on imaginary
battlefields, reading her extracts from Black Beauty or Little Women .
    I understood that these activities stopped a long time ago
and it would be a very foolish parent who would want them
to continue towards womanhood. Time, I know, is a rolling
boulder we can't hold back. Yet are we really to aid that
boulder in its destruction? I wasn't expecting you to still be
playing with a doll in your teenage years, yet to discard such
a valuable treasure, such a piece of your own past, was beyond
my immediate comprehension.
    'Bryony, I don't understand it. Why would you do such a
thing?'
    You didn't answer me.
    'Are you trying to hurt me? Punish me for something?'
    A word quivered your lips. 'Why?' you eventually said.
'Why? Why? Why on earth? Why?' It was as if you didn't
know anything about it. As if you thought I was responsible.
    'Is this about Reuben?' I asked, but got no further reply.
    After you stormed upstairs I reached into the bin and held
the pretty head in my trembling hand, as though it were
Yorick's skull. Those large blue eyes seemed to acknowledge
our sorry fates. Both of us, like the doll: broken, discarded,
lost from their complementary parts. All the tragedy and
violence of time, staring out from the palm of my hand.
    I arrived late at the stables due to my desperate attempt to
restore the doll, but gave up, unable to find the rest of her.
You weren't there and I panicked. The sky didn't help. Purpleblack
clouds pressed down onto a horizontal stretch of yellow,
as though God's scarred palm was crushing the day.
    I switched off the engine and climbed out of the car. I walked
over to the gate. There was no sign of you. There were hoofprints
heading out of the stables towards the road and I
worried for a minute that you had gone out on a solitary
hack, rather than staying within the fenced paddock as I had
always instructed.
    I opened the gate and stepped into the yard. It gave the
eerie impression of a Nevada ghost town, for there wasn't a
horse nor a human to be seen. Then I noticed something
even more troubling. Turpin's stable door was wide open,
with no Turpin visible inside. As I walked closer I heard a
noise, a sobbing,