Free Entwined by Lynda La Plante Page B

in the act might not be a good thing, but I could manage you. I mean Grimaldi's washed up, or filled up with booze, I hear, and you were shit hot with that magic stuff."
    "The day I need you to manage me, Tommy, I'll be washed up."
    Kellerman continued talking about acts he had managed, and she let him carry on, only half listening. There had been a time when Ruda had felt deeply sorry for him, because she had been in the same dark place. In retrospect, she had made herself believe that that was the reason she had married him, it united them. Earlier, he had been the only connection to this past, now he was the reminder.
    When they met, Kellerman was not as grotesque as he was now. He seemed boyish, innocent, his full-lipped mouth and exceptionally white even teeth always ready to break into a big smile. But as he aged, the anguish inside him, his self-loathing, not only seemed to have deformed his body, but was etched on his face.
    She was so engrossed in her thoughts that Kellerman startled her when he suddenly hopped onto the bed beside her.
    "You aren't listening to me!"
    "I'm sorry, I was miles away."
    Kellerman rested his head back against the pillows; his small feet in their red socks pushed at her back and irritated Ruda, so she got up and sat in the chair he had vacated. She was tense, her hands were clenched, but she told herself to be patient, to be nice to him. She mustn't antagonize him.
    "Strange coming back after all these years, isn't it?"
    She made no reply. He tucked his short arms behind his head, and closed his eyes. "You think it's all stored away, all hidden and then—back it comes. I've had a long time to think about the past, in prison, but being here, I dunno, it makes me uneasy, it's like a secret drawer keeps inching open."
    Ruda was trying to figure out how to tell him that she did not have the money. She racked her brain for a deal she could offer him. She was surprised by the softness, the sadness in his voice; he spoke so quietly she had to lean forward to hear him.
    "When my mama handed me over, there were these two women, skeletons, I can remember them, their faces, almost as clearly as my mama's. Maybe even clearer. One woman was wearing a strange green satin top, and a torn brown skirt…filthy, she was filthy dirty, her head shaved, her face was like a skull. She hissed at Mama through her toothless gums. 'Tell them he's twelve years old, tell the guards he's twelve.' My mama held on to me tightly. She was so confused and said, 'He's fourteen, he's fourteen but he's small, he's just small.' The woman couldn't hear because one of the guards hit her, then I saw her sprawled on the ground. I still remember her shoes, she had one broken red high-heeled shoe, and a wooden clog on her other foot."
    "I've heard all this! Come on, why don't we go someplace for a meal." She had to get him out, stop him drinking, talk to him, reason with him.
    Kellerman ignored her. "The next moment Mama and me were pushed and shoved into a long line. Eva, my little sister, was crying, terrified, and then the second woman whispered to Mama: 'Twins…say your children are twins.'
    Ruda arched her back. "Shut up!" Her heart began to beat rapidly, as if she were being dragged under water. She felt the damp darkness, smelled the stench, and she clenched her teeth, not wanting to remember.
    "Don't, Tommy, stop…I don't want to listen!" But she could hear the voice: "Twin… twins …TWINS," and she got to her feet, hugging herself tightly. She moved as far away from the bed as possible, to stand by the window. She could feel the hair on the nape of her neck stand up, her mouth felt dry, and the terror came back. The rats were scurrying across her. In the gloom, the white faces of the frightened, and the gaunt faces of the starving glowered at her. The stinking sewer water rose up, inch by inch, and they held her up by her coat collar so that she wouldn't drown. A blue woolen coat with a dark blue velvet collar. Hers had