Free The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay by Andrea Gillies Page A

in. Hold it steady; I’m going to get it out.”
    “No, no, don’t; it’ll hurt.” She was flinching, screwing her face up. “I’ll go find Mum; she takes them out with a hot needle.”
    “A hot needle sounds a lot worse. Hold still.” He squeezed at the injury from both sides with the tips of his thumbs until the end of the splinter popped up, and then grasped it and pulled. “There’s a tiny bit left; let me suck at it.”
    Nina was already doing that, sucking at the wound and then peering at it, squinting. She felt a thrill of disquiet at Luca’s suggestion. “All gone I think. It’s bleeding, though.”
    Luca produced a clean tissue, winding it around the finger and tucking in the end. A blood spot seeped red from within, spreading and then ceasing. “That should do it,” he said. “Might need a Band-Aid later.”
    “Thank you.” She put out her good hand. It was a thanking gesture, brushed against his ribs.
    What happened next happened in a rush. Luca took hold of the hand and pulled her towards him, adjusting his balance on the bench, and then he was kissing her. They kissed softly and then harder and moved closer to one another. He put his arms around her lower back and now his tongue found hers; she put her arms around him and pressed her breasts into his chest and he made a small noise, a soft grunt, something out of his throat like an admission of relief. Immediately after this there was a new noise, one they both recognized: the door from the kitchen opening and closing. Nina’s eyes widened as she realized that it was her mother approaching, her feet on the paved path; she movedback and Luca moved back further, pushing away from her and turning rapidly to face forward. They’d only just extricated themselves when Anna appeared, barefoot and wearing a red shirt dress with buttons that stopped short of the knee, revealing long, smooth legs that still bore traces of summer. She had wet laundry in a blue basket balanced against her hip. The washing line was attached to the shed at one end, and at the other to a rusting pole that Robert had planted in the hedge for the purpose.
    “What are you two up to?” She’d dropped the basket and was beginning to hang the clothes. She didn’t mean anything particular by it, but Luca had already sprung to his feet.
    “I’m going in now; see you,” he said. Anna turned to Nina while holding a shirt, offering an inquiring look, but said nothing, returning to the task, and Luca went through the door in the fence and disappeared.
    Disappeared was the apt word. He didn’t look Nina in the eye for almost three years. There were new friends, new faces in the garden that Nina realized were really old faces, boys she’d been at primary school with, like Andy Stevenson, who looked like a young farmer. Luca was busy with projects and mystifyingly cheerful. As for Nina, she was thought to be ill; her parents worried about her paleness and lack of sleep, her poor appetite, her inability to sit still. It affected her schoolwork. She’d study a little while or read, she’d listen to music or go to the hobby room to her mother’s sewing machine, but it was never long before she was back at the window. Sometimes she’d see Luca in his garden on his own, kicking leaves or hitting a tennis ball repetitively against the wall. He’d sit on the swing — Nina’s bedroom gave a grandstand view of it — with his feet in the dirt patch that had been worn beneath, moving himself back and forth with his shoes trailing. She’d see him reading in the hammock, onethat Giulio had strung between two silver birches, with successive trilogy paperbacks of The Lord of the Rings . Sometimes he’d look up, a quick, disguised look upwards, and if he saw her he’d go inside. It was clear that he didn’t want to know her anymore. Unable to believe that their friendship was over, Nina persisted, for a few disheartening weeks, in behaving as if it wasn’t. “I’m busy,” he’d