Free The Crime of Huey Dunstan by James Mcneish Page B

me round. Deliberately, using deliberate strong movements of the arm and cane, I got my balance and began to breathe in as the sounds returned. I could feel my chest filling as I breathed in. You know that lovely creaking sound of the thwarts when you’re at sea? The sound you get lying in your bunk below the waterline when the ship rolls? That’s what a blind man feels when he enters into the windiness of the day with his pores pricked. I stood a moment on the Parade reading the music of the waves, the shouts of bathers coming over the parapet from the beach below. I walked on.
    Lawrence is wrong , I told myself. The headmaster’s wrong. They’re all wrong . If I had thought to ease my mind by taking a stroll in the wind, I was mistaken. By the time I reached Evans Bay forty minutes later, it was raining hard. I caught the bus home.
     
    The following week I came back from the university with a bag of shopping in my hand and went into the kitchen. Although I am officialy retired, I keep a room at the university and use it every week. I like to keep the contact with young people. It was a Friday, shabbat, and even though Lisbeth doesn’t keep shabbat in the religious sense I like to do something special for her at the end of the week. Lisbethis Jewish by the way. Well, half-Jewish. Friday is one of my cooking days.
    I had thought of making a fish stew but the fish wasn’t fresh and the shallots in the supermarket felt spongy. I keep a number of recipes to hand in braille, and decided on chops done the Greek way with lemon, and asparagus tips on the side. I forget where Lisbeth was, it wasn’t one of her hospice days. She came in about an hour after me and disappeared into the study, then came out again.
    “The asparagus looks nice.”
    “I thought I’d try a parmesan sauce. I might need your help. The recipe says ‘parmesan and mimosa’ but I think the mimosa is hoo-ha.”
    “I hope you don’t mind,” she said. “I’ve been reading some of the stuff on your computer. The transcripts.”
    “When?”
    “This morning after you went out. I hope it’s allowed.”
    “Of course. The trial’s over.”
    “I thought your evidence was very good.”
    “Oh thank you.”
    “No. I mean it. As for the prosecutor—”
    “Sparrow, his name is. Yes?”
    “I don’t know. I suppose they’re all like that. I couldn’t understand what the judge was saying to the jury at the end. Struck me as like robbing Peter to pay Paul. He sounded as if he was trying to be fair. I don’t understand the legal side. When you’ve finished making the sauce—the mimosa by the way is just the look of the thing, when you squeezethe egg yolks through a sieve they’re supposed to come out looking like mimosa blossom. I can do it. But first, can we sit down together over a drink? There’s something I’d like to ask you.”
    “Ask away,” I said when we were settled in the next room.
    “Can you please explain to me why after two weeks, nearly three weeks now, this case is still getting to you?”
    “How do you mean.”
    “You’re not sleeping. You’re nervy. You fly off the handle for no reason. You get up in the night and go into the next room or you go out. Last night you were talking in your sleep. What is it about this boy?”
    “I’ve told you.”
    “You’ve told me he thought he was hitting ‘the other man’. That’s not a reason.”
    “It’s a bloody great puzzle. Nobody knows why he did it.”
    “So the ‘why’ is important? Look, you say you think he was abused. That’s what you were talking about in your sleep. So? Everyone’s being abused these days. It’s all the rage. It’s the latest form of calisthenics. What I’m getting at, Charlie. Does the case have a value of itself?”
    “You mean is this journey really necessary? I’m not sure.”
    “Well, you’d better be sure if it’s making you miserable.”
    One of the dangers of being married to an intelligentwoman is that you have to justify