Free Never Mind Miss Fox by Olivia Glazebrook Page A

did not fancy sitting on the train in a puddle, and other people smelled of charity shops when they were wet.
    Outside the window the square dimmed from a gloomy afternoon to a night dark, a cupboard dark, as if the sun had not set but had been shut out by a closed door. Painted railings seemed to shine and window frames to glow, as they did at dusk. One front door turned the blood-soaked red of a toadstool and another the pungent milk-green of a moldering corpse. There would—there must—be a storm. A dreadful silence had fallen and the whole lidded city seethed with static.
    Clive shifted from his seat to throw his rubbish away and to stand and stare at the window, wiping his hands on a napkin. He felt the creep and prickle of sweat under his hair.
    The sky split with a flash and a simultaneous crack-gulp-boom of thunder that made the building—and everyone in it—jump with nerves. “Christ almighty,” Clive heard Belinda say in the corridor. From others came fearful laughs and exclamations.
    The trees in the square—broad, sobbing planes—lifted the ends of their fingers all at once as a squall of wind caught their leaves underneath. A noise came from them, a great and glorious shushing like a wave pouring in over shingle.
    There followed a series of flat thunderclaps and then, after a short silence, a murderous-sounding crackle. Clive was afraid—not of the storm but of something at large in the air, something coming to catch him in its claws. His shirt clung to his ribs. He would go—he would go now. He slammed out of the door, hurried to the Underground, plunged down the steps and scampered into the fug.
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    He was just in time. On the other side of London he emerged to find the city under a downpour and the station a slippery rink of puddles and newspaper pages. His train-carriage windows were sluiced by rain and steamed with vapor.
    It took a small disaster for commuters to make friends: people clucked, laughed and shook out their clothes.
    â€œSoaked!”
    â€œDrenched!”
    â€œRight down to my knickers!”
    Clive, dry as a bone, stared and listened from his seat. Why did I not get wet? He did not feel blessed but cursed: condemned to a ghostlike solitude.

6
    C live had not intended to go to Eliot’s birthday party but when the day came he found himself at his parents’ home—on a laundry run—and with nothing to do that night. Tom was there, excited and jumpy about the evening to come, and Clive was jealous.
    Tom had not given up on Eliot and still loved her, not quite hopeless and not quite encouraged. “That naughty Eliot,” sighed Val. “She leads him on, poor Tom.”
    Clive had not told his brother about the day at the races. It would have been uncomfortable to tell and hard for Tom to hear, so he kept it to himself—quite tight against his chest.
    Watching Tom bob about in the kitchen, bothering his mother and making her laugh, Clive could read his brother’s mind—they all could: Perhaps tonight.
    â€œI might come too,” Clive offered. When he saw Tom’s surprised face turn towards him he knew that he did want to go. “Yes, I think I’ll come with you, to the party. She asked me, did you know that?”
    Tom pulled no punches: it was his big night and he did not want his brother there. “She asked you because she thinks you’re a sad act with no friends. She’s not expecting you to actually come. Anyway, what about exams? Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
    â€œI’ll take the night off.”
    Tom sat down at the kitchen table to lace his sneaker and did not say anything for a moment. Val looked from one son to the other but kept quiet. When Tom straightened up he said, “But—” He stopped and started again. “But everyone will be my age—apart from her parents. You won’t know anyone. It’ll be weird.”
    Clive stared at his