Free Touch by Graham Mort Page A

apron just to dust the lounge. She flicked the duster over the cocktail cabinet, her father’s cricket trophies, the ghastly wedding photograph and the one she hated of herself in school uniform. She flicked three dead flies off the windowsill and onto the thick pile carpet. It gave her a secret pleasure to do the job badly, knowing how her mother wouldn’t settle until she had personally dusted the whole room again.
    She threw the duster onto the kitchen table and shouted up the stairs where her mother was busy in the bathroom.
    â€˜I’m going out now.’
    â€˜That was quick!’
    Lucy didn’t answer. She loved the insolence in her own silence.
    â€˜Ok, have a nice time!’
    Her mother’s voice was bright with relief. Lucy slammed the front door, slouching down the driveway to annoy her, just in case she might be watching from an upstairs window.
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It was much hotter outside the house. Lucy undid another button of her blouse. When she looked down she could see where her small breasts were gathering into the bra. They were coming on. Her mother, of course, had firm, full breasts that jutted out smartly from her uniform.
    Lucy crossed the busy main road that separated the house from the park and went through a gap in the green metal railings. The lake looked cool and peaceful. She picked her way through the couples on the grass. Snatches of dance music wavered in the steamy air. There was a path all the way round the lake, leading through thick stands of rhododendrons. Lucy walked slowly, feeling the sun on her hair and neck. She wondered what Russia would be like and envied Anna. Would it be summer there or winter? She couldn’t remember. She decided that it would be summer and swel-teringly hot and Anna would be in a troika galloping through the dust of the steppes.
    Lucy stopped in a little arbour of rhododendrons that sheltered her from view. She went down to the edge of the lake and crouched down, idly flicking a handful of dust and gravel into the water. A family of mallards, one duck and five ducklings, sailed out from under the overhanging branches to investigate. They pecked at the dust on the water.
    â€˜Stupid things!’
    Lucy threw another handful of dust and the ducks gathered around it in a flurry, darting and pecking. In the sunlight the ducklings looked like golden catkins dusted with brown pollen. There was a little beach at the water’s edge and she threw down a handful of tiny stones there. The mother duck kept her distance but two of the ducklings came closer. Lucy watched them. It was fascinating, the way they had such trust. It might be possible to lure one of the ducklings from the water. She began to trail dust and gravel from her hands, pretending that it was food. The ducklings paddled closer. It was too easy. Soon one of them had ventured from the water and was pecking within a few inches of her hand. The down on its body was like stained fibres of cotton wool.
    Lucy leaned forward, taking care that her shadow didn’t fall on the duckling. Very slowly she moved her hand over it and made a little grab. She gathered it up, clumsy, struggling, folding the stubby little wings under her fingers. Beneath the fine plumage she could feel its bones, its weird heat. She held it firmly and rolled her hand over to examine it from all sides. It tried to break free and she had to keep pushing the useless wings back under her fingers. Its life throbbed in her hands, so different from her own, so inexplicable. It was a small machine of feather and muscle, its heart ticking away, its eyes flicking under a pale membrane.
    Shuffling close to the edge of the water, Lucy placed the duckling’s feet just below the surface. It struggled in her hand again: it was an odd feeling. She pushed her hand slowly under the water and pulled it out again. Water ran off the downy fur, globing into little droplets like mercury. The mother duck swam around, unconcerned,