Free The Birds of the Air by Alice Thomas Ellis

reminded her of Robin, and she couldn’t be sure whether she liked him for this or whether she would prefer to see him dead too.
    ‘Dad’s got a mistress,’ Sam announced at last in perfect English.
    Mrs Marsh, passing through the hall, heard him clearly and stood still, her hand suddenly cold on the newel post.
    ‘She shings,’ added Sam irrelevantly.
    ‘Well?’ asked Mary.
    ‘’orrible,’ said Sam. ‘In ’er chest.’
    ‘A contralto, I should think,’ mused Mary. ‘I’m glad we got that clear.’
    Sam was greatly relieved to see how little his aunt cared. She didn’t love anyone enough to mind at all what they did. He thought there was a lot to be said for people devoid of passion, and in Mary passion had dwindled to one desire – that she might see Robin again – and one fear – that she might not. Sam wasn’t to know this, but whatever the reason his aunt’s distant coldness was a relief after the heated curiosity of his mother who anguishedly loved and disapproved of him.
    Mrs Marsh peered round the door. She knew perfectly well that she ought to go on upstairs to the lavatory, as she had intended, and say nothing of what she had overheard, but she couldn’t help herself.
    ‘Are you telling lies, Sam?’ she demanded.
    Sam blushed. ‘Nah,’ he said indignantly – like all liars, far more offended than the usually veracious at having one of his few truthful utterances doubted.
    Mrs Marsh glared at him with the wholly unfair dislike reserved for the bearers of evil tidings. It would be better, thought Mary, if such people were made to wear distinctive clothing, so that the archers could shoot them down before they reached the barricades to upset the embattled inhabitants. There was seldom anything to be gained from the premature reception of bad news.
    Sam, too, was angry. He thought old people shouldn’t listen at doors and was aware again of the hopeless impossibility of reprimanding his seniors. Surrounded by moral turpitude, he yet knew that any word of rebuke from him would be considered impertinent, naughty and asking for trouble. Zing-split, he went in his head, mowing down the incessant ranks of imagined strangers – but it would be better, he suddenly realised, if his grandmother didn’t believe him, for she certainly cared. She smelt of love and worry.
    Mrs Marsh had reached the same conclusion. ‘You talk a terrible lot of nonsense,’ she told Sam, running upstairs. ‘Don’t encourage him, Mary.’ She had just noticed an extraordinary family resemblance between aunt and nephew, and fumed briefly at the unfairness of things. After all, there were countless other relations Sam could have taken after . . .
*
    Throughout the afternoon neighbours kept calling with heavily wrapped small offerings of marmalade and bath-salts, which were added to the pile round the tree. They all knew Mary, and many of these things were for her; but Mary lurked in her room and left it to her mother to hand round the decorative boxes of matches and the apple-shaped candles which she had got for her to give in reciprocation. Her mother had had to wrap all these presents herself since Mary was loth to wind any material round anything or put anything in boxes and it hadn’t been necessary to buy a present for Robin. Christmas wasn’t necessary for Mary. She would wait for Easter and that other unanswerable feat of godly legerdemain. Resurrection, after all, was the
pièce de résistance
, deserving only of the roll of drums, the fanfare, the held breath – making the miracle of birth and even death quite commonplace.
    Evelyn, as best friend, kept her visit and her gift till last – until the evening, when she saw the lights go on. Then, glowing with the selfless pride of the donor, she crossed the Close to claim her reward of gratitude and a glass of sherry.
    ‘You can’t really wrap it up and put it under the tree,’ she said, ‘but I thought I’d bring it over tonight so it can settle in before