Free Never Close Your Eyes by Emma Burstall Page B

particularly busy patch at the moment.’
    â€˜You’re always having a busy patch,’ she replied.

Chapter Nine

    â€˜Who’s a beautiful girl then?’
    Carol popped the saucer of roast chicken scraps on the yellow lino and ran her hand along Victoria’s soft, gingery fur. The cat, purring loudly, sniffed the food, picked up a chunk of white meat and put it on the floor beside the saucer where she began chewing greedily. Albert, who was black and white, was jumping up around Carol’s ankles, yowling.
    â€˜All right, all right,’ she said, flicking her long grey hair out of her eyes, ‘yours is just coming. I’ve only got one pair of hands.’
    She put another saucer of food beside Victoria’s, and Albert set to with gusto. Carol grinned and gave them both another stroke. ‘There now,’ she said. ‘Good kitties.’
    She turned to the chicken carcass on the white plastic workbench, tore the rest of the meat and jelly off the bones and put the scraps in a big blue plastic dish. Then she went down her narrow hallway to the small sitting room at the back of the house, opened the glass door and placed the bowl on the grass by the compost heap.
    She knew that at least two wild cats came to her for food but there might be more. And the foxes and the odd badger would polish off any leftovers. She must remember to leave some broken peanuts out later for the hedgehogs, too.
    She sniffed the air. There was a sweet smell coming from the few remaining white roses climbing up the rickety wooden fence to her left. They were very late. It was mid-September now. Carol looked around and thought how lucky she was. The garden was only tiny but it was almost completely secluded, thanks to the tall bushes on either side. And when she looked up all she could see were trees and sky. It was amazingly quiet, too. In Richmond, just up the road, you were bothered by the constant drone of planes overhead. But here, usually the only audible noises were birdsong and the shouts of children in their gardens.
    She went back inside and closed the glass door. There was nothing left on the chicken carcass worth keeping, so she wrapped it in a plastic bag and dropped it in the bin in the corner of the kitchen. Then she piled up the various dishes that she’d used, stuck them in the red bowl in the sink and ran cold water over them. She couldn’t be bothered to wash them now. They could wait till later, or tomorrow even.
    Carol glanced out of her kitchen window. A couple of children were still playing football in the road outside but most had gone in. It was pretty safe on the estate. Few cars passed by and most tended to belong to locals who knew to drive slowly.
    It was a lovely place for children to grow up. Quiet streets and lots of trees. Some of the modern houses, including hers, were a bit small and poky, but at least they had decent-sized windows that let in lots of light.
    Carol recognised one of the boys from two doors down but the other she’d never seen before. The football rolled on to the pavement in front of her window and the boy she knew ran to fetch it. He stooped to pick it up and as he rose, he caught her eye. She smiled and waved. He waved back shyly before running back to his friend.
    He was a nice lad. They mostly were around here, apart from the odd one who could be a bit cheeky. Carol would often stop and chat to them while she was watering her pots by the front door. She liked children.
    She sighed and switched the wireless on to Classic FM. She tended to do that in the evenings when it started to get dark. She liked listening to music while she wrote. She was getting on quite well with her novel. It was a bit complicated, though – science fiction. Sometimes she wasn’t sure that she understood it herself. She wondered if she should ask someone from the creative writing group to take a look. Not Pamela, obviously. She really was the limit. She’d been