Free Aftershock by Bernard Ashley Page A

got out of bed and followed her. She had been cleaning. Three cushion covers, ready for washing, were hanging over the back of a chair. The ornaments from the mantelpiece were on the table, lined up for dusting, next to the small pile of Colour Spot readers ready to be returned to school, closed and in their proper order. And lying there, too, was the book his mother was working her way through –
The Man Who Ran to Sparta.
    â€˜What is it?’ he asked again.
    â€˜Get yourself washed,’ she said. ‘Just look at the time.’ The mantelpiece clock on the table said nine thirty-five. ‘You’re never this late waking up. What time have you got to be at the school?’
    â€˜Ten o’clock.’
    Makis started dodging between the scullery outside and the kitchen as he gave himself a quick wash – while his mother filled a kettle, cut two slices of bread and put them under the grill. She threw an oilcloth across the table and set down a plate, all the time keeping her face turned away from Makis, bustling about as if everything was normal. Makis knew it wasn’t, though – and this was suddenly proved by a huge hiccup, the sort that comes from nowhere after tears.
    â€˜Mama! Something’s the matter – what is it?’ He wanted an answer, but he had to keep going, drying himself and looking for his trousers.
    She burnt the toast. His tea wasn’t poured. Pulling on his trousers and cramming his football boots, shin pads and the new red football shirt into a bag, Makis tried to move round in front of her, face to face. But it wasn’t easy. She scraped the toast outside the back door, she buttered it standing against the cooker. She was hiding her face from him, and she wasn’t going to tell him what this unhappiness was all about. So Makis went into the living-rooom to the book that she’d been looking at, lying upside down but open on the table.
The Man Who Ran to Sparta.
He turned it over.
    And now he knew. He remembered this page from when he’d read the book himself, in school.
    The picture of the runner’s face at the end of his run – the only real close-up – looked like someone he knew; someone he loved. Phidippides was very like Makis’s father – the same thick, dark hair, the same thinnish face, sharp nose and crinkled eyes. It could have been Spiros Magriotis there on the page, except that this man was in pain, his face screwed up in terrible anguish. During her tidying, Makis’s mother must have let the book fall open right here. Now, the sudden noise she made behind him was like an animal in pain. She reached over and grabbed the book to close it. But he wouldn’t let her.
    â€˜Is it this?’ he asked her. ‘Tell me… What is it about this picture?’
    She stopped struggling with the book and stared at him. ‘He looked like this. Your father. When they pulled the Argostoli stones from on top of him. I saw him before they…’ She couldn’t go on.
    This was something Makis had never known about, had never dared even imagine. He knew a lot about the day of the earthquake, but there were gaps.
    He hugged his mother and she hugged him back; but he wasn’t comfort enough for her. All her bravery – in coming to England, in working at a factory job she hated, in learning to talk and read in English for the sake of their new life – all this seemed to drain out of her at the sight of a picture of her husband suffering. With a wail, she slumped across the table.
    â€˜Mama! Mama!’ Makis felt helpless. He ran to the kitchen and brought a cup of water. He put his arms around her shoulders. ‘Drink this.’
    She lifted her head to take a sip, spluttered and coughed, and racked her thin body. She stared at Makis and put her knuckles to her mouth. ‘What he must have suffered! Not a mark on his head or face, but suffocated, his body crushed…’ She closed her