Free Road to Berry Edge, The by Elizabeth Gill

care about me, who goes to bed with men for money. It’s disgusting.’
    â€˜Christ, Rob, there’s a halo forming over your head.’
    â€˜Shut up!’
    â€˜You’ve never done that, have you?’
    â€˜No, I haven’t.’
    â€˜That’s because you never needed to. You talk about your brother, about how he never did anything but work, about how dull and religious he was. You’re going just like him. We used to have fun—’
    â€˜Sarah’s dead!’
    â€˜Two years, Rob. Two bloody years. How much longer are you going to pretend that she’s coming back?’
    Rob grabbed Harry and slammed him up against the nearest wall.
    â€˜You devious bastard!’
    â€˜Go on then, hit me. You blame everybody. You enjoy knocking people on to the floor. It’s the only thing that makes you happy.’ And Harry wrenched free and walked out.
    He went to his own room. The fire was burning in there too. Every time he thought about his sister a coldness pervaded his heart, sickness hit his stomach, emptiness flooded his brain. He could no longer think that she was there or that she had just gone away and would come back to them as Rob did. He had tried to pretend that there was nothing the matter, that things would go on as they had, but now that he was not in Nottingham it was obvious to him that things would never be normal again. There was a noise at the door. He didn’teven turn around. Rob shut the door and then he said, ‘I’m sorry.’
    â€˜No, you’re right. I am a devious bastard.’
    â€˜Let’s go out,’ Rob said. ‘We’ll have a drink.’
    *
    It was bitterly cold in Durham and Harry soon regretted having insisted on coming here. Rob didn’t seem to want a drink, he had nothing to say, he had let himself be talked into it because he felt the debt of bringing Harry north to this place, making him feel obliged to invest time and money. He even felt guilty over his house and family and their inhospitality, Harry knew. After one drink at the pub in the market place Harry suggested moving on. They walked down Silver Street and on to Framwellgate Bridge and there Rob stopped. It was too cold for standing around, Harry thought but he didn’t say anything.
    â€˜Don’t you want another drink?’ he said after a minute or two.
    â€˜This was where John fell in,’ Rob said.
    â€˜How do you know?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜How do you know? You were in the pub over there.’
    â€˜About here, people said.’
    â€˜We don’t have to have another drink, Rob,’ Harry said, regretting the whole thing entirely by now. ‘We can go.’
    â€˜I don’t want to go to Berry Edge. I wish I’d never come back here. You have no idea how much I hate it. I want to be back in Nottingham with Sarah.’
    He spoke so softly that Harry could only just hear him.
    â€˜I miss her every minute, every second. I still can’t believe that she’s dead. I feel as though nothing in my life is worth having, nothing at all and it’s not just … it’s not just that I miss her. I want her. I want her so much I think I’m going to die of it sometimes. I can hardly remember what she feels like or tastes like. It’s like being locked up and left to starve to death. Nothingcan fill it up, food doesn’t or drink, or work or friendship, or anything.’
    Harry leaned back against the bridge, partly so that he couldn’t see the murky depths when John Berkeley had drowned.
    â€˜Can I say something?’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Why don’t you go to bed with somebody else?’
    â€˜You think that’s the answer to everything.’
    â€˜No, I don’t. You can’t betray her by doing it and as for betraying a memory, I think that’s not possible. You’re alive. Don’t you sometimes think that it’s just another woman’s arms around