Читать книгу Don’t You Cry - Cass Green - Страница 14

For the moment, he’s still bubble-wrapped against the pain.

Getting away had been a good distraction. Pounding down those endless country roads, across rutted fields and along the side of the dual carriageway in the rain, feeling the bouncing squish of the baby inside the coat, had taken every bit of his resources.

But a juggernaut of guilt is bearing down on him and he won’t be able to out-run it for long.

Lucas recognizes this feeling. He wonders whether everything in his life has been a series of wobbly stepping stones from there to here.

‘I’ve found somewhere,’ said Angel when he’d rung her, almost incoherent with shock. ‘It’s not ideal but it’s all I can think of for now. A place with no connection to either of us.’

She knew only the bare facts and hadn’t pressed for more. But she will. And Lucas can never tell her the truth. He can picture all too well how she would look at him if she knew what he’d done. No, he needs her too much right now. His sister is the only person in the world he could have called. If she abandoned him …

Angel had been almost calm on the phone. But Lucas knows this is how she deals with the really big things. For all her dramas, she’s capable of going to a quiet, still place in a storm. That’s what he needs right now.

‘Whatever has happened, we’ll get through it. Together,’ she’d said, then, ‘Hey, do you remember Grandad’s? Remember what I said?’

How could he forget? It was what he’d been thinking about all the way to this woman’s house.

Their safe place.

The sharp animal stink and the prickly, itchy straw in the barn. Lying on their bellies and peering down, pretending no one could find them. Eating Grandad’s weird old-school food. Pies and tinned peas. Custard creams and cocoa.

Laughing at his crap jokes, and playing with Boris. Lucas having to be prised away from him every night at bedtime. And even then, the old sheepdog would find its way onto his bed and Grandad would pretend not to know anything about it in the morning. He’d say things like, ‘It’s the funniest thing, but Boris’s bed looks quite untouched. I can’t understand it,’ and pretend to shake his head, while Lucas vibrated with suppressed giggles and hugged the dog harder.

Angel doesn’t know about the photo he keeps in his wallet, soft now with age and handling. Marianne is in it, grinning at Angel, so Grandad must have taken it. His sister is standing on one leg and making a daft face. Lucas leans against Marianne, with one hand on Boris’s head.

‘It’s OK,’ Angel had said in a harsh whisper. ‘I’ll look after you, Lu. I’ll always be the one who looks after you best.’

He looks at himself in the mirror in the small bathroom now, forces himself to meet his own eyes. He almost flinches at what he sees there, the burning shame.

Leaning his head against the cool glass, he tries to slow his breathing down.

He wishes the baby would stop crying.