Читать книгу Miss Lamp - Christopher Ewart - Страница 6

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The Cheque’s in the Mail.

Ever since the dentist, Abby’s finger is a real whack of volts.

Chewing gum makes her jaw ache. Her red lips quiver at the thought of the drill – she’s pursed to sing like a raven with a mouth full of Q-tips. Cotton batting packs a statute of limitations, nerve damage and overmedication. The needle for her tooth fixed her left index finger just fine. Now it twitches during meetings where people look at watches, ask for phone numbers, go for drinks and grin with teeth picked clean of grief.

Abby’s daughter picks at whatever’s not nailed down. A real nattering magpie.

Abby’s mailbox rattles in the wind. Sits on a post as straight as a sunflower stalk and turns up empty each day.

No payment for the pills she pops to keep her nerves in check. No new music box from her lawyer of a daughter either. ‘I shouldn’t have wound the crank so tight,’ says Abby. ‘She sings a different tune now.’