Читать книгу The Book of Rapture - Nikki Gemmell - Страница 28

Behind you on that beach, Motl’s voice. ‘Stay back, leave her alone.’ You turned just in time to catch Soli — a flinty ball of fury — punching her father hard in the stomach. Ramming into him all her rage at his hesitation and mildness, all her rage at the teasing little boy inside him that sometimes riles you both so much.

‘Who says to leave her alone? If it wasn’t for you we’d be out of this country by now. You were going to do it but you never got around to it. If it wasn’t for you we’d be safe.’

He didn’t say, no, actually, it was your mother who got us into this. Have you ever loved him so fiercely? But suddenly, an old man. Without any words. Who did only this.

He bent down. Held Soli tight. Clamped her furious churn in his arms and stilled it and stilled it until all the sobbing was gone and she went limp.

Where is he now? Your good, gentle man who you never valued enough. You shut your eyes at the memory of him pushing into your skin. Resolve melting like water thrown over ice in a sink. Opening out like a flower as he unlocked you into life. Your want is unsinkable, undrownable; like a bottle corked it will travel the world searching for him, for shelter and shore, for vast rest. The man who brewed happiness into your life. When a marriage works there’s nothing more soldering and you were given the gift of it. You were so different yet it worked; if you didn’t have him there’d be no one else you’d want. He’d endured so much throughout the years, been battered again and again, but you know now that there are people who teach with their quiet grace. How to endure. By their courage and evenness. They help us to find our own strength.

And now you are alone.

Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.