Darling. Rachel Edwards
yeah,’ she said. ‘Not bad for High Desford.’
‘It’s lovely, Lola,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’d better check on dinner.’
‘I told you.’ That hot metal stare. ‘I’m not that hungry.’
I met her long gaze, eye for eye. A flexing of time, and of wills.
‘OK then.’
I walked out of the room. Lola got up and followed. I stopped by the stairs; she stopped.
‘What?’ I said.
She moved closer.
A loud purr, gravel. A car. Lola edged me forward along the landing, seeming to hear something that made her cry out:
‘Why? Why do you need to be like that?’
‘Like what?’ I said, literally on the back foot.
‘You act like you hate me the whole time!’
She was shouting now, a full-throated yell.
‘What? You can’t be—’
‘It’s true! No. You talk like you like me, but—’
‘Lola!’
‘You—’
‘Lola—’
‘Hi, Darling!’ called Thomas.
And, poor silly girl, in that one weird second she heard not Darling, but darling, and she rushed to the top of the stairs.
‘Hello?’ called Thomas.
But I was still moving forward and she pushed, pushed at me, then more shouting, screaming, a heart-jerking lurch – she was screaming? – and then my arm flew out somehow, anyhow, but she flailed, flew backwards.
Down she fell, a tripping, twisting, puppet’s dancefall right down to the bottom of the stairs.
I looked at Lola lying there, one arm up in a question mark above her small fair head, one arm down, legs bent. A beautiful catastrophe: her broken swastika of a body.
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