Beneath the Earth by John Boyne Page B

the street didn’t lay down on the scorching pavements and beg for the whole miserable business of existence to come to an end once and for all.
    Australia. The fact was that if they went any further west they would be on their way home again. There was that to look forward to. There was that much at least.

Haystack Girl

    Auntie Dolly phoned to say that Lizzie had turned up out of the blue a few hours earlier, seeking sanctuary. That was the exact phrase she used, as if my sister was a deposed queen in a Tudor novel. I felt a hot rage burning inside me when I thought about how much she must have spent to get across there. Flights don’t come cheap and then there’s the cost of the bus up to Dublin Airport, the Tube from Heathrow to Colliers Wood and a taxi over to Auntie Dolly’s flat after that. I’d been over there myself the previous summer and my wallet was nearly empty by the time I fell in the door. Mam had said it was best if I spent a few weeks in London as she couldn’t stand the sight of me. She and Lizzie blamed me for everything that had happened, which was not a bit fair. Anyway, over I went but Auntie Dolly sent me home after five days. She said there was something wrong with me, that I was a peculiar article.
    An old man winked at me on the Tube while I was there, somewhere between Balham and Tooting Bec. I was wearing short trousers and he was looking at my legs. I winked right back and made kissy faces at him. That fairly silenced him, the old perv. He stood up and walked further down the carriage to interfere with someone else. I followed him along and sat down next to him, grinning like a mad thing and putting on my sexy voice. ‘Was there something you wanted?’ I asked. ‘Or do you just have a funny eye?’
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ he said, looking down at his ratty old runners. ‘Leave me alone, please.’ Anyway, I left him alone.
    Lizzie’s flit only bothered me because she owed me twenty euros. She’d owed it to me for more than a month because I, in my generosity, had lent it to her on the understanding that I’d get twenty-two back within the week but I hadn’t seen a penny since then. She claimed poverty every time I demanded payment and yet somehow she’d managed to get herself all the way from Wexford to London without any trouble. I wasn’t too happy about that, I can tell you.
    Mam threw a conniption fit when she got the call.
    â€˜She’s what? She’s where? She can’t be! Well how did she get there? What do you mean she took a plane, what kind of a plane? Is she all right? Does she have money? How long is she staying? Did she remember her warm cardigan?’
    This went on and on. I was sitting at the top of the stairs, eating a Curly Wurly and having a great laugh over it. This was before I remembered the twenty euros that Lizzie owed me; I laughed no more after that. Mam took the name of the Lord our God in vain about fifty times and started crying. Then she started screaming. Then she started crying again. Then she said something in Irish that I didn’t understand. And then she said something that sounded a bit like Russian.
    â€˜My children will be the death of me,’ she declared finally. ‘As if it’s not hard enough being left alone with the pair of them, now they are literally trying to drive me into my grave. I should just take a breadknife and stab myself through my heart. It’s the only thing that would make either of them happy.’
    The dramatics.
    To be honest, I thought it was probably for the best that Lizzie had skipped off across the water. It would give things a chance to blow over. I was surprised that Mam had even answered the phone when it rang. She’d said the previous night that she wasn’t going anywhere near it from now on as it was only scumbag journalists on the other end wanting a quote and what could she say that would satisfy any of them?