The Glass Lake by Maeve Binchy Page A

electric fire in their bedroom? He might want to change.”
    â€œIn whose bedroom?” She spoke from far away.
    â€œIn your parents’ room.”
    â€œThey have different rooms.”
    â€œWell, in his room then.”
    She flashed Philip a grateful look. Clio would always use an opportunity like this to comment on how strange it was that Kit’s mother and father did not sleep in the same bed. Philip was being a great help. “I’ll go and plug it in,” she said. It took her away from the top of the stairs, she didn’t have to see her father’s face when he came up. She didn’t want to have to look at it.
    Emmet wouldn’t know how bad things were. He wouldn’t know that Mother and Father were unhappy, and that Mother might not be coming back. Might be gone.
    She wanted the moment on her own.
    The room was cold as she found the one-bar electric fire and plugged it in the socket in the wall just above the yellow skirting boards. Everything seemed very clear somehow. She could see the pattern on the carpet and the way the fringe of the bedspread hung unevenly, more to one side than the other.
    Maybe if Daddy was very wet he might put on his dressing gown. He wouldn’t if there were other people there, and Kit had heard Clio’s father’s voice, and people like Father Baily and Philip’s father were outside. No, he would wear a jacket. She walked past the top of the bed toward the big chair, where her father’s tweed sport coat hung as it always had.
    It was then she saw the letter on the pillow. A big white envelope with the word
Martin
on it.
    Over Daddy’s bed hung the picture of the Pope, the Pope that Kit had always believed was a guest at their wedding. Time seemed to stand still as she looked at it. The Pope had small round glasses, they looked like a little boy’s spectacles that were much too small for him. He had a white fur trim around his garment, a bit like the frill Santa Claus wore when they went up to Clery’s in Dublin for a Christmas treat. He had his hand raised as if to give a blessing.
    She read the words very slowly:
Martin McMahon and Mary Helena Healy humbly prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness, beg the apostolic blessing on the occa
sion of their marriage, 20th June 1939
. And there was a kind of raised seal beneath.
    She looked at it as if she had never seen it before. It was as if by memorizing every single detail she could somehow control what was about to happen now.
    And for some reason she never understood, she bent down and unplugged the electric fire. It was as if she wanted it to be thought she had never entered the room.
    Kit stood with the letter in her hand. Her mother had left a message. She had explained why she had done what she did. The words of the priest who had come to give their retreat came back. She could almost hear his voice speaking as he had that day in the chapel. Life wasn’t yours to take, it was a gift from God and those who threw it back in God’s face had no place being mourned by the faithful. And had no place in the burial grounds of God’s family on earth. She could see his face. And she acted as an automaton. She slipped the envelope deep in the pocket of her blue tunic and went to the stairs to greet the party that was coming up and to face her father’s terrible smile.
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    â€œNow, there’s no sign of an accident. We’re not to worry about a thing. Your mother could walk in that door as right as rain. Any minute now.” Nobody spoke. “Any minute at all,” said Kit’s father, hope written all over his face.
    Rita built up the fire in the sitting room and hunted Farouk from his important-looking place in front of the grate. People stood about, awkward, embarrassed, not sure what to say next.
    Except Clio’s father. Dr. Kelly always knew what to say. Kit looked at him with gratitude; he was being the host.