The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell Page A

coming out for a long time. She told her mother this and her mother said, 'All right, sweetheart,' and carried on peeling carrots.
    When the doorbell rang, Iris crammed two ginger snaps into her mouth. One in each cheek. Which left only one for emergencies but she didn't care. She heard her mother open the door, say hello with a funny emphasis, hel-
lo
, and then say, it's lovely to see you again, Alexander, come in, come in. Iris allowed herself one small chew. So she'd met him before?
    Iris shunted herself down on to her stomach. From here, she could peer under the hem of the tablecloth, which gave her a clear view of the kitchen lino, the sofa, the door into the hall. And in that door appeared a man. He had sandy, wavy hair, a green jacket with patches on the elbows, and he was carrying a bunch of flowers. Nerines. Iris knew a lot about flowers. Her father had taught her.
    She was thinking about this, about her walks round the garden with her father, when she saw the boy. Iris recognised him instantly. She had seen him before. She had seen lots of him before. On the walls of the Italian churches her
mother had taken her to last summer, which were painted with pictures of angels. Angels, everywhere you looked. With wings and harps and flowing pieces of cloth. Alexander had the same wide blue gaze, the curling yellow hair, the delicate fingers. It had been in one of those churches that her mother had told her about her father. She said, Iris, your father died. She said, he loved you. She said, it was no one's fault. They had been sitting in the back pew of a church that had strange windows. They weren't glass but made of some gold-coloured stone that had, her mother told her, been cut very fine, so fine as to let the light through. 'Alabaster' was the word. They read it in the book her mother had in her bag. And after her mother had told her, she held Iris's hand, very tight, and Iris looked at these windows, the way the sunlight behind them made them glow like embers, and she looked at the angels on the walls, the wings stretched out, their faces turned upwards. Towards heaven, her mother said.
    So Iris lay on her stomach, swallowing hard at the molten ginger in her throat, staring at the angel boy who had sat himself down on her sofa, as if he were just an ordinary mortal like the rest of them. Her mother and George disappeared into the corridor and then Iris heard them coming in and out of the front door, carrying bags and boxes and laughing to each other.
    Iris pulled the tablecloth a fraction higher. She needed to get a proper look at this boy. He sat motionless, one sandal resting on the other. In his lap was a small knapsack and his hands were clenched round it. Iris tried to remember
what her mother had said about him. That he was shy. That his mother had gone off and he hadn't seen her since. That he might be sad because of this. That he'd had chickenpox recently.
    She watched as he looked at a drawing Iris had done of a sunset that her mother had taped to the wall. He looked away again quickly. He turned his head towards the window, then he turned it back.
    On the crest of an impulse, Iris scrambled to her feet and burst out from under the tablecloth. The angel on the sofa started, terror flashing across his features, and Iris was shocked to see his angel-blue eyes swimming with tears. She frowned. She stood on one leg, then the other. She advanced towards him across the carpet. He was blinking to get rid of the tears and Iris wondered what to say to him. What do you say to an angel?
    She ate the last ginger snap contemplatively, standing before him. When she'd finished, she put her thumb into her mouth, twirling a plait round one of her fingers. She examined his knapsack, his sandals, his shorts, his golden hair. Then she popped her thumb free of her mouth. 'Do you want to see some tadpoles?' she said.
    When Iris is eleven and Alex twelve, George and her mother part ways. He has met someone else. He goes, and