Everything is Beautiful by Eleanor Ray (classic literature list .TXT) 📗

‘I have muscles,’ insisted Richard, with mock offence. ‘It’s not that funny.’

‘Of course you do,’ said Amy, trying not to look at him so she didn’t laugh again. ‘It’s just Rachel. One bruise and she thinks I’m being beaten. Something fell on me, that’s all.’

‘It’s your own business how you keep your house, but if it’s not safe . . . ’

‘I dropped something on myself,’ insisted Amy, wondering how he’d guessed the truth. ‘My house is fine.’

Richard held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t snoop.’ He smiled. ‘We can leave that to Rachel.’

‘Thank you,’ said Amy. She waited for him to leave.

He lingered for a moment, looking as if he might like to be invited in.

‘Goodbye,’ said Amy.

‘Bye then,’ he replied. Amy waited until he turned to leave then went back inside.

She looked around. Her hallway was a little cluttered, she thought. Richard must have caught a glimpse of it, to have jumped to the conclusion he had. She laughed at the memory of his face, when she’d made the muscle comment. He had a sense of humour, and it was a while since she’d shared a joke with someone. It felt nice.

Amy went back to the living room, carried her tea into the kitchen, left it by the sink and made her way up the stairs. She took a deep breath at the sight of her upstairs hallway. Last night, when she came to, she’d not even attempted to pass the mess and had just made her way down the stairs again. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa with a bag of frozen peas that must have been ten years old slowly defrosting on her face. In the morning, she’d just about managed to scramble over the fallen boxes into her bathroom to have a quick shower, but she hadn’t even looked at the damage. Now was the time.

She’d been lucky: the box that hit her in the eye was fairly light. It could easily have been full of cookery books. That would have been dangerous. Or a mirror could have fallen and smashed into sharp shards. Amy made another resolution to sort through her things. At the very least she should make sure everything heavy was at the bottom.

She opened the fallen box and carefully rummaged through, looking for signs of damage. She felt a flood of gratitude to the Amy who’d packed this box. It was full of mugs, each one encased in thick bubble wrap like a spider would wrap a fly. Everything seemed intact. She unwrapped one of the mugs, just to check. It had a handle in the shape of an electric guitar and was inscribed with a motto: keep music live. Tim would have loved it, she decided, and she put it on the carpet. She’d use it for her tea in the morning.

The morning. That was when she’d sort the rest of this mess out. Amy yawned, and looked at what was in front of her. Clocks, mirrors, boxes, cookbooks, lighters. They’d all been piled in that room and now they were strewn over the hallway, blocking her route to the bathroom. Luckily, she had a small toilet downstairs. She couldn’t face clambering over all this tonight. Amy went back downstairs. Maybe she’d be best off sleeping in the living room again.

She wasn’t used to wearing make-up, or needing to wash her face in the evening. She went to the kitchen and splashed herself with water and wiped her face with a dishcloth. Even ‘ivory blush’ looked orange on the cloth, but after three washes the same amount still came off each time. She grabbed a bottle of washing-up liquid, squirted a tiny amount of the emerald-green gel on to the palm of her hand, lathered her hands together and then, with her eyes tightly shut, spread it on to her face. She rinsed, shuddering at the soapy taste that had managed to sneak into her mouth even though it was clamped shut. She rinsed again and dried her face with another dishcloth.

Her skin was so dry that it felt too tight for her skull, and Amy wondered if this was how her mugs felt after she’d washed them up. She applied a bit of hand cream from one of several bottles of the stuff on the counter, but it was little match for the dryness. She dabbled on some arnica and decided that tomorrow she’d visit Joanna again to buy some proper cleanser and a face cream. This injury was proving expensive.

Amy went into the living room. It was nice to sleep here, among her birds. Like the sleepovers she used to have at Chantel’s house as a girl. She turned out the light and carefully felt her way to the sofa, where she sank down and pulled a blanket up to her chin.

She’d need to clean up the upstairs hallway, she knew that. But maybe she didn’t need to find that box. She closed her eyes and visualised it. It might have been ten years or so since she’d looked inside, but Amy knew its contents by heart. It wouldn’t help.

Her fingers went back to the ring. She needed to confirm that Tim had bought it. And she needed to know when.

The answers wouldn’t be in that box. She needed to go back. Back to somewhere she hadn’t been for a very long time.

December 1999

‘Where am I going to sleep?’ Tim chewed the edge of his fingernail and looked out of the train window.

‘In a bed,’ replied Amy, with a laugh.

‘Yes, but where?’ asked Tim. ‘In your room? On my own? How will it work? Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,’ he said. ‘Maybe I should just head back home.’

‘You are spending Christmas with my grandma and me,’ insisted Amy, with the