Read Drybread: A Novel for Free Online

empty. If
he was nearby and watching, he'd realise Theo knew about
him. Theo had no substantial debts, no ongoing dispute
with Stella, he wasn't writing an expose on some tycoon:
the parson was surely connected with the Maine-King
custody case.
    Theo went through all the rooms of his house and
noticed nothing amiss. Two windows were ajar, as he had
left them, with no obvious sign of entry. He looked briefly
at the phone, but had no idea how to recognise that it
had been bugged. In a life as mundane as his, there had
been little to fear from surveillance. Penny's whereabouts
was the only secret he had which could be of interest to
others.
    For a moment he saw the place as the parson may have
observed it on a quick recce: the newspapers still open on
the sofa, the bed clothes pulled up rather than remade, the
crumbs and cheese gratings on the tiled floor by the kitchen
bench, a piece of cardboard folded and wedged to keep the
wardrobe door from gaping, the yellowed sellotape on the
fractured edge of his computer keyboard. The soap tray in
the bathroom streaked with yellow and blue residue from
the precursors of the white oval that lay there. The trivial
sordidness of everyday living which you notice in other
people's homes, but are oblivious to in your own.
    In the spare bedroom, which had become his office,
he set a simple test in case the parson came again, or for
the first time. Just papers from his case, but with their
juxtaposition on the desk exactly measured and recorded.
If the parson was dropping in he'd surely be drawn to work
documents. After his meal, when dusk was filling in the
spaces between houses and drawing down the sky, Theo
walked out to the gate. The car had gone. Theo wondered
where such a man would go at the end of his working day,
and whether he found his occupation more futile than that
of other people. Boredom at first hand calls for a form of
endurance: to experience it vicariously as a secret observer
of the lives of others must be doubly stultifying. Theo
hadn't smoked for some years, but standing there in the
dusk at the end of the driveway he had a strong desire for
one of those thin, dark cheroots. He imagined the texture
of it between fingers and thumb, saw the end glow as an
ember against the sky, felt the smoke of a deep drag thump
into his lungs as if it had a body of its own. Such memory
gusts had little to do with addiction: they came as indirect
cats' paws of happier times.
    A motorbike came past, with a sound like a fat man's
rich, bronchial cough, then two cyclists in single file and
without lights. Theo could barely make them out, but
knew they were both girls because the one behind called
out, 'Wait up, Nadine. Nadeeeen,' ending in a sort of angry
wail.
    A good handful of mail was showing in the box at
Theo's gate. Even had there been sufficient light, Theo
wouldn't have checked it there: he disliked people who
stood at their mailboxes, sometimes in slippers and
housecoats, sometimes in gardening clothes and holding a
hoe, and read their mail before the passing world. And his
eventual perusal when inside showed there was no reason
for urgency. All could be winnowed away without leaving
solid grain, or gain. The rates demand, the 134th issue of Behind the News , a credit card statement, a slip announcing
that the milk delivery round was changing hands, with
two apostrophes missing and one incorrectly used, a letter
from a former colleague saying how much he was enjoying
working in Sydney, seven multi-coloured advertising
circulars and a donation envelope from the support group
for those with clinical flatulence. What more did he
expect? But he did, of course — he yearned for something
unsolicited and undeserved, a lightning strike that would
galvanise his world.
    There was no way Theo was going to start smoking
again, but he hadn't sworn off a tipple. Whisky was a good
friend to him in the evenings: whisky and water, the sports
channel, maybe a chat to Nicholas, or Melanie. Whisky
and