Read Rook for Free Online

faces the water. Eve sits cross-legged with a hand on her stomach. She moves her hand, round and round, sliding over her belly in idle circles.
    ‘We came to a decision, me and Stavro: Café Jetsam. Like it?’
    The name is perfect. Eve and Stavros are furnishing the boathouse with second-hand bits and pieces from charity shops and skips. Recycling , Stavros says, one hundred percent friendly to environment.
    They debated over Flotsam versus Jetsam, Eve explains. Not knowing what either word meant, Stavros checked Wikipedia, his usual source of information. ‘Jetsam’ refers to what people ‘jettison’, or voluntarily throw out, whereas flotsam is things which are lost.
    ‘Got me thinking,’ she says. ‘In the retirement homes, a lot of them are like jetsam, aren’t they, those people who are somebody’s parents. Sure, some are too ill to be cared for at home, but it’s as if most have served their purpose and their kids don’t want them around any more.’
    Eve’s parents are both dead. Nora thinks Eve’s views might be different if they were still alive and complicating her life with the worry of their increasing infirmity.
    ‘So, I’m going to run Memory Lane sessions,’ Eve continues. ‘Here, an afternoon every now and again. Ada might come and play the piano.’
    Nora can’t imagine Ada being a part of any such thing, but she says nothing. She’s aware of Eve’s scrutiny, of the gaze of Eve’s startling blue eyes with their striated irises, the pupils surrounded by a starry line of white. Eve sees things others don’t, like auras. Though Nora is not sure whether or not she herself believes in the existence of auras, in the face of Eve’s absolute conviction she’s forced to think about the possibility and, sometimes, this makes her uneasy.
    The first time they met, for example, on the creek path travelling in opposite directions, Eve had looked her in the eye and said, ‘You have an old soul.’ No introduction or greeting, no comment on the weather. Eve and Zach and Benjie were a tangle of linked hands and dog leads blocking the path. Nora’s belly plunged at the sight of Zach as he splashed in a puddle, his blond cap of hair lifting and falling.
    Eve had come close. Goose pimples rose on Nora’s cheeks, the skin tightening across her chest and up her forearms as, like an airport security guard, Eve ran her hands under Nora’s breasts, patted her shoulders and torso.
    ‘You are an artist; your aura is indigo and vibrating, here, out of your body.’ Eve’s child-sized hands had hovered over Nora’s solar plexus, shaping the air as if she felt something tangible and solid where there was nothing.
    ‘Maybe she could do some talks about the history of the village.’ Eve is still talking about Ada. ‘She’s lived here all her life. She’ll have a ton of stories.’
    The starry line of white edging the blue of Eve’s irises reminds Nora of forget-me-knots, of Harry grunting as he dug up brambles and ground elder in the garden, his shirt off, the hair on his chest curled like bracken.
    ‘Which reminds me,’ Eve taps the piercing in her nose, a turquoise eternity symbol. ‘I’ve got a story I need to report which I heard from Geraldine when I did her head-massage a couple of weeks ago. Meant to tell you before. She was beside herself.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘They’re going to make a film about the tomb.’
    ‘A film?’
    ‘I wonder if it will be like one of those forensic programmes on TV. Do I mean “forensic”? Is that the right word? I just love those programmes. Y’know, with pathologists and dead bodies, but—’ Eve pauses. ‘They won’t randomly dig up the graves, will they?’
    ‘Of course not, they only do that when there are crimes to solve. Which tomb?’
    Zach has poured his tube of Smarties on to the floor and Eve is watching him, distracted again. ‘I’m sure she only mentioned the one.’
    ‘Eve, if you’re talking about Bosham church, there’s a whole