Read The Sad Man for Free Online

to her family. Tom allowed her. Part of him wasinterested in what she would find, if she could unravel the mystery of his soul. He sat on their sofa while the entire family pressed around them and this old woman who was blind from birth, ran her fingertips across the terrain of his face. As she did, her face clouded over. She did not understand, was lost in the lines of grief. What other people might call laugh lines, on Tom they were scream lines. She pulled her fingers away as if they burned. She said one word, Methuselah , then left. Tom thinks Valerie Brindley-Black’s face would elicit the same response.
    ‘She lights up the room, any room she enters,’ Valerie finally says of her daughter. She talks of her in the present tense. Tom can see how desperate she is to cling onto a daughter who still breathes. ‘She is graceful and … she makes people feel special.’
    ‘Are there siblings?’
    For a second it looks as if she will break down – but she pulls herself back from the edge and regains control. ‘I … we lost three. Late miscarriages, all of them. Finally there was Charlotte.’ An unseen memory picks her up and tosses her around, she hums to herself. Tom waits again, for her to come back.
    ‘Charlie’s father?’
    ‘Cancer.’ She sighs the word away like someone who has nursed the dying.
    ‘I’m sorry.’ And he is.
    ‘Charlie was five. We went to live with my younger—’ A flash of pain. ‘My sister Sophie who had two daughters, one a bit younger than Charlie, and the other a little bit older. They lived by the sea and … it was a good time. We healed.’
    Tom nods, though he really isn’t sure he fully understands how people heal from such loss. He has heard people say that time heals all wounds but surely that is untrue. Ten years after Dani’s death he still feels the pain as if it were fresh.
    ‘When did you open the gallery?’ he asks.
    ‘Four years ago, when Charlie went to art school. It was always agreed that when she finished her studies she’d come and we would work together. We are very close.’
    Tom looks past her for a second, he can see that they are close to their destination, his time with her has almost run dry. The morgue is only a few minutes away. If he is going to get anything of use, then it has to be now.
    ‘Can you describe her to me? Physically, I mean.’
    Her hand starts to shake, he squeezes it. ‘She is tall, like me – we are very much alike in shape and size. We often wear each other’s clothes – though I try not to dress like a young woman.’ She pauses, remembering something she will not share. ‘She is beautiful. Her eyes are light brown, honey, I always think.’
    Gold , Tom thought.
    ‘With long beautiful hair, she shapes it a little at the end and it sculpts her face. It has flecks of the same light honey but is mostly like muscovado sugar.’
    ‘It’s brown?’ Tom feels light-headed – it wasn’t her daughter. This lovely sad woman isn’t going to be in mourning for the rest of her life. He feels his heart soar and hi—
    ‘No. I was forgetting.’ She looks so old now. ‘She had it cut and dyed. Silver. Of all things. I hated it. Absolutely hated it – we had a fight. A big fight. The first ever. I—’
    ‘She liked it, her new hair?’ he asks, feeling his heart harden once more.
    ‘She loved it, seemed incredibly excited by it.’
    ‘Did she tell you why she chose to do it?’
    ‘She said … she said she had to.’
    ‘She was forced?’
    ‘Nothing and no one could force my daughter to do anything. And she didn’t say it with regret. In fact, she seemed very excited by it. Even though she could plainly see it distressed me.’
    The car stops. Valerie grips the door handle tightly. Tom understands: she doesn’t want to get out of the car – if she stays there she keeps her daughter alive. They both know who they will find in the morgue.
    ‘Take your time.’ Tom releases her hand and slides from the car. He stands in