Finding Davey Read Online Free Page B

must be doubly hard for Geoffrey, with the horror, with Shirley to worry about, his own job. And now his father muttering in a dark shed. Bray guessed Shirley was laying down some return-to-sanity rules.
    Instinct did it, made women the more practical, far less likely to go doolally. They were emotionally stronger, able to face loss with resolution. Bray sat listening to his braveson, nodding, ignoring every syllable.
    “We mustn’t let each other become withdrawn, Dad. We have to keep our hopes up. The liaison officer has a number of additional leads…”
    Tomorrow, though.
    “Tomorrow what, Dad?” Geoff said.
    “You see the liaison lady tomorrow?” Bray invented quickly. He must have spoken his thoughts.
    “I went today.”
    Geoffrey nodded, sagacity the watchword. Just hold on, the sum would work itself out with X equalling the correct integer and all. Fond expectancy was Geoffrey all over. Even as a little boy playing football at school, three-nil down and minutes to go, Geoff’s features would light up at the chance of a goal when everybody else was despondent and exchanging oh-well-next-time glances.
    Emma had transmitted that particular gene of hopeful expectation to Geoff. It had done him proud, got him a grand career in the Fair Isle Banking tower block at Moorgate.
    “Is work all right, Dad?”
    “Work?” Bray’s attention was caught, fear plucking. “Gilson Mather?”
    They usually weren’t so frank, him and Geoff. Talking like a soap opera, since it happened. “You went in today. Was it okay?”
    “Course. I just work, son.”
    Had Mr Winsarls phoned Geoffrey secretly? Bray could imagine Mr Winsarls saying
Your father’s increasing withdrawal
… The owner would be full of correctives:
No, hasn’t said a thing about, sorry, y’know… Mr Charleston’s never really been an outgoing sort of chap…talks to the drivers now and again but that’s it.
    Soap operas used so many banal expressions:
We’ve got to talk
. And
What’s going on?
quite as if speech held some remedy. Babble inanities, and everything would be solved. Life wasn’t like that. Life was more like wood, in a way, the wood he and little Davey loved. And carved, preserving its life in some new and vital form.
    “Shirley’s counsellor will give you an appointment if you like, Dad.”
    Poor Geoffrey, trying to do the right thing. Bray almost felt tears. He scuffed his shoes in the shavings, stop that right now. He had things to do.
    “No, ta, son. Maybe I’ll go up town tomorrow.” And heard himself say, “I wish I was some help. Tell me if there’s anything.”
    Geoffrey paused. “Dad. You’re not working on your wall, are you?”
    “My wall?” Bray was startled. He’d reflexively sat himself down facing the shed’s end wall, the closed off wall, the shuttered wall where Davey’s game was hidden, words and all.
    “I might, in time.”
    A moment’s awkwardness, then Geoffrey went back across the grass to his house. Buster did not follow. Yellow glim cut a wedge into the dusk, then dowsed as the kitchen door closed. Bray looked at the workbench. Much smaller of course than his own splendidly worn bench at Gilson Mather.
    Nearby was Davey’s low stool, more elaborately wrought than his own three-legger. On the wall, low down to be within Davey’s reach, hung a hinged double shutter that concealed his and Davey’s secret world beyond.
    Tomorrow needed planning. He’d never done anything like this before. Who, dear God, ever had?
    Only after tomorrow would he turn the screw peg – its sides precisely filed, sanded and finished to avoid cutting the skin of Davey’s hand – and open the three-ply wood panel.
    Madness to simply look now, though he knew everything concealed there. Self-indulgence was the most destructive element in grief. Ever since the news came, Bray had sat here of an evening looking at the closed panel on the narrow shed wall.
    He didn’t know how long he’d stayed there immobile under the