Pureheart Read Online Free Page B

still living. It was a photograph of Mrs Dark as a child. It was behind her on the mantelpiece, and was placed in such a way that Mrs Dark the child appeared to be peering over the shoulder of Mrs Dark the grandmother. Deirdre felt both of their gazes on her at once; two pairs of eyes stared reproachfully at her. She felt beaten already.
    It was raining, and the roof was leaking, and so drips were falling in a melodic, syncopated way into the buckets she and her grandmother had set out to catch them. But Mrs Dark had ceased paying any attention to the upkeep of the building – which was old and beset by mysterious structural problems – seven years ago. Instead she was adding a new wing.
    That was why people thought she was mad. Well, that was one of the reasons.
    â€˜And?’ said Mrs Dark.
    â€˜I’m miserable,’ said Deirdre desperately.
    â€˜Because you don’t have any friends?’ said her grandmother incredulously.
    â€˜Yes,’ said Deirdre. She swallowed. ‘I was wondering whether you might reconsider, about Galahad.’
    Mrs Dark stared at her.
    â€˜He’s the only one who likes me, Grandmother. I’m so –
different
. He’s the only one who understands. If you would just let us sit together in class, I would be all right. He would – protect me.’
    â€˜Has he spoken to you?’
    â€˜No.’ But Deirdre was not a good liar.
    â€˜If he speaks to you again I will ring the school.’
    Deirdre’s heart sank. For a moment she thought she would be sick with despair. But her grandmother was not looking at her. She was looking down at her architectural plans. For a little while she was silent. Then she took a breath to speak and for one wild moment Deirdre thought she was going to relent. But instead she said, ‘Tell me . . . does everyone laugh at him because of his name?’
    Deirdre was startled. She said nothing. But she didn’t need to, for her grandmother answered herself.
    â€˜I always thought everyone would laugh at that name. It is so ridiculous. No one could live up to it. No man in real life, anyway. Men are not knights in shining armour, Deirdre. Least of all your Galahad.’
    Deirdre went quietly down the long, narrow hall to her bedroom and shut the door. She sat on the bed and listened to the water from the ceiling dripping into the two buckets on either side of the old-fashioned dressing table.
    She could have argued, she could have begged, but she knew it was futile. Mrs Dark was impenetrable, indomitable, deaf to pleading or argument, and always certain she was right. Deirdre lived in a totalitarian regime.
    Home was ruled by a dictator; school by the mob. Home was almost unbearable. But there was no escape. Her experience of school, which was all she knew of the world outside – was teaching her that. As for the only other hope – Gal – her grandmother had cut that escape route off a long time ago. And every time it opened again, she shut it more firmly.
    â€˜Dead-tree,’ said a girl waiting with a friend by the school gate one morning, as she arrived at school, ‘come
up the back
with us.’
    Up the back
was where everyone smoked before school. Deirdre, of course, did not smoke. She was nobody’s idea of a rebel.
    She did not want to go
up the back
. She knew whatever they had planned would be a nasty surprise. But she felt she had no choice. If she did not cooperate, the consequences would be even worse.
    So she ducked her head with a defeated little smile and followed them.
    â€˜I heard your grandmother sleeps on a gold bed,’ said one of the girls.
    â€˜No,’ said Deirdre, surprised. ‘It’s pink.’
    â€˜Why do you sleepwalk?’ said the other.
    â€˜I can’t help it,’ said Deirdre.
    â€˜How come your grandmother’s putting on extensions?’
    â€˜Yeah, how come? Dad says she hasn’t got enough tenants as it