The Glass Bird Girl Read Online Free Page B

they are,’ Edie replied. ‘She says there are good people and bad people – she doesn’t believe in shades of grey.’
    Cousin Charles gave a derisive laugh; but then his face suddenly darkened. ‘Babka, blow it,’ he said, checking his watch. ‘We’re running late. I might have to take you to see her another time.’
    Edie looked stricken. ‘But – it – it’s on the way . . . and . . . and you promised —’
    â€˜All right, we’ll go,’ Cousin Charles gave in grumpily. ‘But remember in future, Edith, never pay any attention to a promise unless it’s been made by someone you know you can trust.’

    It was raining when they arrived at the St Benedict Nursing Home, a bare, red-brick villa on the outskirts of Oxford. The reception area smelt of cabbage, and there was a trolley piled with bedpans parked beside the desk.
    â€˜I’ll take a walk round the garden and come back for you in half an hour,’ Cousin Charles said, turning away with distaste.
    Edie felt relieved. She had an instinct he and Babka would not get on. A moment later a nurse appeared, andled her to Babka’s room. Edie gave a start when she saw it. She had expected something drab, in keeping with the rest of the home; but instead it was filled with a bright confusion of clutter and colours – pictures and ornaments, books, china and gold-threaded tapestries and quilts from the flat in London.
    Babka was sitting at a small table in the corner, in the glow of a heavily shaded lamp. When Edie came in she looked up, unsmiling, from the chess game she had been playing against herself.
    â€˜They tried to take them all away,’ she said, gesturing blindly at her possessions, ‘but I say I go on the hunger strike.’
    Edie sat on the end of the bed, and Babka reached out a hand and felt her face. ‘You have been unhappy,’ she said. ‘Are your cousins being bad to you?’
    â€˜I’m not staying there any more – I’m . . . I’m going to boarding school,’ Edie said.
    Babka’s face hardened. ‘Boarding school? Who’s paying for that?’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ Edie lied. She did not want to tell her grandmother about her secret mission. Edie knew she would be contemptuous – but what could Babka do? She could offer Edie no alternative.
    â€˜What a lot of things you don’t know. Which makes two of us.’
    â€˜No!’ protested Edie. ‘Not you, Babka. You know everything.’
    â€˜Not any more,’ Babka said bitterly. ‘It’s falling away. There is no necessity, here, to hold on to what youknow.’ She turned away, nodding towards the chessboard. ‘But I still have the game,’ she said, deftly feeling the pieces as she moved them back into their starting positions. ‘You be white this time.’
    Edie did not want to play chess; she wanted to talk. ‘I . . . I haven’t got long—’ she began, but Babka silenced her with a curt wave of her hand.
    Edie pulled up a chair to the table, and moved a pawn. Babka had never taught Edie how to play chess: ‘ You cannot teach chess; you can only learn. Study the moves, Editha, and work out the rules .’ Edie had done this, watching Babka play with the Polish grocer down the street, in the room behind his shop. When Edie had learnt enough she and Babka had started playing together, always in silence, always with a clock.
    Edie did not enjoy chess. But Babka wouldn’t play anything else.
    â€˜Give us twenty,’ Babka said, handing Edie a stopwatch; but in the end it took Edie only ten minutes to lose.
    â€˜You were afraid of losing a piece, and so you lost the game,’ Babka said. ‘It often happens that way.’ Then she raised a hand, and her fingers reached out, trembling, as if feeling something in the air. ‘There is a dark knight in the