Cold Light

Начало книги

Between interviews, they make us wait upstairs in a classroom. We’re left alone but we’re aware that in a nearby office we are being discussed. Teachers; her parents and mine; the nurse; social workers. And the pair of us with nothing to do but stare out of the windows at the bedlam occurring at the front of the school and wait.

We watch the cars arrive and unload. We lean on the sill, making palm prints in the dust. Emma rests her muscly thighs against the radiator. I pull leaves from a brown spider plant and we both look out of the window and say nothing. We listen. The glass muffles the crying and singing but we can still see the flowers and feel the atmosphere, which is shrieky and curious and raw.

These people who we don’t know – who Chloe doesn’t know – even turn up at the school in coaches. Every single one of them brings something. If it’s not roses and baskets of silk flowers then it’s stuffed bears and huge, handmade cards. So many ways of spelling her name.

Читать дальше →