Homework (34 page)

Authors: Margot Livesey

BOOK: Homework

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I do not know what I had meant to say, but at the sight of his golden body, words fled. A gale of passion swept over me, and I could barely keep my feet. For months I had been travelling through a country increasingly barren and inhospitable, and now, at the end of my journey, I found myself standing at nightfall, alone on a narrow promontory overlooking the sea, and nowhere in the darkening landscape was there any sign of life or comfort. The sobs that shook me grew until the sounds that issued from my lips were more animal than human. I thought that grief would shatter me.

All that short afternoon, while the bright beauty of the day faded, I sat in Irene's kitchen, working on my list. I had decided to wash my clothes, and was wearing once more my borrowed nightdress and dressing gown. There was something reassuring about being dressed in nightclothes in the middle of the afternoon; if I was going to be treated like an invalid, I might as well behave like one. I was scribbling away with a vengeance. Except for a few jackets that I kept in the hall cupboard, I had lost all my clothes and jewellery and
books and papers. I tried to visualise each drawer and check through it garment by garment. Tomorrow I would go to various shops to get the exact prices. I had no idea if the insurance company would honour such a claim, but I wanted the list to be as lengthy and accurate as possible; I wanted to bear witness to every iota of my loss.

The front door opened and closed. I drew my dressing gown tight around me and got ready to say something welcoming to Charlotte, who I knew arrived home before either of her parents. A small, dark head peered cautiously round the kitchen door. Jenny scanned the room and, when she had ascertained that I was alone, came in, closing the door behind her.

“Where's Stephen?” I asked.

“He's at the house.”

I returned to my list. “Blue pullover,” I wrote. “Yellow pullover.”

Jenny edged closer until she was standing beside me. “Celia,” she said. “I've got something for you.”

At last I raised my eyes from the page. She reached into her pocket and held out her hand. Cradled in her small pink palm lay my amber earrings.

I picked them up, one in each hand, and held them to the light. The amber trembled and grew translucent. Within the two tiny microcosms I could see a corner of the table, a chair, the clock on the wall.

If I had been asked to name my most treasured possessions, what I would save in case of fire or flood, I do not know if the earrings would have come to mind; Aunt Marigold had died when I was sixteen, and I did not often think of her. But now, as I stared into the golden drops, they seemed precious beyond price. Some small part of all that I had taken for lost had been recovered. I felt Jenny watching me, and I turned from the earrings to meet her gaze. Steadily we looked into each others' eyes. I saw the flickering darkness of the iris, the
black of the pupil, almost indistinguishable. We looked at each other not with anger nor hatred but with the weary intimacy of old enemies. It was as if Jenny knew me better than I knew myself.

ALSO BY MARGOT LIVESEY

Learning by Heart
Criminals
The Missing World
Eva Moves the Furniture

Additional Acclaim for
Homework

“Riveting â¦ . The dark legacy of unfulfilled longing and blighted innocence is illuminated with elegance and insight.”

âCarol Verderese,
The New York Times Book Preview

“Immensely compelling and intelligent, profoundly chilling,
Homework
echoes Henry James's
Turn of the Screwâ
it's that eerie, beautifully crafted, and brave in its willingness to illuminate the dark side of childhood.”

â
Francine Prose, author of
Blue Angel

“Original and compelling â¦ sly and haunting.”

âNewsday

“It has been a long while since I read a book in one sitting â¦ but a few pages into
Homework
I knew I was in for an extended sabbatical on the couch â¦ . A finely crafted work.”

âSt. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Livesey has written a fine thriller about the dark side of childhood.”

âDallas Morning News

“The taut narrative succeeds by making us question both the child and the adult. Subtle, creepy.”

âDetroit Free Press

“A sinister â¦ well-conceived tale, fraught with terror â¦ Livesey's spare prose skillfully highlights nuances, augmenting that terror â¦ . Highly recommended.”

âLibrary Journal

“A terrifying tale of our timesâa psychological thriller of love and denial.”

â
Mary Morris, author of
Acts of God

HOMEWORK. Copyright Â© 1990 by Margot Livesey. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Picador USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.picadorusa.com

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^Â®is a U.S. registered trademark and is used by

Henry Holt and Company under license from Pan Books Limited.

For information on Picador USA Reading Group Guides, as well as ordering, please contact the Trade Marketing department at St. Martin's Press.

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E-mail: [email protected]

First published in the United States by Viking Penguin, a division of
Penguin Books USA Inc.

eISBN 9781466815230

First eBook Edition : February 2012

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint an excerpt from
Pitch Dark
by Renata Alder. Copyright Â© 1983 by Renata Alder. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

The quotation on page 305 is from
Sleep
by Ian Oswald, Penguin Books,
London, 1970.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Livesey, Margot.

Homework/Margot Livesey

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-42044-7

I. Title.

PR9199.3.L563H66 1991
813'.54
â
dc20

90-20945