Read Liberation (I Am Margaret Book 3) Online
Authors: Corinna Turner
Liberation (I Am Margaret Book 3) (33 page)
His mouth twisted – what little of his face was visible went so bleak that my heart tried to wring itself out.
“Right now I’m not sure if that makes me happy or not.”
I bent, fingers slipping into his jet black hair, and I kissed him. I put everything into that kiss, all my love, all my care and concern, the memories of all the years happy in each other’s company, of all the years we’d yet to come. Of babies, of laughter, of all the joys one could have, even unseen. By the time I drew away again, he’d extricated his arms from the sheets and his hands were buried in my hair too.
Some of the bleakness was gone from his face, and he smiled.
“Happy. Definitely happy.”
###
Thank you for reading my book, I hope you enjoyed it! If so, would you consider leaving a review at your favourite retailer? I would really appreciate it.
Thanks,
Corinna (A.K.A. the Author!)
***+***
The final volume!
BANE’S EYES
A husband in despair...
An enemy in need...
A life and death vote hanging on her words...
Anything else Margo needs to deal with?
Oh yes, the EuroGov want her dead.
And when the EuroGov want something,
they expect to get it...
Out 21st June!
Scroll on down or click for a SNEAK PEAK!
Paperback: ISBN 978-1-910806-00-5
ePub: ISBN 978-1-910806-01-2
Find out more at www.IAmMargaret.co.uk
***+***
Corinna Turner has been writing since she was fourteen and likes strong protagonists with plenty of integrity. She has an MA in English from Oxford University, but has foolishly gone on to work with both children and animals! Juggling work with the disabled and being a midwife to sheep, she spends as much time as she can in a little hut at the bottom of the garden, writing.
She is a Catholic Christian with roots in the Methodist and Anglican churches, and also edits her parish magazine. A keen cinema-goer, she lives in the UK with her Giant African Land Snail, Peter, who has a six and a half inch long shell and an even larger foot!
Get in touch
with Corinna (and Peter!)...
Facebook
:
Corinna Turner
Google
+:
Corinna Turner
Twitter
:
@CorinnaTAuthor
Or sign up for a (very occasional) newsletter at
:
***+***
2 months, 21 days until the vote
I woke slowly, warm and cosy. Bane lay beside me, nose tucked into my hair. Sound asleep. Raising my head slightly, I looked across him to the bedside clock. Yep, five minutes before my alarm would go off.
I slid my arms around him, my hands rubbing his broad back and shoulders. The alarm would often jerk him awake with no memory of his blindness and after the panic he’d go through the pain of the loss all over again. When he woke gently with me wrapped around him he – usually – didn’t expect to see anything when he opened his empty eyes.
A good day. Bane stirred sleepily, gathered me close and buried his nose deeper in my hair.
“Good morning, husband,” I whispered in his ear.
“Good morning, wife,” he murmured back.
Awake. No panic. No pain. Now we had a few blissful minutes to snuggle before the alarm.
I pressed my cheek closer to his chest and held him tight. He held me back. My favourite part of the day. When he was relaxed and affectionate. Not words high on the list at any other time.
“Love you, Margo,” he whispered into my hair, as though it might make up for all the things he would probably say later.
“Love you, Bane.” ‘Cause it almost did.
The alarm split the peaceful silence and another day faced us.
With a sigh, I disentangled myself and sat up, reaching in my bedside drawer for my chart and thermometer. Time for my fertility checks. Though why I was bothering at the moment... Bane was so down, some days he hardly wanted to do
anything
, let alone...
I pushed the silent complaint from my mind.
Come on, Margo, at least
you
have your eyes
. And my cycle was almost back to normal after all the starvation and stress. Finally!
Drawer closed again, I headed for the bathroom. Married couples got one bed apartments in Vatican State. Nice. I’d have shared an apartment with an army if it got Bane his eyes back... I pushed that thought away as well. The EuroGov weren’t going to return Bane’s eyes just because I agreed to share an apartment with the entire Swiss Guard.
“Coming to Mass?” I asked casually, pausing in the doorway.
He sat up in bed, rubbing his loose lids – always itchy in the morning – the familiar scowl settling on his brow. Go to Mass – go out in public, but stay with me. Not go to Mass – stay away from people, but be away from me. I was the one pair of substitute eyes he really trusted.
“Don’t know.”
“Well, I’ve got to get dressed.” I went into the bathroom. He’d make his mind up.
I washed and dressed quickly. Seemed a million years since we’d arrived at the Vatican the first time – but it was only, what, six months? We’d been about three months in Gozo, and we’d been back in Vatican state for three months, now.
Bane was half dressed when I went back in – he’d decided to come. Now he’d be like a bear with a cut paw because he’d failed to overcome his dependence on me. As opposed to a bear with a cut paw because he was staying behind...
A bitter taste in my mouth, I went to join him by the bed. He’d laid two shirts on it, one red, one blue. He picked up the blue one.
“This is... the red one, right?”
I wanted to tell him,
yes
, but someone would say something, he’d find out, and it wasn’t really kind, was it? But he’d spent
three hours
with Jon yesterday, learning to tell his shirts apart by feel – or trying to.
“It’s the blue one, Bane,” I said softly.
“Damnit!” He flung the shirt across the room.
“Well, I’m really impressed you were able to narrow it down to
two
.”
“Oh, don’t be stupid, Margo! I remembered where I put them, didn’t I?”
I swallowed, my heart contracting in increasingly familiar pain. His arms dropped to his sides, far too tiredly for seven thirty in the morning and he turned his head away in shame.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice, as though unsure how many more apologies he was allowed. “How are you supposed to know?”
I stepped forward and tried to put my arms around him – he shrugged me off.
“Don’t coddle me! I don’t need a hug!”
Perhaps I do
. I headed for the living room.
“I’ve got to go, Bane.”
“
Wait,
I’m coming.”
He pulled on the blue shirt and grabbed his stick from beside the bed. April was pleasantly warm here. He found his way through the doorway quickly enough, then stood still, head turning from side to side.
‘Here’ was on the tip of my tongue, but he’d just say I was coddling him. He started in my general direction, then stopped dead.
“Better put my eyes in, hadn’t I?”
“However you’re most comfortable.”
“Don’t want to
scare
people, do I?”
He went back into the bedroom and through to the bathroom.
Suck, pop
.
Suck, pop
. He’d a love
-
hate relationship with the glass eyes – in some ways his eyes felt more comfortable with them, but they irritated him too. Like a lot of other things, come to think of it.
Finally Bane was slipping his arm through mine –
just felt like walking arm in arm with my wife
projected belligerently in every aspect of his stance. Jon waited in the main passage. He shared one of the larger ‘bachelor’ apartments with Alligator, Snail and Bumblebee, who as VSS were spared barracks living.
“Good morning, Margo. Good morning, Bane.”
“Is it?” said Bane.
Ignoring this customary mutter, I said, “Morning, Jon.”
“I just heard on the radio,” said Jon, as we all set off, “the EuroGov are still wriggling. But I think your Easter blog post is going to carry it.”
Easter day was a week behind us, now. The whole day had been a disaster. The homily had been about how much God loves us and Bane had actually walked out in the middle. I’d had to go with him because I knew he couldn't find his way across the massive basilica on his own. And when I’d tried to go to a later Mass instead, he’d been thoroughly horrible about it. I’d lost my temper and yelled back, and then I’d felt twice as bad...
Okay, I wasn’t going to think about it anymore, was I?
The blog post was the only good thing that had come out of the day. I’d hurled all my anger at the EuroGov in what everyone assured me were very well chosen words.
“After all,” Jon was saying, “they’ve got two good reasons for having the vote at the beginning of July, haven’t they? It’s before exams – so it’ll save them money marking future reAssignees’ papers – they always talk like they’re going to win, don’t they? And it’s less than a complete semester for the reAssignees to catch up as far as the fitness program is concerned.”
“But the
longer
they leave it, the more time they have for their propaganda machine to change people’s minds,” I said.
“Yeah,” conceded Jon, “but we should win the religious freedom vote, whatever.”
“True.”
I’d half my mind on stopping myself from trying to draw Bane away from all the odd tables and chairs spaced along the corridor walls – he was concentrating fiercely on locating them with his stick.
“They’ll have to make the final decision soon, though,” Jon said. “Alligator says they’re up to something else too, but Eduardo doesn’t know what it is yet.”
“
Alligator says
,” snorted Bane. “We’re not doing Liberations anymore! His name’s
Jack
, y’know.”
“Yes, and so’s Snail’s, near enough.” Jon refused to be drawn. “And Bumblebee’s name is Thom and I’m Jon. So we stick to codenames in the flat, hard to get those mixed up.”
Bane said nothing. Wishing he’d managed to hold his tongue?
Here was the lift – Bane reached for the call button and had to feel around. Scowling again. Jon could walk from our room door to the lift and put his hand straight on the button, providing he didn’t stop to speak to anyone on the way.
Leaving the lift, we walked on in silence. Not the worst start to a day Bane and I had had recently. But not good. It seemed so... cumulative. No really good days to wash it all away.
Things would improve soon, surely? Bane would get more confident, he’d start to be happy to go out by himself, he’d feel so much better then... Soon. Please, Lord?
Bane misjudged the step into St Peter’s, stumbling, and I’d grabbed him before I could even think. He shook me off, his face crimson – picturing a load of people watching his misstep, shaking their heads in pity? There were only two Swiss guards, staring unmovingly into the basilica.
“I’m
fine,
Margo!” Bane snarled, so fiercely my heart shrank again. He strode forward several determined strides – then stopped dead. Prescribed a large circle with his stick – encountered nothing. The emotions flitted across his face: panic, fear, and above all the pain of wounded... pride? self
-
respect? Of being so dependent on another...
A large space, with no reference points – what he hated most of all. Despite the aching lump in my chest, I paused only to genuflect, then went to him and silently brushed my arm against his. He slipped his through it and we went on across the vast marble floor. In silence.
Since all religious suppression laws, plus all Sorting and dismantling, were suspended until the referendum, St Peter’s square, and St Peter’s itself, were open to the public for the first time in decades – a security nightmare as far as Eduardo was concerned. All access points from square or basilica into the rest of Vatican State were heavily guarded and covered with cameras, and a front section of the basilica was cordoned off for Vatican State residents only. Eduardo could still be seen at every Mass, hovering anxiously near Pope Cornelius.
Kneelers and benches were arranged permanently in the Residents’ area, whilst chairs were set out in the public section according to how many people were expected. I led Bane to our usual pew and Jon followed silently.
Bane settled himself like a gloomy black cloud, turned his face down to the floor and said nothing. No apology this time. A lump filled my throat. ‘Cause he could have as many apologies as he liked, they were better than silence.
I knelt on the kneeler and tried to pray. I felt so... ragged. Desperate. Helpless.
Lord? Please let it get better soon. Really soon. I don’t think I can go on like this much longer. It hurts so much. I don’t know what to do. I want to pray for his eyes, but I know that’s stupid. They may not have even kept them – someone else may have them already. They might even have destroyed them. I can’t give myself false hope. His eyes are gone, and we have to learn to live without them. But I don’t know how. Help me, Lord? Please help me, please please please?
Bother, tears leaked from my eyes and I fought to keep my breathing steady. No use. Jon’s hand touched my arm in silent comfort. Bane didn’t notice, though. Good. It would make him feel even worse...
We stood to begin Mass and I tried to wipe my eyes surreptitiously. Didn’t want everyone shaking their heads and saying
poor Margaret and Bane
.
Time for the daily battle to concentrate...
...The reader’s voice faltered. What was distracting
her
? People were looking around... Oh. A tramp was shambling up the main aisle. What was unusual were the two Swiss guards discretely trailing after him. The guards might pause an unfamiliar face to check they knew about the Vatican homeless shelter recently re-opened just inside St Anne’s gate, but... this guy must’ve done something to alarm them.
He reached the rope barrier and moved through the central gap as though in a dream.
“Sir... S’cuse me, sir, that’s a restricted area...”
The man just stumbled on as if the guards hadn’t spoken.
“Sir, please stop, you’re not allowed in this area...”
They hovered, keeping pace, reluctant to manhandle him, especially in the middle of Mass. He didn’t seem to hear them. Was he deaf?
He was a mess, all right. Hair, dark with grease and filth, almost reached his shoulders and a beard grew unchecked across his lower face. His clothes were rags and he moved as though he’d crumple to the ground with each faltering step.
“
Sir!
”
He was approaching the lower altar rail now – the guard’s hands reached for him, hesitated, their eyes seeking the Holy Father. Pope Cornelius made a tiny negating gesture –
let him come
.
The man walked into the altar rail and staggered to a halt. Raised his head dazedly as though only just realising where he was. His hoarse whisper carried in the silence.
“Margaret Verrall?”
Everyone looked at me.
“Margaret Verrall?” A thin, desperate edge to it that brought me to my feet. I could almost see the strength draining out of that ragged figure...