The Radleys
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Matt Haig
Original y published in Great Britain in 2010 by Canongate Books Ltd Al rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Free Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
First Free Press hardcover edition December 2010
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Manufactured in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Haig, Matt,
The Radleys / Matt Haig.
p. cm.
1. Dysfunctional families—England—Fiction. 2. Vampires—Fiction. 3. Family secrets—Fiction. 4. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PR6108.A39R33 2010
823'.92—dc22 2010004459
ISBN 978-1-4391-9401-0
ISBN 978-1-4391-9464-5 (ebook)
For Andrea, as always.
And for Lucas and Pearl. Don’t spil a drop.
Contents
Friday
17 Orchard Lane
The Spare Bedroom
Dreaming
A Sudden Tweak of Pain
Proper Milk
Forty-six
Realism
Fantasy World
Factor 60
Red Setter
Day Glimmers on the Dying and the Dead
Photograph
Faust
Behind the Modesty Curtain
Something Evil
A Thai Green Leaf Salad with Marinated Chicken
and a Chili and Lime Dressing
Copeland
Tarantula
Signal
The Blood, the Blood
Quiet
Béla Lugosi
The Dark Fields
My Name Is Wil Radley
The Infinite Solitude of Trees
Calamine Lotion
Ten Past Midnight
A Certain Type of Hunger
Crucifixes and Rosaries and Holy Water
A Bit like Christian Bale
Saturday
There Is a Rapture on the Lonely Shore
Scrambled Eggs
The Lost People
Pretty
Fences
A Tantric Diagram of a Right Foot
New Clothes
A Bit of a Panic Attack
Save the Children
The Oarless Boat
Paris
Behind a Yew Tree
Water
Crimson Clouds
Creature of the Night
Black Narcissus
Pinot Rouge
Sunday
Freaks
Game Over
Police
Deli Ham
The Sun Sinks Back Behind a Cloud
His Wife’s Trembling Hand
We’re Monsters
The Night before Paris
Bloodless Excuse for a Marriage
Mil ennia
Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know
Panic and Pondweed
Saturn
Monday
Mister Police Encyclopedia
Control
The Three Vials
An Unusual Thought for a Monday
CSI: Transylvania
Radley Makeover Day
Class
The Plow
Pavement
A Conversation about Leeches
A Proposition
Repression Is in Our Veins
Then She Smiles a Devilish Smile
Shoebox
Lazy Garlic
Curry Sauce
Imitation of Life
The Kiss
The Fox and Crown
Thirsk
Atom
Pity
The Note
A Lost World That Was Once Her Own
Baby
Up and Up and Up
Out of the Wet, Dark Air
His Father’s Face
Change
Into the Dark
Womb
A Few Nights Later
Raphael
A Song He Knows
Self-help
The Tiniest Drop
Myths
An Abstainer’s Glossary
Acknowledgments
Friday
Y
our instincts are wrong. Animals rely on instincts for their daily survival, but we
are not beasts. We are not lions or sharks or vultures. We are civilized, and
civilization only works if instincts are suppressed. So do your bit for society and
ignore those dark desires inside you.
The Abstainer’s Handbook
(second edition), p. 54
17 Orchard Lane
It is a quiet place, especialy at night.
Too quiet, you’d be entitled to think, for any kind of monster to live among its pretty, tree-shaded lanes.
Indeed, at three o’clock in the morning in the vil age of Bishopthorpe, it is easy to believe the lie indulged in by its residents—that it is a place for good and quiet people to live good and quiet lives.
At this hour, the only sounds to be heard are those made by nature itself. The hoot of an owl, the faraway bark of a dog, or, on a breezy night like this one, the wind’s obscure whisper through the sycamore trees. Even if you stood on the main street, right outside the pub or the Hungry Gannet delicatessen, you wouldn’t often hear any traffic or be able to see the abusive graffiti that decorates the former post office (though the word
FREAK
might just be legible if you strain your eyes).
Away from the main street, on somewhere like Orchard Lane, if you took a nocturnal strol past the detached period homes lived in by solicitors and doctors and project managers, you would find al their lights off and curtains drawn, secluding them from the night. Or you would until you reached number seventeen, where you’d notice the glow from an upstairs window filtering through the curtains.
And if you stopped, sucked in that cool and consoling fresh night air, you would at first see that number seventeen is a house otherwise in tune with those around it. Maybe not quite as grand as its closest neighbor, number nineteen, with its wide driveway and elegant Regency features, but stil one that holds its own.
It is a house that looks and feels precisely how a vil age family home should look—not too big, but big enough, with nothing out of place or jarring on the eye. A dream house in many ways, as estate agents would tel you, and certainly perfect to raise children.
But after a moment you’d notice there is something not right about it. No, maybe “notice” is too strong. Perhaps you wouldn’t actively realize that even nature seems to be quieter around this house, that you can’t hear any birds or anything else at al . Yet there might be an instinctive sense that would make you wonder about that glowing light and feel a coldness that doesn’t come from the night air.