River of Destiny. Barbara Erskine

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СКАЧАТЬ Once she had thought she could change him, but the change, if there was to be change, would have to be hers, and that admission, that she had judged him wrongly, and that she must change herself or be for ever sidelined had been too hard to make.

      ‘You love the river,’ she said, turning back to face Leo.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And you love sailing.’

      He nodded.

      ‘Are you never afraid?’

      ‘Everyone is afraid sometimes, Zoë.’

      ‘Yes, but in Ken’s case he’s hooked on the adrenaline. He’s competitive. He is always testing himself against something. Fear excites him.’

      He made no comment and she turned back to the window. ‘Ironically it was the river that drew me to this house. It fascinates me. But now we are here for some strange reason it –’ she hunted for the right word – ‘it repels me as well. I find it as sinister as it is beautiful.’

      ‘I saw you sketching it.’

      She glanced at him, startled. ‘When?’

      ‘You were down on the boat.’

      She shook her head. ‘I can’t draw. I can’t do anything. I was trying to find something to occupy me while he tinkers with the boat. Sketching will not be it.’

      ‘I’m sure you will find something.’ He grinned. ‘Do you have to go down on the boat to keep him company?’

      ‘I don’t think he even notices I’m there half the time.’

      ‘There you are then. You need a land-based hobby.’

      ‘I jog, but that is hardly a hobby. Not for me, anyway. I need to sort out my life, my relationship, my whole raison d’être.’ She shrugged. ‘No. Forget I said that. That is part of something I have to sort with Ken.’

      He gave a half-nod. ‘Fair enough. It’s forgotten.’ He stood up. ‘My five minutes is up. Just keep a wary eye out for the kids from hell, OK?’

      She gave a faint smile. ‘So, apart from your mate, Jade, how many did you say there are?’

      ‘Three boys. Darren, Jamie and Jackson. Jackson doesn’t feature much, thank goodness,’ he grinned. ‘He’s left school and is for all I know collecting ASBOs; I doubt he has any other qualifications. Which is a shame. Jeff and Sharon are decent people, chaotic and noisy and sometimes irritating to a grumpy codger like me, but still salt of the earth.’

      Zoë put her head on one side. ‘In my experience when people are described as salt of the earth it usually means they are just the opposite.’

      ‘Then your experience is unfortunate. I meant it.’ His voice had hardened.

      ‘Sorry.’ She felt a surge of irritation at the rebuke. ‘So, the two I have to watch out for are Darren and Jamie.’

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘Thanks for the warning.’

      ‘Just being neighbourly.’ He headed towards the door.

      She stayed where she was, watching as he walked past the window and across the grass towards his house.

      ‘Was that our new neighbour?’ Ken had appeared in the doorway and she turned with a start.

      ‘Why didn’t you come and say hello?’

      ‘He seemed to be in a hurry. What a dreadful state his face is in. Why on earth doesn’t he get it fixed?’

      ‘Money.’ She reached for her car keys off the counter. ‘I was going to pick up some stuff in Woodbridge. Do you want to come?’

      He shook his head. ‘I thought I would go down to the Lady for an hour or two. Unless you want me for anything else?’

      ‘No.’ She managed to restrain the sigh. ‘Do you want lunch later or shall I leave you to do your own thing when you come in?’

      ‘Why not do that? I lose track of time a bit down there.’ He gave her his boyish smile.

      She smiled back. Don’t you just, she thought.

      She hadn’t planned on visiting the library after the supermarket but suddenly it seemed a good idea. She found her way to the local history section and located one book which looked as if it might enlighten her about the area. She thumbed through the index, looking for Timperton Hall, smiling as she rooted around in her bag for a pen and paper. Did people, she wondered, always start a ghost hunt like this?

      In the event there wasn’t much information to be had. The Hall had Tudor origins but had burned down and been rebuilt in the late seventeenth century by the Crosby family, who had lived there for nearly two hundred years. Nearby was the home farm. There was no village as such, apart from the site of an early church which had long since disappeared. That suggested that at some point there had been at least some sort of hamlet in the area. Now there was nothing to suggest that – apart from the barns, which clearly had been part of the estate – there had ever been any kind of settlement on the edge of the river nearby. The nearest church now was St Edmund’s at Hanley Heath, two miles away, and it was there, apparently, that the last members of the Crosby family, which died out in 1873, were buried.

      Zoë leaned back thoughtfully against the bookshelves. A small country estate with no particular history. A microcosm of English history. She smiled. Rosemary had made friends with someone who lived in the Hall and had offered to take her up there. It would be nice to go inside, but she suspected that, as had happened with the barns, most traces of its previous history would have been eradicated by the developers. How sad.

      She glanced down at a map of the estate at the end of the book, which showed the cluster of barns, the tracks through the woods, an old landing stage, several small houses, which she hadn’t noticed and were probably long gone, and found herself wondering whether she would ever begin to feel at home there.

      Putting down roots was a mysterious business which had never happened to her. Her parents had moved often when she was a child and she felt that at base she had never really called anywhere home. She stared unseeing at the map. She had gone from boarding school to Durham University to read English and had then found a job in London where she had shared various flats with a motley selection of people until she and Ken had married ten years before. They had moved twice, both times within a fairly small area, always aware that they would move again. This launch into the country was a change of pattern, an uneasy step, as she had told Leo, out of her comfort zone. Once she had got used to the idea it had seemed exciting and a bit zany. Her friends thought they were stark staring mad, and she had laughed at them, jeering at their lack of sense of adventure, but now she was beginning to realise they were right. She and Ken didn’t fit. No one in the barn complex fitted. They weren’t local. They didn’t belong. They had all been plonked as though from outer space into a pretty piece of countryside and the safety net had been whisked away. And the real locals, the real inhabitants, be they alive or long dead, resented them. Especially the long dead. She looked up, mulling over the disturbing thought. They were still there, still doing their thing as though nothing had changed. And they resented the newcomers bitterly.

      ‘Excuse СКАЧАТЬ