Sands of Time. Barbara Erskine

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Heat fell across the garden like a blanket. Sighing with relief Helen turned her back on the now spotlessly tidy chalet and carrying her cup of tea, a fat paperback novel and a rug she stepped out of the French doors onto the grass. Tim had taken the children to the beach. Ahead of her lay two or three hours of perfect peace.

      ‘Come too, Hen.’ Tim had dropped a kiss on the top of her head. He tried bribery. ‘I’ll buy you an ice cream?’

      No contest. Two hours alone – completely alone – versus thousands of people, shouting children and, the final turn-off, runny ice creams dripping stickily down sun-sore skin. No thanks!

      She spread out the rug in the shade under the small cherry tree, kicked off her flip-flops and sat down cross-legged, the mug on one side of her, the book on the other. The silence was total.

      She adored the children – there were three of them, Jack, Felix and Polly – and she adored her husband, but they were all so noisy, so demanding, so overwhelmingly there all the time, that moments like this were almost non-existent now. Thoughtfully she picked up her mug and sipped at the tea. It was delicious; cooling, even though it scalded her mouth. Cupping her hands around the mug she gave a wry grin. Had she really forgotten how to savour tea; how to sit down in silence?

      This was their first real holiday all together and Tim was being marvellous. Putting thoughts of the office for once behind him and ordering her to do the same, he had marshalled the children; they had tidied their toys, helped wash up, each found towel and bathing costume, and then suddenly there was silence and there was nothing – blessed nothing – to do!

      She took another sip of tea and gazed lazily around her, unwilling even to make the effort to pick up the book. Each of these chalets had their own garden and they had been there long enough to have established hedges and flower borders, ornate trees, neat handkerchief-sized lawns. Nearby she heard the sharp alarm call of a small bird and she screwed up her eyes, trying to see it. The neighbouring gardens were totally silent too – no doubt the other families also on the beach. And then she saw it, the tiny brown bird with its ridiculous pert tail and bright eyes watching her from its hiding place in some ivy clinging to the fence near by. She smiled. Finishing her tea she lay back on the rug with a sigh of blissful contentment.

      Did she fall asleep then? Afterwards she always wondered. But of course she had. How else was it all possible?

      As she lay looking sleepily up through the lacework of the leaves, feeling the sun dappling her face, she realised there was someone in the garden with her.

      ‘Tim? Have you forgotten something?’ Her initial reaction was extreme irritation. Could they not allow her just this one small window of peace?

      There was no answer and she turned her head, her arm shading her eyes against the glare of the sun.

      From where she lay she realised suddenly that she could see through a gap in the hedge into the next door garden. A man was standing there watching her. She sat up hastily, knocking over her mug as she did so.

      ‘Sorry. Did I startle you?’ He stepped forward between the laurels and she saw that he was a man of middle height, handsome, tanned, his hair bleached almost white by the sun. ‘The children are on the beach and Mary is asleep. How are you?’ He sat down opposite her on the grass and leaned across to lay his hand for a moment over hers. It was a curiously intimate gesture. Not in any way threatening. He smiled at her and she found herself smiling back. Her initial indignation at his presence had disappeared. He wasn’t a stranger. She knew him well.

      ‘It’s blessedly peaceful without them for a while, isn’t it?’ she said quietly. Her eyes were, she realised, still staring into his; she was drowning in his gaze. Drowning. She had read that expression in one of her novels, and not quite understood what the cliché meant. Now suddenly she knew. She could see into the depths of his soul and she could see that he loved her. He loved her with tormented, agonising, passion.

      ‘My dear.’ She turned her hands upwards to meet his and their palms touched, their fingers intertwined. ‘How long will they be away?’ She couldn’t remember his name, this man whom she had loved forever and to whom she realised suddenly she was going to make love, here in the back garden of a rented holiday chalet in a place she had never been to before.

      He smiled at her. ‘Long enough.’ His hand strayed to her shoulders and he twisted a strand of her hair around his finger. ‘I go back tomorrow. This will be our last chance to be together. Perhaps for ever.’

      ‘Don’t say that.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘You’ll come back; we’ll both come back.’

      He was wearing an open-necked shirt, the sleeves rolled up above the elbows, and she found СКАЧАТЬ