Hiding From the Light. Barbara Erskine

Чтение книги онлайн.

       21

      The house was very quiet. Looking round the small, low-ceilinged living room, Emma added two items to her shopping list: extra-soft cushions for the little sofa she had bought from Peter Jones before she left London, and yet another lamp. In spite of the radiant September sunshine outside, the room was dark. The corners never reflected the light. Shadows seemed to hang there whatever she did to rearrange the lamps she had brought with her.

      It was a week since she had moved in, just over six since she had first seen the cottage. In that time the sale had gone through without a hitch, her resignation had been accepted by David Spencer – if reluctantly, and only after her promise that she would continue to supply him from time to time with reports and summaries, that she would stay in Internet touch, and that if or when she changed her mind, she would ring him immediately. Last but not least, she had on that last terrible, miserable day, removed all her possessions, including Max and Min, from what was now Piers’s flat.

      The cats had at first been astonished and nervous at finding themselves the owners of an entire house and a three-acre area of ground. But the fear was slowly wearing off and now they were intrigued, anxious to explore. She had only let them out for the first time yesterday, all eight paws duly buttered, and they had proceeded cautiously out onto the terrace, sitting close together, the swagger and bravado they had displayed when looking out of the windows all gone. She had watched them fondly, at first afraid they might run away and disappear. She needn’t have worried. The first sound of a car in the lane had them bolting back into the kitchen and up the stairs. But it was only minutes after that they were creeping downstairs again, their eagerness to explore and their excitement outweighing their caution.

      The furnishing in the house was as yet sparse. Peggy and Dan had come up to see her only three days before, bringing with them a small antique pine table and four chairs for the dining room – soon to be linked to the kitchen by the removal of the lathe and plaster between the studwork – and the oak side-table and the pair of Victorian velvet granny chairs had come from them as well. Upstairs, the bed was new. The Victorian chest of drawers had been her grandmother’s, the oak coffer had been Peggy’s. But still it didn’t feel like home. Thankfully she had not heard the voice again.

      She wandered outside. A robin was singing its thready, wistful, autumn song from the collapsed pergola halfway down the garden. That would have to be mended, as would so much of the fencing, the trellises, the gate. The list of work to be done out here was endless, the work to do on the house equally so. She stood still, feeling the sun on her face, breathing in the soft, slightly salty air. She could see down to the widening estuary from her bedroom window and already recognised the fresh cold smell of the mud as the tide crept out leaving the broad dark grey glitter of the river margins exposed.

      She perched on the wall for a few moments to get her breath back after her strenuous morning’s work on the house. But stopping for too long was dangerous. It was then that the doubts crept in. Her happiness, her sense of absolute rightness, her triumph at finding herself here was not enough all the time, to blot out the worry at what she had done. She had turned her back on a first-class career. She had moved out of the home she loved with the man she adored, and she had spent without a thought a good chunk of her savings and for what? A dream. A fantasy. Even the prospect of doing a bit of freelance work for David didn’t entirely comfort her. The income she made from that would never be huge. She glanced up at the window of the back bedroom where her computer sat on a wooden table. Sitting at it she could look out over the garden. That would be her office, if and when she got round to organising it.

      Min landed on her lap with a small chirrup of greeting and she bent and kissed the cat’s dark head. ‘You like it here, don’t you, darling,’ she whispered. She sighed.

      She longed to ring Piers, if only to hear his voice. Glancing back at the kitchen door she could see the phone from here. It was blue, to match the Aga which would be fitted next week. No. What was the point? He would see through her, sense her loneliness and she would rather die than admit she might have made a mistake.

      Standing up, she set the cat down on the moss-covered wall and began to walk down the garden path. ‘You coming?’ She turned and clicked her fingers at Min, who cautiously jumped down and followed her, sniffing at the grass. As Emma watched, the cat paused and began to paw at a bare patch of earth, patting, sniffing, and leaping back, her hair on end.

      ‘What is it, Min? Be careful.’ Emma went over to see what she had found.

      Lying there, partially exposed, was a knotted length of muddy red cord. Emma picked it up with a frown. She examined it closely. There was something unpleasant about it, although she wasn’t quite sure what. ‘It’s only a piece of string, Min. Here, do you want a game?’ She dangled it in front of the cat invitingly. Min backed away and spat.

      Emma jumped. ‘Sorry! I thought you’d like to play.’

      But already Min was trotting back towards the terrace. There, she sat down and began to wash her face. That was enough exploration for one day.

      Emma moved on, pushing the string absent-mindedly into her pocket.

      The lawn was a matted tangle of knee-high grasses and wild flowers. Two old apple trees, laden with small hard green fruit, stood one on either side of the path and once-symmetrical beds of roses featured beyond them where the pergola had collapsed beneath its riot of blown and dying flowers.

      She paused, suddenly uncomfortable. Each time she walked down the garden she stopped here and without quite knowing why, looked round, glancing over her shoulder. She shivered and hurried on. Beyond lay the gate into the herb garden. Beds of herbs, woody and untrimmed, lay around an old boarded barn СКАЧАТЬ