LITMIR.BIZ

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the flat.

      Jane didn’t speak when she came into the kitchen. She flashed him an assessing look as she put down her things and poured herself some tea. Her face was set and unsmiling, her posture rigid and controlled. Her coming filled the kitchen with a sense of tension and conflict; the silence between them seemed like the stubborn silence in the middle of some fierce disagreement rather than the expression of chronic hostility.

      She was a year or so younger than her husband, a well-built, athletic-looking woman with strong, rounded arms; she was dressed in neat, inexpensive, no-nonsense clothes. Her gleaming chestnut hair, thick and straight, was cut in a trim helmet shape. She wore no make-up; she had an aseptic, scrubbed look.

      She went over to the kitchen cabinet and selected a small glass bottle from among several standing on a shelf. She tipped a couple of tablets out on to her palm and swallowed them with her tea. Roy stood watching her without comment.

      ‘I had a sandwich,’ he said at last. ‘I’ve got to go out on a call. I shouldn’t be long, about half an hour, I should think.’

      She moved her shoulders. ‘I’ll have supper ready when you get back.’ Her manner was tired and irritable. She took a pan from a cupboard and made a start on preparations for a simple meal. ‘I won’t be able to do the books this evening,’ she told him over her shoulder. ‘I’m doing the night shift at the nursing-home. One of the staff is away ill.’ She was an assistant nurse, working full-time for a local agency. In what little spare time she had she helped her husband in his business; they usually worked on the books on Tuesday evenings.

      ‘We’ll do the books tomorrow instead,’ Roy said easily. He had inherited the business from his father. It had originally been a small family grocery store but his father had always had an interest in radio and television and had begun to carry out small repairs for his customers on an amateur basis. Later he had branched out into selling sets and later still into renting them out. When Roy left school he went into the business and soon took charge of the electrical side. He spent a good deal of time trying to persuade his father to expand that part of the business and forget the groceries, but his father had continued cautiously and stubbornly to cling to what he saw as the enduring, reliable, bread-and-butter trade. On his father’s death Roy had lost no time in closing down the grocery side. As soon as the opportunity arose he bought the shop next door in order to enlarge the service and repair side of his trade. He was anxious now to expand yet again, into stereos and videos, home computers.

      Jane crossed to the sink and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves. She began scrubbing vegetables. Roy stood in silence, looking at the back of her head, then he said in an expressionless tone, ‘Venetia phoned this afternoon.’ Jane stiffened at his words, her hands fell idle in the water. ‘To arrange about the weekend,’ Roy added. ‘What time I’m to pick up the children.’ Venetia was his first wife. There were two children of their marriage: Simon, aged eight, and Katie, six, both living with their mother. The children often stayed with Roy for a weekend. He was very fond of his children, and Jane, busy as she was, was always happy to see them.

      She stood waiting for him to continue but he said nothing more. She turned abruptly from the sink and burst out at him with vehemence, ‘Didn’t she say anything about the money? Isn’t she going to answer your letter?’

      He gave a long, weary sigh. ‘I’ve already had a reply to my letter.’ He raised a hand to silence her. ‘It came on Saturday morning. I didn’t tell you about it, I didn’t want to upset you.’

      She tore off her rubber gloves and thrust out a hand. He took a letter from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘It’s from her solicitor,’ he said.

      She ran her eye over the brief, formal communication: Far from wishing to consider any reduction in the amounts regularly paid over to her, Mrs Franklin was currently contemplating an application to the court to increase the maintenance award for the two children; there were additional expenses as they got older and inflation continued to present a problem.

      Jane uttered an angry sound and flung the letter down on the table. She burst into tears and then, even angrier because of this show of weakness, uttered another sound, of intense irritation, and dashed the tears from her cheek.

      Roy went over and put an arm round her shoulders. ‘Don’t get so upset about it,’ he urged. ‘It’ll sort itself out one day.’

      She pulled away from him. ‘I’ll be thirty-five next month. It’ll soon be too late to start a family of our own.’ She flung round to face him. ‘You must go and see her. Writing letters is no good. You’ve got to talk to her, make her see reason.’

      He shook his head with finality. ‘She wouldn’t listen. She’d simply tell me to talk to her solicitor. I knew it was a waste of time writing to her but you would have me do it.’

      She went back to her vegetables and resumed her task with unnecessary force. ‘Then if you won’t go, I will,’ she threw at him, defiantly resolute. ‘I’ll make very sure she listens to me. She won’t push me off to her solicitor.’

      He seized her shoulders and swung her round. ‘Oh no you won’t!’ His tone was sharp and imperious. ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort.’

      She tried to jerk herself free but his grip was too fierce. ‘You can’t stop me,’ she told him.

      ‘I want your solemn word that you won’t go.’ He gave her shoulders a brisk shake. ‘Promise me.’

      She glared back at him for several seconds, then all at once she abandoned the struggle. ‘Oh, very well,’ she said, suddenly deflated. ‘I promise.’

      He let her go. He drew a deep breath, then put an arm round her in a gentle embrace. ‘It’ll be all right one of these days,’ he assured her. ‘You mustn’t get so worked up about it.’ He drew her to him and they exchanged a long, lingering kiss.

      Thursday dawned brilliantly clear. At midday the sun rode high in a cloudless sky, by late afternoon the swifts were beginning to dip and soar over Foxwell Common, a mile or two out of Cannonbridge. On the paved terrace at the rear of her cottage on the edge of the common, Venetia Franklin reclined at ease on a sunlounger of gaily striped canvas. She lay with her eyes closed, her hands linked behind her head, a faint smile on her lips.

      Beside her, on a wooden table, a radio played light music. The scent of honeysuckle drifted over the garden; from the top of an apple tree dense with pink and white blossom a greenfinch poured out his silvery runs and trills. A delicious emanation of heat rose up from the old grey flagstones. I do believe the fine weather’s come back to stay, Venetia thought with pleasure. She revelled like a cat in warmth and sunshine. Her skin took on a delicate honey tan in the summer, the soft curls of her barley-blonde hair grew even paler.

      From the shrubbery the voices of the children, Simon and Katie, floated out as they darted about in one of their complicated games. The sound of sheep bleating strayed across from the common.

      She yawned and stretched, opened her eyes and glanced idly round the garden. Her eyes were large and luminous, a deep sea-blue, with long, dark, curling lashes. At twenty-nine she was a good-looking woman; she had been a ravishingly pretty girl. Not very tall, slightly built and fine-boned, with narrow wrists and ankles.

      The phone rang from inside the cottage. Her face broke into a smile. She sprang to her feet and ran in through the back door, along a passage into the sitting room. She snatched up the receiver.

      ‘Venetia?’ At the sound of Philip Colborn’s voice her smile vanished.

      ‘Oh, it’s you.’ Her tone was easy and amiable. She remained standing, turning her head this way and that as she listened, glancing about the room. From time to time she interjected a word or two, giving him no more than surface attention.

      On the wall nearby hung a long mirror. She considered her image with a critical eye, studying her new dark blue cotton sundress with its bold white patterning, pondering the effect against the silky skin of her shoulders.

      A note of remonstrance appeared in Colborn’s voice. In

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