Blind Date Read Free Page A

yes,” Diana agreed. “Very brave indeed.”
    Diana was not going to tell this smiling face,or any other, that her only surviving daughter was being a selfish swine.
    â€œShe has to go to the hospital this afternoon. She hates the hospital,” Diana added, searching for something innocuous to say which might also sound confidential.
    â€œOh dear. More treatment?”
    She wanted the gory details.
    â€œNo. A checkup. And a demonstration.”
    Caroline Smythe looked uncomprehendingly sympathetic. She clasped her hands in front of her waist and leant forward.
    â€œWould it help if I were to chat … you know, keep her company?”
    â€œNo! No, it wouldn’t. How very kind of you, but it wouldn’t.” This time, the recoil was obvious, albeit quickly disguised. There was subdued laughter from the dining room and the sound of clattering plates.
    Perhaps it would be better if they had children, and dogs, Diana thought, excusing herself. She could hide in the crossfire: she might be able to pretend that she was not a woman pursued by a series of tragedies, or deny that she and Caroline Smythe were sisters under the skin of motherhood, as if that gave them anything at all in common.
    Caroline Smythe stood in the hall, torn between the desire to waylay another guest in the interests of conversation and the need to go and change her clothes. It was ever thus. She would come on holiday to relax, to be alone, but faced with a day’s solitude, she found it excruciating.
    A small boy cannoned into the hall, skidded on the parquet, righted himself and made for the stairs. A lovely lad, manic as hers had been.
    â€œHallo,” Caroline called after him, longingly, but he shied away, refusing any contact with her eyes, and pretended not to hear. No children, no dogs. All this family had ever done for her was offer hospitality, food and a pretence of friendship, laced with insults and rejection. She clenched her fists and, like Diana Kennedy, fixed her smile.
    How do you make peoplelove you?
    T urning out of the front door, aware that the final, muttered, must dash excuse me, had lacked her usual refinement, vowing to make up for it later, Diana hesitated. Instead of walking towards the village shops, she turned right, and strolled towards the sea.
    The village of Budley spread landward from a neat cleft between the cliffs which guarded the shoreline. The main street was an easy walk; the houses flanking it, viewed from the shore, were set in a series of ever-rising terraces, smaller houses on the seafront itself, the more substantial further uphill. Standing on the promenade, a raised walkway with steps down to the beach, continuing at either end into pathways up the cliffs, Diana could turn slowly and see first the town, then the sea, then the cliffs bordering the bay. On a morning like this, the colours would blind her: cliffs topped with brilliant green, their raw sides russet red, the shingle of the beach a muted gold, the sea reflecting the blue of the vast and harmless sky. Then she would look at the town, the houses bedecked with flowers.
    And her own house, of course. The most unusual, the biggest on this level and the only one with such a large, walled garden. Other houses, built further up the cliff path, had gardens too, but none so mature. And none with a door set into the wall, leading directly onto the lower reaches of the cliff path and the sea, so that it seemed even the sea was hers. When Diana walked back, she looked at her house covertly. Brilliant white walls, green shutters, grey, pantiled roof, flower boxes at every window and a peachy rose around the fine front door. Yes, it was enviable, solid, beautiful. She could only comfort herself with such thoughts; did so on a regular basis. Anyone seeing her stand in rapt, if secretive, contemplation of her own freehold, would imagine that she was looking at it in order to find flaws, such a perfectionist she was, but Diana was