Deception in the Cotswolds Read Free

corrected, with a hint of reproach, as if she should have known his preference. ‘Black, no sugar.’
    He followed her into the kitchen and sat at the table watching as she hunted for a mug and teaspoon. ‘The blue one’s mine,’ he said, in his light piping voice.
    She gave him a look. ‘Is instant all right?’
    ‘Perfectly, thank you.’
    The kitchen had fewer modern gadgets than many Thea had experienced. Harriet Young was pleasantly normal in that respect, it seemed. A faintly grubby microwave sat on one counter, near a large wooden bread bin. The fridge-freezer was stuffed with anonymous bags and trays of assorted meat, bread, ice cream and vegetables. The top of it, too high for Thea to reach, was piled with dusty-looking cookery books and a fat half-used candle. Fruit for the geckoes was in a special plastic box,with some dried insects that looked like raisins.
    ‘Managing, then, are you?’ Donny asked.
    ‘So far. It’s not very difficult, really, although I’d banked on decent weather. I’m trying not to worry about the geckoes.’
    ‘Silly things,’ he smiled, his head quivering in the perpetual tremor. ‘Don’t know what she was thinking of.’
    ‘Oh well. They’re quite sweet, I suppose.’
    He waved the topic away, and cautiously sipped the coffee, holding the mug tightly in both hands. It was a tense business, and Thea realised she should have made sure it wasn’t filled too close to the brim.
    ‘Never get old, not if you can help it,’ he said, having managed a swallow of the hot drink. ‘It’s a miserable business.’
    ‘Not much choice, is there?’ She sat down opposite him and tried to concentrate. Would she really get old one day, like this man? Like everybody, more or less. ‘I suppose it’s better than dying young.’
    He shrugged. ‘My daughter died last year. She was forty-one.’
    ‘Oh gosh! I am sorry. My husband died three years ago. He was forty-two.’
    He closed his eyes. ‘Forty-two,’ he murmured, as if it hurt. ‘That’s another one dying too young. Was he ill?’
    ‘No. Car accident. Was your daughter? Ill, I mean.’
    ‘Oh yes. Had a bad heart all her life. They did a transplant and she died.’
    They did a transplant and she died. Thea heard a whole anguished story in that little sentence. ‘Right away?’ she asked, too horrified to mince her words.
    ‘Eighteen months after the operation,’ he said. ‘You should have seen her.’ Again he closed his eyes. ‘It should never have been allowed. They think they’re so clever, but there are things they never even stop to consider.’
    How did we get into this so quickly? Thea wondered. It was as if Donny needed to unburden himself of this enormous trauma before they could settle into a normal discussion of the weather or the next general election.
    ‘Such as?’ she prompted.
    His eyes opened fractionally wider, to reveal a rage undimmed by his own physical failings. ‘Such as, how is a person supposed to live with somebody else’s heart inside them? They just laughed it off as fanciful when she said she didn’t feel as if she was herself any more. She would hold herself …’ he clasped his own mottled hands over his chest ‘… and say she could feel the person’s life thumping away, trying to escape.’
    ‘Sounds a bit … well, oversensitive,’ Thea suggested with a smile. ‘Although I can see it must feel terribly strange, especially at first.’
    ‘That was her nature, taking everything hard. She’d always been like that.’
    ‘And I suppose she would have died young, without the new heart?’
    ‘So they told us.’
    ‘You didn’t believe them?’
    ‘She’d never have managed a baby, or climbed Mount Everest, or run a marathon. But if she looked after herself, and kept herself quiet, she’d have lived more than the time she did. And she’d have been easy in her mind. They break the ribs, you know, to get at the heart. For a woman …’ his eyes lost focus, filmed with tears