Diamond Read Free

herself.
    All the same, she put her phone on charge, to make sure it was fully topped up, and decided against wasting the battery on games any more.
    It was getting late, and she was tired.
    She couldn’t have a hot bath or shower until the electrician came to fit a new boiler tomorrow. She would have to make do with cold water, baby wipes and body spray until then. And she had no mirror, except the tiny one in her compact! Why had she not thought to bring one?
    Her makeshift bed felt cold, but at least it was dry. Tomorrow she would get some wood for the big fireplace; she’d have to buy it, since everything in the garden would be soaked and pulpy. She had practical matters to concentrate on. So much to do. No time to think, to mourn, to languish.
    No time to dream …
    But she did dream.
    Footsteps overhead, creaking on the boards. A whitesmoke, ectoplasmic in appearance, filling the room and hissing into her ears. How cold it felt, filling her lungs, choking her, pressing down on her chest. She tried to kick, to fight it off, but her limbs were weighed down and even her lips would not move to emit her silent scream.
    After what seemed like hours of struggle, Jenna’s eyelids opened and she was able to move her trembling arms. She lay still for a while, catching her breath, waiting for reality to chase the horrible traces of her dream away. It took a while and it still lay lightly upon her when she sat up and looked around her, identifying the dark shapes in the room one by one.
    It was all right. She was in bed, in Harville Hall, in the front parlour. Outside, a wind blew, sending cold blasts down the chimney at intervals. It was late – when she checked her phone, she saw that it was five past three.
    Lawrence’s words about the place being haunted came back to her. She wondered what form the hauntings took.
    But you don’t believe in ghosts
.
    Easy enough to say so in the bright light of day, but now it was dark and late and lonely. She was far from home, she thought, and yet she wasn’t.
    I have no home
.
    It was a melancholy thought.
    Don’t start crying, not now. You’ve been so strong
.
    She thought about Deano, in bed with that girl right now, no doubt. Or was he? What was the time difference?
    The calculation kept her level-headed, made her think that Deano was probably sitting down to eat, now, or in make-up for a personal appearance or interview of some kind. Or he might be in the pool. Or the gym.
    He’d probably ditched her already.
    How
, she asked herself, already kicking herself for going down this well-worn, emotionally flagellating path, could Deano have done it to her? How could he have cheated on her with that … OK, she was younger, but she was
fat
.
    She got that he had cheated on her. He was rich, famous, magnetic, attractive – temptation did more than get in his way. It literally climbed into his bed, on more than one occasion. So that hadn’t shocked her as much as it might have done.
    She got that he had cheated on her with a teenager. It was a rock star cliché. Boring, trite, predictable, unworthy of him, but … She could have forgiven it, in time.
    But to cheat on her with a
fat
girl! It was an insult. It was beyond the pale.
    You used to be the same size as her
, he’d said.
    ‘I was never that big!’ she protested, but actually she had been. A British size 12 when they met, three sizes bigger than she was now.
    ‘It’s not even big!’ Deano had said. ‘It’s a healthy size. Jesus, Jenna, you’re as bad as the rest of them.’
    She didn’t know who ‘the rest of them’ were, but she wasn’t sticking around to take the blame for her own husband’s inability to keep his dick in his pants.
    She ran her hand along her arm, checking for spare flesh. Nothing to pinch. Nothing but firm, taut, brown skin. Breasts, small but still high. Thighs supple and yoga-flexible.
    If she was awake at this time of night, she might as well make use of it.
    She stood by the window and