HIS OTHER SON Read Free Page B

gently
towards him and let her cry on his shoulder. They stood like that for half a
minute then she pulled away, wiping the tears from her eyes with a delicately
manicured hand.
    “You smell of fish,” she
said.
                “Gets into the fibres, difficult to shift. Sorry.”
                “Your
room’s upstairs just as you left it. There are still clothes of yours in the
closet.”
                He
sighed. “How is mother?”
                “Doctor
Cooperman comes morning and evening to give her morphine. He seems to be at a
loss, says she’s on borrowed time.”
                Caroline
went to the bar and poured herself a vodka tonic. Ray watched her, noting that
the years were not treating her kindly. Caroline still had her slender figure,
but her raven hair was turning grey at the temples, expertly masked by
undoubtedly expensive colouring, and the skin of her neck was starting to
crepe. And there was a certain slowness of her movements that seemed to add about
ten years to her own forty-one. She was dressed elegantly tonight for the party
in a black designer creation, but even that seemed to age her. He felt a
genuine pity for her as he watched her take her first sip of the drink. She
turned to him. “Can I get you one?”
                “ Chivas Regal. Please.” He held
out his empty glass to her. She poured the whisky into a clean one and handed
it to him.
                “I’d
like to see her, Caro ,” he said, as she came and sat
down opposite him.
                “She’ll
be sleeping now. The morphine, you know. Were you planning to stay the night?
In the mornings, before Doctor Cooperman comes, she’s usually pretty alert.”
                “I
haven’t made any plans. All I know about this is what you put in your
note...which wasn’t particularly informative.”
                Caroline
nodded slowly and took another sip of her drink. “Yes, I’m sorry I did that.
You deserved to be told properly. I suppose I was feeling angry, angry at the
whole damned world, and especially at you.”
                “Why
especially at me?”
                “Because
you’re not here, damn it!” she snapped. “You’re not here to bathe her, to clean
up after her when she’s sick or incontinent. You’re not here to soothe her when
she’s screaming out in pain. And because, Ray, you’re not here to love her,
you’re not here to care.”
                Ray
lowered his eyes and blew softly between pursed lips. “Whew, quite a speech,”
he said.
                “Oh
Christ, you’re just impossible.” Caroline swallowed the last of her vodka tonic
and slumped back into her seat, staring at the books on the opposite wall as if
in some mystical way they could absorb the anger and pain she was feeling.
                “I
saw a monk on the landing earlier,” he said.
                Caroline
jerked in her seat and stared at him, saying nothing.
                “I
didn’t think it was just my imagination,” he said. Her reaction told him he
hadn’t imagined what he’d seen. “What’s a monk doing here?”
                “It
wasn’t a monk.”
                “Sure
looked like a monk to me. Robe and cowl, unless you’ve been
redesigning the maid’s uniforms again.”
                “Don’t
be flip. I told you it wasn’t a monk. It was probably one of the sisters.”
                He
looked at her blankly, waiting for her to continue. When she said nothing more
he said, “Sisters? Sorry, I think I’m missing something here. What kind of
sisters? Sisters as in nuns, or what?”
                “You’ll
have to talk to father about it. They’re here at his invitation. They’ve got
nothing to do with me. Martin is absolutely furious about all this. He’s taken
legal advice, but John