Past Read Free Page B

Harriet said, holding out her hand, startling Kasim because he was finishing reading, attentively contemptuous, the
Metro
he’d picked up on the tube in London. — You must be Dani’s son. We met at Alice’s birthday a few years ago. You were only a boy then. I’m Alice’s sister.
    â€” I’ve grown up.
    â€” Stupid thing for me to say. Of course you have.
    Kasim stood up, he tried to make Harriet take his seat, and then his gin and tonic, and the salted cashews, which were what Arthur had brought.
    â€” This one’s yours, said Ivy sternly. — She can have one of her own.
    As soon as Kasim saw Harriet he did remember meeting her, because she looked like a more tragic Alice – though her cord trousers and old tee shirt showed that she didn’t care about clothes as Alice did. Her face was more haggard than Alice’s, though less expressive, like a mask of calm, and her short hair stuck up in a stiff crest and was pure white.
    Harriet said she wasn’t ready for gin yet, she had better change out of her walking boots first, and then unpack. Arthur asked if he could come.
    â€” He loves women changing their clothes, Ivy explained.
    â€” I’m only changing my boots, Harriet apologised.
    Fran, washing salad in the kitchen sink, saw Harriet and Arthur bringing Harriet’s luggage – not much of it – to the side door opening into the scullery, which opened in turn into the kitchen. Arthur was solemn with the importance of being slung across with his aunt’s binoculars. He couldn’t help, with that hair, having a page-boy look: Fran had seen this when she gave him the cashew nuts, and she felt with a pang that she must cut it, but not yet. At least her oldest sister talked to the children as if they were sensible adults – Alice did exaggerate sometimes.
    â€” So you’ve been for a walk already? she said, kissing Harriet.
    â€” I didn’t want to be the first inside, Harriet confessed. — For some superstitious reason.
    â€” I wish I had your energy. No wonder you’re so thin.
    Harriet sat in the scullery to unlace her boots, while Fran explained about Jeff not coming, and how unfair it was. — We don’t know what time Roland’s lot are getting here, but I’m making supper anyway and we’ve started on the gin. We thought we’d better be fortified against the new wife.
    â€” I met Kasim in the garden.
    â€” Dani’s son. He’s supposed to be very brilliant. But then all Alice’s friends are supposed to be brilliant, aren’t they?
    â€” He seemed very nice.
    Fran dropped her voice. — Alice never thinks about the practicalities. Because she’s brought him, I’ll have to be in the bunk-bed room with the children.
    Harriet bent her hot face over her bootlaces, skewered with guilt because she knew she ought to offer to sleep with the children instead, to give Fran a break, and yet she couldn’t do it. Her aloneness last thing at night was precious to her: at home she lived mostly apart from her partner, Christopher, because they both preferred it. Then Alice came into the kitchen, hands bundled full with knives and forks – she was laying the table in the dining room. — Hettie, you’re here! Did you have a good walk? So wise, to get straight out into the lovely day. You haven’t brought much luggage, to last three weeks. Aren’t you austere! It’s so like you, to be sensible about clothes. After all, no one’s going to see us, are they? Except each other, and we don’t care, we’re family. And Kasim and Pilar.
    â€” That’s her name, Fran said. — I knew it was something architectural.
    â€” I’m only here for a week, Harriet said. — I couldn’t take more time off.
    Fran whirred the salad spinner, to cover up the blow of Alice’s disappointment. Alice’s whole demeanour altered exaggeratedly. She dropped