Snare Read Free Page A

level,’ she said of the river and, acknowledging a compliment on the garden, ‘We’re fortunate; there’s a man who comes twice a week to mow the grass and cut up dead trees and so on. We do all the light work ourselves.’
    At that she looked uncomfortable and conversation dried up for a moment.
    â€˜You don’t live alone?’ Miss Pink’s tone was light.
    Beatrice was still. ‘I’m alone now,’ she said. ‘I lost my brother two years ago.’
    â€˜I’m sorry.’
    â€˜He wasn’t ill for long.’ The tone was flat. ‘It was cancer. He was in hospital, but he came home at the end.’ She looked round the room and her lips moved in the travesty of a smile. ‘Life goes on, doesn’t it? Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
    â€˜I was an only child. My father died when I was young, but I was devastated when my mother died. I was in my late forties.’
    â€˜What did you do? I mean, how did you cope once you’d recovered from the shock?’
    â€˜I worked,’ Miss Pink said. ‘I started writing stories and articles for magazines while I looked after my mother. She had a long illness. But I wasn’t alone after she died. I had, and still have, an excellent housekeeper. I’ve never been lonely.’ There was a silence which stretched too far. ‘There was always something to do,’ she went on, ‘even if I had to fabricate it. Unfortunately that gets more difficult with age, at the same time as the writing becomes easier. So I started to travel.’
    â€˜Did that work?’
    â€˜It worked very well. I was something of a mountaineer when I was younger and I’d always thought I would have made a good explorer. When I go abroad, I don’t exactly court danger but I don’t go out of my way to avoid it. And there’s nothing to bring back the old joy of living so much as a good dose of fear.’
    â€˜I was the timid one,’ Beatrice said. ‘Robert was the explorer. He crossed Greenland by dog sledge; he was in Spitzbergen, Baffin Land, the Yukon.’
    â€˜Robert Swan!’ Miss Pink was amazed. ‘Of course. The polar traveller. I knew the name was familiar.’
    â€˜You must come one evening and see some of his slides. I’ll put on a show.’ Beatrice smiled engagingly. ‘He used to call me his producer. I always helped select the pictures for a new lecture, and he tried out his commentary on me. I was representative of his audience, you see. He knew how mountaineers’ minds worked but he didn’t understand people who stayed at home.’
    â€˜Did you always live together?’
    â€˜Since the war. I had two more brothers. One was killed in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in Burma, the other was a bomber pilot. He was shot down over the Ruhr. Robert went through North Africa without a scratch. Afterwards he worked for oil companies – he was a geologist – but when our parents died and we inherited, he didn’t need to do that kind of work any longer, so he explored and lectured. We came here in 1950. He loved Sgoradale – for a few months at a time – and then he’d be off again to some wild corner of the world. Are you like that: unable to spend long at home?’
    â€˜I’ve not yet found a home,’ Miss Pink confessed. ‘I thought it was North Wales, then Cornwall – where I still have a house. It doesn’t bother me; I’m not looking for a home. No doubt the right place will appear in due course.’
    â€˜You’re good for the soul. When will you be free to come for a meal?’
    â€˜I’m dining at the lodge tonight. Is tomorrow too short notice?’
    â€˜Not at all. Everyone in Sgoradale has freezers. Tomorrow it is. Shall we say six-thirty since we’re to have a slide show?’
    * * *
    Miss Pink made her way along the street. The tide was high, lapping close to the