Voices in Summer Read Free

T-junction, a long-distance lorry, a speeding car with inefficient brakes, all met together in a disaster of hideous finality. Almost, it seemed, before the dust of this horror had settled. Phyllis was there.
    She didn't tell Laura anything. She didn't tell her to be brave, she didn't tell her not to cry, she didn't say anything about it being God's will. She simply hugged her and asked her very humbly if, just for a little, Laura would be absolutely sweet and come to Hampstead and live with her, just to keep her company.
    Laura went, and stayed. Phyllis looked after everything: the funeral, the lawyers, the disposal of the practice, the selling of the furniture. One or two precious and personal things she kept for Laura, and these were installed in the bedroom that was to become Laura's own. A desk of her father's, her dollhouse, her books, and her mother's silver-backed dressing table set.
    'Who do you live with, then?' girls at her new London school would ask when their blunt questions evinced the sad truth that Laura was an orphan.
    'My aunt Phyllis.'
    'Gosh, I wouldn't like to live with an aunt. Has she got a husband?'
    'No, she's a widow.'
    'Sounds fairly dreary.'
    But Laura said nothing, because she knew that if she couldn't be living in Dorset with her own darling mother and father, she would want above everything else in the world to be with Phyllis.
    Theirs was, by any standards, an extraordinary relationship. The quiet and studious young girl and her extroverted, gregarious aunt became the closest of friends, never quarrelling or getting on the other's nerves. It was not until Laura was finished with college and qualified to go out and earn her own living that she and Phyllis had their very first difference of opinion. Phyllis wanted Laura to go into Hay Macdonalds; to her it seemed the obvious and natural thing to do.
    Laura jibbed at this scheme. She believed that if she did so, it would be a form of nepotism, as well as undermining her determination to be independent.
    Phyllis said that she would be independent. She'd be earning her living.
    Laura pointed out that she already owed Phyllis enough. She wanted to start her career – whatever it was going to be – under an obligation to nobody.
    But nobody was talking about obligations. Why turn down a wonderful opening, simply because she was Phyllis' niece?
    Laura said that she wanted to stand on her own feet.
    Phyllis sighed and explained patiently that she would be standing on her own feet. There was no question of nepotism. If she wasn't any good at her job and couldn't do the work, there would be no delicate compunctions about sacking her.
    This was scarcely comforting. Laura muttered something about needing a challenge.
    But Hay Macdonalds was a challenge. Laura might just as well take up this challenge as any other.
    The argument continued, spasmodically, for three days, and Laura finally gave in. But at the same time, she broke the news to Phyllis that she had found herself a small, two-room flat in Fulham and that she was leaving Hampstead and going there to live. This decision had been made long ago; it had nothing to do with the argument about the job. It did not mean that she no longer wanted to live with Phyllis. She could have stayed forever in that warm and luxurious little house high on the hill above London, but she knew that it could not work. Their circumstances, subtly, had altered. They were no longer aunt and niece, but two adult women, and the unique relationship that they had achieved was too delicate and precious to risk putting into jeopardy.
    Phyllis had a life of her own to lead – still full and exciting, despite the fact that she was now well into her fifties. And at nineteen, Laura had a life to make, and this could never be achieved unless she had the willpower to fly Phyllis' cosy nest.
    After her initial dismay, Phyllis understood this. But, 'It won't be for long,' she prophesied. 'You'll get married.'
    'Why should I get