Voices in Summer Read Free Page B

one feels after these operations. Absolutely drained. I think it's something to do with the anaesthetic. And the noise at Chagwell is never below about a million decibels. I suppose it's inevitable with five children around the place.'
    Phyllis saw her point, abandoned the idea of Chagwell, and sought for other solutions.
    ‘There's always Mrs Abney.'
    'Alec would never leave me with Mrs Abney. She's getting on now, and she can't cope with the stairs.'
    'Would Doctor Hickley consider postponing the operation?'
    'No. I asked her, and she said no.' Laura sighed. 'It's on these occasions, Phyllis, that I long to be part of some enormous family. To have brothers and sisters and cousins and grandparents and a mother and a father . . .'
    Phyllis said, 'Oh, darling,' and Laura was instantly repentant.
    ‘That was a silly thing to say. I'm sorry.'
    'Perhaps,' said Phyllis, 'if you got a nurse to look after you, then she and Mrs Abney could cope between them. . . .'
    'Or I could just stay in hospital?'
    'That's a ridiculous suggestion. In fact this whole conversation is ridiculous. I don't think Alec will want to go to Scotland and leave you behind. After all, you're practically still on your honeymoon!'
    'We've been married for nine months.'
    'Why doesn't he call the whole thing off and take you to Madeira when you're better?'
    'He can't. He can't just take holidays when he wants. He's too horribly important. And Glenshandra is ... a sort of tradition. He's been going there forever, every July, with the Ansteys and the Boulderstones. He looks forward to it for the whole year. Nothing ever changes. He's told me that, and that's what he loves about it. The same hotel, the river, the same ghillie, the same friends. It's Alec's safety valve, his breath of fresh air, the one thing that keeps him going, slaving away in the City for the rest of the year.'
    'You know he loves what you call slaving away. He loves being busy and successful, and chairman of this and that.'
    'And he can't let the others down at the last moment. If he doesn't go, they'll think it's all my fault, and my stock will go down to subzero, if I spoil it for them.'
    ‘I don't think,' said Phyllis, 'that your stock with the Ansteys and the Boulderstones matters all that much. You only have to think about Alec'
    ‘That's just it. I feel I'm letting him down.'
    'Oh, don't be ridiculous. You can't help it if your wretched insides suddenly go mad. And you were looking forward to going to Scotland just as much as he was. Or weren't you?'
    'Oh, Phyllis, I don't know. If it was just Alec I was going with, it would be so different. When we're together, just the two of us, I can cope. We can be happy. I can make him laugh. It's like being with the other half of myself. But when the others are there too, I feel as though I'd strayed by mistake into some club or other and I know that however hard I try, I can never be a member.'
    'Do you want to?'
    ‘I don't know. It's just that they all know one another so well . . . for years and years, and for most of the time Alec was married to Erica. Daphne was Erica's best friend, she's Gabriel's godmother. Erica and Alec had this house called Deepbrook down in the New Forest, and they all used to go their for weekends. Everything they've ever done, everything they remember together, goes back fifteen years or more.'
    Phyllis sighed. 'It is fairly daunting. Other people's memories are hard to take, I know. But you must have realized all this when you married Alec'
    ‘I didn't think about anything like that. I only knew that I wanted to marry him. I didn't want to think about Erica and I didn't want to think about Gabriel. I simply pretended that they didn't exist, which was quite easy, considering that they were both safely miles away, living in America.'
    'You wouldn't want Alec to drop all his old friends. Old friends are part of a man. Part of the person that he is. It can't always be easy for them either. You have to see it their