Death Of A Hollow Man by Caroline Graham Read Free Book Online

of dissatisfaction. He had long been aware that if it had not been for his careless early marriage and the birth of three numbingly dull children now, thankfully, boring themselves and their consorts to death miles away, he would currently be one of the top directors in the country. If not (Harold had never been one to shirk hard truths) in the world.
    All you needed was luck, talent, and the right wife. Harold believed you made your own luck, talent was no problem. He had that, God knew, burgeoning from every pore. But the right wife … ah, there was the rub. Doris was a simple bourgeoise. A philistine. When they were first married (she had been a slim, shy, pretty girl), the children had kept her occupied, and she had had no spare time to take an interest in the Latimer. Later, when the young Winstanleys were growing up and following their own pursuits, her attempts to comment on the productions had been so inept that Harold had forbidden her to come to the theater except on first nights.
    He had briefly considered trading her in when Rosa had come on the market, seeing the latter as a far more suitable mate for a producer. (Sometimes he wondered if Doris was really grateful for, or even aware of, the status that his position as the town’s only theatrical impresario conferred.) However, after exposing this fleeting fancy to the cold light of reason, Harold had to admit that it was gravely flawed. Rosa was used to, nay, reveled in, her role as leading lady, and he could not see her deliberately lowering her wattage to show him to best advantage. Whereas Doris, in spite of her peculiar absorptions—pickling eggs, drying flowers, and stuffing innocent knitted creatures with chunks of variegated foam—did have the supreme virtue of dimness. Indeed, Harold was pleasureably aware that when he entered a room, she practically vanished into the woodwork like the moth Melanchra persicariae. And perhaps most important of all, she was not grasping. He had provided modestly for his wife and children, far more modestly, in fact, than he might have done. Over half the profits he made from his business went into his productions, so that whatever snipers might find to criticize in any other direction, they could never say the play was not well dressed.
    An amber rectangle of light fell across the windshield. “Harold?”
    Harold sighed, gave the mileage dial a final quick polish with his hankie, and called, “Give me a chance.”
    He struggled out of the cockpit. This was the cutoff point for him. The moment when he turned away from the full-blooded rumbustious razzle-dazzle rainbow ring of circus and stepped into the shady gray half-formed and quite unreal world of bread.
    “Your supper’s getting cold.”
    “Dinner, Doris.” Already consumed with irritation, he pushed past her into the kitchen. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
    “How has he been, Mrs. Higgins?” Deidre entered the kitchen quietly through the back door, and the elderly woman dozing by the fire jumped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
    “He’s been ever so good,” replied Mrs. Higgins. “Considering.”
    Deidre thought the “considering” uncalled for. They both knew that Mr. Tibbs wasn’t always ever so good and why. Deidre glanced at the mantelpiece. Mrs. Higgins’s envelope had gone, and Deidre spied it sticking out of the woman’s grubby apron pocket as she heaved herself to her feet. “Upsadaisy.”
    “Is he still asleep?”
    “No. Just chatting away to hisself. I made him a lovely plate of soup.”
    Deidre spotted the tin in the sink, said, “You’re so kind,” and helped Mrs. Higgins on with her coat. The thankfulness and gratitude in her voice were not feigned. If it were not for Mrs. Higgins, Deidre would have no life at all. No life, that is, apart from home and the Gas Board.
    Because where else would she find someone to sit with a befuddled old man for a couple of pounds? Not that the money was ever