Drowning Rose by Marika Cobbold Read Free Book Online Page A

and see how you are at lunchtime. Do you want the blinds drawn?’
    I shook my head. ‘I like looking out at the snow.’
    I finished the tea and as I looked around the little room with its yellow rosebud wallpaper and white lace curtains, as I saw a tiny distorted reflection of my face in the polished brass bed knob at the foot of the bed, I wondered how it was possible to feel so wretched and so comfortable both at once.
     
    Over lunch we spoke politely of not very much until Katarina went through into the kitchen with the dishes, having refused my offer of help. ‘You stay and talk to your godfather.’
    ‘No, I insist.’ I was halfway to my feet.
    ‘Really, you have so much to talk about and you’re not over for very long.’ Katarina reminded me of our old housemistress, Miss Philips. At school we had been constantly amazed at the way she managed to get us to do what she wanted without resorting to shouting, threats, bribes or chasing people down corridors, all those methods favoured by other, lesser members of staff. Even Miss Philips’s hair, golden blonde and back-combed, appeared to know better than ever to stray. It was certainty that did it, I thought now, a quiet unshowy conviction that you knew best. There was nothing that gave you as much easy authority. With an inaudible sigh, I sat back in my chair.
    ‘You never wanted a family?’ Uncle Ian asked.
    I was used to people walking around the subject of children with me, especially once I had turned forty and there was an assumption that I was running out of choices. This straight question took me by surprise. Buying time, I shrugged. When he kept his gaze on me I shrugged again. Finally I said, ‘We thought about it but . . . well, we weren’t married very long.’ I took a bigger mouthful of the excellent white wine than I had intended. ‘So it’s all for the best.’
    ‘You really think that?’
    I looked at him over the empty wine glass. ‘Yes, I do. I think.’
    ‘Can you never be sure of something?’ He was frowning at me.
    I wasn’t going to tell him about the way I had looked wistfully at toddlers on reins and babies in Bugaboos, or of the times I’d been loitering outside Baby Gap and Petit Bâteau. Nor was I going to explain that seeing as every time something went wrong in my life it felt like a victory for justice, it followed that it was best I never had what I could not bear to lose.
    ‘I do find it quite hard,’ I said. ‘To be sure.’
    ‘So what about your work? You enjoy it?’
    ‘Oh yes. In fact I am sure about that.’
    ‘You were very good at drawing and painting when you were at school. I asked your mother if you had done anything with it when we spoke the other day and she told me you turned down a place at art school.’
    ‘I did History of Art instead. I went on to West Dean for my practical training.’
    ‘You don’t miss being the creator of works?’
    I shook my head. ‘As I see it there’s enough mediocre art out there in the world to last for all eternity. Why add to it? I’d rather spend my time saving what’s truly exceptional.’
    ‘And who decided that what you would have produced would have been mediocre?’
    ‘I did.’
    ‘I see. And your mother tells me you’re about to be thrown out of your flat.’
    I frowned. ‘For a woman at the other end of the world my mother says an awful lot. And I’m not being thrown out. It was always going to be a reasonably short-term rental. I’ll find somewhere else nice.’
    Uncle Ian sat back in his chair, a look on his face as if he were about to solve all my problems. ‘Well, we’ll see.’
     
    It was still only half past one; meals in Sweden were early, so I went for a walk. I had wondered a little at Uncle Ian deciding to live by a lake. Myself, I avoided them whenever I could, lakes, ponds, even reservoirs; all those places more usually connected to sunshine and picnics and family fun. But as I gazed out over the tranquil water just the right blue