Let's Dance by Frances Fyfield Read Free Book Online

tack, looked at his son sorrowfully.
    â€˜I know, son, I know. Don’t ever think you’re first with the news. And her brother’s asked us to do a valuation. When you’ve time, that is.’
    â€˜He what?’
    â€˜You heard. It’s only me with licence to go deaf, you know. Not you, at your age.’
    He went, the door left open behind him, the suggestion of scorn and restrained laughter heavy in the air. Inside this church there was no odour of sanctity, and much of desecration. Andrew Cornell sat at the rostrum, once a pulpit, staring at a room full of old furniture. He did not bother his head with thoughts of where his life had gone wrong, how on earth it had diverted itself up this avenue of exploitation and discontent. He thought about Isabel Burley, imagined her beauty against his plainness, then thought with less intensity about her mother, and what an inestimable pleasure it must be to lose one’s memory, provided it included the forgetting of all those times one had been either coward or fool.
    D o you love me, dear parent?
    Home is where the heart is. The homes of Isabel’schildhood had been in other houses, before Father’s affluence and Mother’s wish had landed them in this place. Father had lived for present splendour and ignored his pension plan. He had died on his one last trip abroad after Isabel had left this house. Her memory of him was blurred.
    Do you like me?
    It seemed an urgent question to ask as they sat by the fire, but she could not bring herself to put it into words. ‘Do you love me, Mother? Do you? Did you ever?’ She did not ask it: it was impertinent, she knew, but in the face of Serena’s studied indifference it seemed a worthwhile query. Isabel wanted a reward for what she was doing; wanted her mother, forgetful as she was, to remember that her daughter’s presence in this remote house might have involved some kind of sacrifice, might even have been seen as noble enough to be worth someone saying, Thank you, well done, that child. But no one had, Mother least of all.
    Over the first week Isabel had met the butcher, baker, vicar, George and Janice. The latter two seemed to resent her presence, Janice to the tune of downing tools altogether, while others took it for granted with amazing speed, as if they were suddenly relieved of a burden themselves. Isabel had come to realize that there had been an informal but efficient network that looked after her mother’s interests and that, frankly, the whole gang was sick and tired of the task, except daft George. Serena’s wider circle of party-going friends seemed to have disappeared. Perhaps it was the fearinspired by people who were ill to the point of madness, as if they were contagious, and this made Isabel indignant, deflected her thoughts. She could not yet begin to understand that aversion. Her mother was simply a case of warped magnificence, not in the same category as anyone else.
    â€˜Who are you writing to, Mum?’ Isabel was careful; tried to be sensitive. Mother’s desk was private and she was never going to try to look inside it. Privacy was sacred: she must not invade it. A pause, a guttural reply. ‘People. Lots of people.’
    â€˜Do you remember writing to me?’
    â€˜Oh no, darling, I never wrote to you. Did I?’
    The image slipped out of focus.
    Isabel felt an overwhelming sadness. Where was the creature of power and beauty, bending to kiss her in a waft of perfume before leaving to go somewhere else? The writer of the great wad of exciting letters, sent from all over the world, displayed with pride to friends as the product of the fairest hand on earth?
    â€˜Mum, I think we should have a party. What do you think?’
    There was no reply. The darkness outside was complete. Serena sat in her armchair by the fire, a writing pad on the table in front of her, one hand shielding what she wrote, her eyes squinting through her glasses at the