Some Deaths Before Dying by Peter Dickinson Read Free Book Online

barracks right up until his eventual sailing for what had seemed the comparative safety of Singapore.
    In the years of his absence Rachel had woken night after night aching with longing for him. Occasionally she had felt physically
     attracted by other men but had not for an instant thought, or even fantasised, about carrying it any further. She was wholly
     Jocelyn’s. She felt that for her any other man would have been, literally, impossible.
    Then he had returned, and she had once again slept curled in his arms, though it had been months before he had been well enough
     for anything beyond caresses. At this point, slowly, she had started to realise that she had not got all of him back. He could,
     and did, satisfy her physical need. He would initiate the performance and carry it through. But it was a performance. Not
     that he actively disliked what he was doing. He made the sounds and motions of enjoyment. But after a while she had to accept
     that what they had had before the war, what they had been so completely and passionately to each other, was now gone.
    She had tried to tell herself that it was only natural, that they were older now, and such passion is the province of the
     young. Her own body gave her the lie. The loss was hers, but it was in him and it had nothing to do with age. It was the result
     of what had been done to him on the Cambi Road. For his sake, then, she learnt to suppress and control the need, telling herself
     that if this was the price she must pay for having him home she would pay it ungrudgingly, heavy though it was, because it
     was worth it, worth it a hundred times over.
    She succeeded too. The ache came less often and when it did she was able to order it back to its lair. Sometimes they still
     made love, gently, without any fuss, like going for a walk together on a fine autumn morning. Thus all was fundamentally well
     and she loved him as deeply and strongly as ever, and was confident he did her. She had never in these years wept for her
     loss.
    She did now, acid little droplets that were all the withered ducts could wring out beneath the wincing eyelids. They had not
     ceased when Dilys crept in to see if she’d woken.
    “Awake at last? My, we’ve slept, haven’t we? Why, what’s up dearie? We’ve been crying.”
    “Nothing. Stupid dream. Pad needs changing. Sorry.”
    “Bound to after this time. Never mind, I’ll have you comfortable in a couple of minutes. Let’s just dry our poor face off
     first. Tsk, tsk, naughty girl, getting herself into such a state. Nice happy patients, that’s what I like. There. That’s better.
     Now let’s see to you.”
    With her usual sturdy deftness she did what was necessary, chatting away as she worked, a kind of professional tact on her
     part, a way of making it seem that this was a pleasant social occasion, and the indignities to which she was subjecting her
     patient were subsidiary and irrelevant.
    “Did I say, I got a letter from my niece yesterday? She’s the one who married a Yank, took her out to live somewhere in the
     middle where there isn’t much of anything except more of the same, and after a bit she couldn’t stand it any longer so she
     walked out on him, which wasn’t very nice of her, I’m afraid, but she always was headstrong. And then she went to live up
     in the top left corner—you can see the Pacific Ocean from her bathroom, she says—that’s when you can see anything because
     mostly it rains and rains like Scotland, she says, but without the bagpipes, though there’s a lot of wet sheep. Well I sent
     her a snap I’d taken of this house in the snow—just after I came, it was, if you remember, we had that snow—so she could see
     where I was living. But she didn’t answer and she didn’t answer and then, like I say, yesterday, I got this letter, fourteen
     whole pages on a typewriter, which is why I’ve only just finished reading it. I’m going to have to read it again, mind you,
     because it’s