Still Waters by Katie Flynn Read Free Book Online Page A

beach and from the dream-beach.
    But what did it matter, after all? Tess returned all her concentration to castle manufacture and to the creation of a really deep moat and a drawbridge made out of driftwood, to a shell decoration, to battlements . . .
    That night, Tess could not sleep. She was too excited. Her first swimming lesson had been a wonderful experience – Mrs Thrower, vast in a garment which she swore was a swimsuit, though it seemed every bit as voluminous as her day-dresses to Tess, had held her chin whilst Ned had told her to pretend to be a frog and Janet had sculled up and down beside her doing first one stroke and then another and begging her to ‘Look at me, look at me, gal Tess!’ until even her placid mother told her to ‘goo tek a runnin’ jump, you irritatin’ little mawther!’
    The lesson had ended with Mrs Thrower releasing her chin and Ned holding on to the straps of her swimsuit and saying that though she wasn’t breathing right they’d soon have her frogging it up and down, every bit as good as young Jan, there.
    Tess still didn’t quite understand why breathing was important, and Janet said impatiently that ‘the breathin’ kinda came, when you stopped thinkin’ about it’, but she felt in her bones that swimming was something she could master – and would.
    Sleep, however, was another matter. This was her first night away from home, and she couldn’t help worrying about her father, and missing him, too. Of course they’d been parted for a night before – often. Peter was a partner with a firm of accountants in Norwich and as such, frequently got invited to functions which, he explained, he could not refuse. Then, nice widowed Mrs Rawlings from Catfield would be fetched home with Peter in his car, and would stay with Tess until Peter returned. Once, her father had gone skiing in Scotland for a whole ten days; another time he went to Oulton Broad for their Regatta week and crewed for Uncle Phil. Tess would have liked to go along, but Peter said not yet; another year perhaps, when she was older.
    ‘When I’m older you said I could have Janet to stay, instead of dear Rawlplug,’ Tess reminded him. ‘Am I older this year?’ But Peter only laughed and said there was plenty of time for that.
    Peter would be all right really, she knew that. He would probably enjoy a week at home without her – though he would miss her, that went without saying. Tess tried to turn over and bumped into Janet, which was something else she wasn’t used to – sharing a bed. And it was only a single bed, and Janet kicked in her sleep. But I’ll drop off presently, Tess assured herself. I always do at home.
    But she had not realised what a noisy family the Throwers were, come bedtime. Podge and Henry, sharing the second bed in the girls’ room, weren’t too bad, but when the older boys came to bed they made a terrible din, and Tess lay there listening to their top-volume conversations and chuckling to herself. Boys boast and shout, but they’re no better than us, really, she told herself.
    And scarcely had the boys stopped thumping and calling than Mr and Mrs Thrower came along the corridor. They were noisy too, in their way. They washed in the bathroom, loudly admiring various gadgets – the real toilet-roll holder on the wall, the wrinkled glass in the window so no one could see you in your bare skin, the bright taps which gushed water when you turned them on. And they were loud in their praise for the flush lavatory. Tess agreed with them that it was a great improvement on the earth closet at home. Peter kept saying he was going to have one installed at the Old House when he had a bath put in, but he had not got round to it yet. Tess knew that Uncle Phil had two – one upstairs and one down – but she only visited the big, ugly house in Unthank Road a couple of times a year, so flushing the lavatory was still very much a novelty.
    When the Throwers vacated the bathroom at last Mrs Thrower said: