The Carousel by Rosamunde Pilcher Read Free Book Online

into view. "It's me, Lily, Daniel Cassens."
    Lily's mouth fell open. "Aw, my dear life.' v She laid down the chopping knife and put a hand to her meager chest, conveying heart-stopping shock. "The sight of you! Like a body out of the past. Daniel Cassens. It must be nearly twelve years. What are you doing here?"
    "Come to see you," he told her. He walked around the table and stooped to kiss her cheek. Lily gave a crow of laughter and went pink. "You villain. Turning up like a bad penny. Just you wait till Miss Shackleton sets eyes on you. Us thought you'd forgotten all about we."
    The Cornish frequently mix their pronouns, but Lily did this only under great stress, her voice shrill with excitement. "Did you know she'd broken her arm, poor soul? Been at the hospital all morning she has, but the doctor says she's doing nicely. Wait now, till I give her a shout." And she disappeared into the hall, and we heard her calling upstairs to Miss Shackleton to come down immediate, because there was some lovely surprise waiting for her.
    Daniel followed her, but I stayed in the kitchen because for some reason I felt that if I witnessed their reunion I should probably burst into tears. As it was, it was Phoebe who cried. I'd never seen her cry before, but they were tears of joy and over in a moment. But still, she cried. And then we all found ourselves back in the kitchen, and I took the wine out of the refrigerator and Lily forgot about chopping mint and went to find some glasses, and the occasion then and there suddenly turned into a tremendous celebration.
     
    He stayed for the rest of the afternoon. The day, which had started so brightly, became overcast, with low clouds blowing in from the sea on a rising wind. There were showers, and it became chilly, but none of this mattered, for we were indoors by the fire, and the hours flew by in talk and reminiscence and a general catching up on everything that had been happening to both of them.
    I had little to add to the conversation, but that did not matter. Listening was a joy, because not only did I feel that I was involved with both of them as people but because my interests and my work were relevant to everything that they discussed. I knew about this painter; I had heard of that exhibition; I had actually seen that particular portrait. Phoebe spoke of one Lewis Falcon, who was now living in a house out at Lanyon, and I remembered him because we had held an exhibition of his work at Marcus Bernstein's not two years before.
    And we talked about Chips, and it was not like talking about a person who had died six years ago but as though at any moment he would walk into the firelit room to join us, sink into his own sagging armchair, join in the discussion.
    Finally, they got onto the subject of Phoebe's own work. What was she doing now? Daniel wanted to know, and Phoebe laughed in her usual self-deprecating way and said that she had nothing to show him, but under pressure she admitted that there were a few canvases that she had completed last year, whilst on holiday in the Dordogne, but she had never got around to sorting them out and they were down in Chips's studio, still stacked haphazardly beneath dust sheets. Daniel at once sprang to his feet and insisted on seeing them, so Phoebe found the studio key and pulled on a raincoat and they set off together, down the brick path, to go and search them out.
    I did not accompany them on this expedition. It was half past four and Lily Tonkins had gone home, so when I had collected our coffee mugs and washed them up, I laid a tea tray, found a fruitcake in a tin, and took the empty kettle off the Aga to fill it at the sink.
    The sink in Phoebe's kitchen was beneath the window, which was pleasant, because it meant that while you were washing up, you could enjoy the view. But the view now was lost, drowned in a mistlike rain. The clouds were low, the wet, emptying sands of the estuary reflecting their leaden darkness. Flood tide, ebb tide. They