The Dividing Stream by Francis King Read Free Book Online

Max leant over the balustrade, his face in his hands. ‘‘That blouse looks charming,’’ Mrs. Bennett suddenly leant over to whisper. ‘‘But you know, dear, it’s beginning to need a wash.’’ Karen said nothing. ‘‘It’s funny—you’re fastidious about everything except your own appearance.’’
    ‘‘Oh, do stop nagging, Mother,’’ Karen burst out.
    ‘‘Well, what have I said now?’’
    ‘‘Oh, nothing, nothing.’’
    Mrs. Bennett turned away. ‘‘It’s getting chilly here. And I can hear a mosquito. I think I shall go into my room and play patience. Come and see me, Karen, before you go to bed, don’t forget. Good night, Max.’’
    She went through the french windows into her room, and Karen watched her as she cleared a space at the writing-table, took some cards from a drawer, and then, moving the lamp close to her right elbow, dealt out ‘‘ Miss Milligan’’. Caught in the long, horizontal shadows thrown by the lamp, her face looked older than her daughter had ever before seen it.
    ‘‘Forgive me, Karen,’’ Max said. He was going to kneel beside her on the terrace but she stopped him:
    ‘‘No, please—don’t come near.’’
    ‘‘I don’t understand.’’
    ‘‘It’s a thing I’ve got and it’s becoming worse and worse—I can’t explain. I had it when I was nursing father. He liked me to sit by him and let him hold my hand or stroke my hair.’’ She shuddered involuntarily: ‘‘ Such hot hands, and yet so weak that I felt I only had to squeeze them in order to break them. I used to think of any excuse in order to get away. I couldn’t bear it. Doing the most appalling things for him was far, far better. Once he caught hold of me and began to cry against me—like a baby, it was—and I remember that I pushed him away. That was wrong of me, I know, because he was in such pain.’’ She stopped and then said in a tranquil voice, ‘‘Yes, this blouse is dirty, Mother is right.’’ She added after a moment: ‘‘ I wonder if she’ll ever stop having a down on me, Max?’’
    ‘‘A down on you?’’
    ‘‘She doesn’t realize it, but she’s never been able to forgive me. I can see that it must have been hard for her.’’ Momentarily a smile passed across her face.
    ‘‘How—hard for her?’’
    ‘‘Father caring so much more for me at the end. It was funny, that—and also so unfair. She did everything for him, and I did nothing. She wanted him to live, and I had begun to wish him dead. Yet he loved me.’’ She gave a small, childish laugh. ‘‘Like the parable of the labourers in the vineyard, so terribly unjust.… Oh, Max, don’t look so gloomy.’’
    ‘‘You’re not exactly bright yourself.’’
    So they remained for several minutes, she crouched on the floor of the terrace and he standing a few feet away from her, his back against the sky; between them lay his shadow and, gleaming in the middle of it, her white bag stuffed with the jackdaw odds and ends which her untidy, hoarding nature accumulated from hour to hour. Suddenly a voice boomed out from the end of the terrace:
    ‘‘Ah, there you both are. We thought you might be here. May we butt in on a domestic scene? I want you to meet the wife, Mrs. Maskell.’’
    Mrs. Bennett heard the laughter, swinging out and in like a bell, and then, a second later, the telescoped vowels of Mrs. Maskell’s voice exclaiming her enthusiasms: the Uffizi was unbelievable, she raved about Donatello, the Signoria had just knocked her sideways.… The old woman got up, shut her french windows and went back to the table where her patience lay. But suddenly she felt dizzy, there seemed to be an oppressive weight at the back of her neck. She clutched the tablecloth and, swaying, pulled it towards her so that a few of the cards slipped to the floor. A high-pitched buzzing had started in her ears, and she looked vaguely round her for a mosquito, but found none. All at once she felt frightened, and her