The Water's Lovely by Ruth Rendell Read Free Book Online

Hanukkah with her son in Edgware and Mr Hussein was a Moslem. I wish I were, thought Edmund, not for the first time.
    Cooking started on the twenty-second. With the exception, that is, of the Christmas pudding and the mince pies. The former had to be made a year before – a January treat for him, that would be – and the latter three weeks before. So much brandy went into them that they would probably keep for a thousand years without benefit of cryogeny and be a future archaeologist’s dream find.
    It seemed to him that everyone was obliged to spend Christmas in the company of people they would rather not be with, not just Aunt Joyce, Uncle Duncan and Avice Conroy. Heather and Ismay would be with their mother and the sister she lived with, Andrew Campbell-Sedge with his parents in Shropshire and Edmund’sfriend Ian Dell with his aged mother and an even more aged uncle in Leeds. All these people, he supposed, would rather be with someone else, Heather with him as he would have liked to be with her, Ismay surely with Andrew. Even Avice would have been happier at home with her rabbits. He knew from experience that she would fret about them all the time she was in the house in Chudleigh Hill.
    Several years had passed since he stopped calling Joyce and Duncan ‘uncle’ and ‘auntie’ but his mother continued to tell him it wasn’t respectful to use unadorned Christian names to people so much older than himself. They must be offended even if they never said so. As for her, she winced each time she heard this solecism committed. He saw her recoil when they arrived on Christmas morning with Avice Conroy and he greeted them with a simulated heartiness.
    â€˜Hello, Joyce. Hello, Duncan. How are you?’
    They appeared unoffended and were still talking about the cost of the taxi they had been obliged to take in the absence of any public transport, all the way from Ealing, making a detour on the way to pick up Avice who lived in Pinner, when Marion arrived ten minutes later. Marion was oozing Christmas cheer, her arms full of Christmas presents, brilliantly wrapped and tied with silver and gold thread. One of them was a knuckle of bacon she had cooked herself to augment the dinner. Another, she announced, was not for giving away but a gift to herself from Mr Hussein, on whom she had just called.
    â€˜He lives in a tiny little house in Hampstead. In Perrin’s Grove, as I’m sure you know.’ Her listeners smiled uneasily. Living far away as they did, they had never heard of Mr Hussein and had no idea what kind of house he lived in. ‘He’s all alone, very isolated really.He needs someone to look after him. I sometimes wonder how he manages.’
    â€˜My next-door neighbours will make a terrific noise this afternoon,’ said Avice. ‘The crashing and banging and the music are actually quite frightening. Susanna and Figaro huddle together in fear.’
    â€˜Mr Hussein is always so well-dressed and smart but I wonder if he’s just putting a brave face on things.’
    â€˜I ask myself if I’m right to leave them. Going out hardly seems worthwhile when I worry about them so much.’
    â€˜Your pets are your jailers, Avice,’ said Joyce. ‘That’s what I’d call not worthwhile, keeping those animals. Anyway, rabbits should be outdoors, in a hutch. Think of the droppings!’
    â€˜My rabbits are thoroughly house-trained, I’d have you know.’
    â€˜My friend Mrs Reinhardt has a cat,’ said Marion. ‘She puts it in a cattery at holiday time. That way she’s free as a bird with nothing to worry about. You won’t mind if I open Mr Hussein’s present, will you?’
    Edmund poured drinks and handed round plates of sausages on sticks, mini-pizzas, mini-quiches, smoked salmon on bread squares and salmon roe on biscuits. Marion talked, mostly about Mr Hussein, but also about Mrs Reinhardt and that elderly