Touched by Joanna Briscoe Read Free Book Online Page B

damp was quite at bay; the floorboards on the landing were about to be replaced. It was a new start. That unnerving smell of perfume seemed to have gone with the wall. She drank some of the Chianti that the neighbours Gregory and Lana Dangerfield had brought over as a friendly gesture, and she pictured Greg standing near her to pour her more, and a tiny shiver went up her. They were merry, half-camping, a candle pushed into a Mateus Rosé bottle and the children in bed, even the exacting Douglas relaxed, his tie looped over a door handle.
    Greg yawned. He rested his head on the back of the chair. ‘I still don’t understand the source of that damp,’ he said. ‘In fact, there’s something I can’t quite work out altogether if you ask me, Douglas. Your fourth skylight.’
    â€˜Eh?’
    â€˜Step outside, old chap,’ said Greg, and they both stumbled as they rose and laughed.
    They stood across the lane on the edge of the green, illuminated by the old-fashioned street lamps and the enchanting blue-green-red lights from the pub, and Greg pointed at the roof.
    â€˜That’s the one at the top of the front staircase,’ said Douglas.
    â€˜No, it is not, my good man. That one faces the back. Think about it. The window below is in one of the bedrooms, and the other visible skylight is I believe a bathroom?’
    â€˜Yes, bedrooms in the eaves,’ said Douglas. ‘They’ve eked out rooms over time in these cottages. There’s only a very shallow loft.’
    â€˜Yes, yes,’ said Greg impatiently. ‘But I looked around when you had your wall problem. That tiny window high up in the roof is not accounted for.’
    â€˜Must be in the loft,’ said Douglas. ‘For God’s sake, let’s get another drink.’
    â€˜I think not, if I may be so bold,’ said Gregory, hiccupping, and he went back in.
    Rowena sat very still as Greg climbed the stairs, silhouetted as he disappeared from sight.
    He re-emerged, setting up a creaking on the small staircase.
    â€˜I may be three sheets to the wind, and the corner throws the floor plan, but I surmise there’s a space not accounted for – some of the layout is puzzling. Quite illogical. You could be using it, even if for storage.’
    â€˜Oh, who knows in these higgledy-piggledy little places,’ said Rowena. ‘This is the most quaint, queer sprawl, all steps and, and – corners, ang-angles.’
    Douglas glanced at her and took her glass away. She walked carefully to the kitchen and drank some water, pressing her face to the window and gazing at the black laurel.
    After a while, Greg came in as she had hoped he might; as she had dreaded he might.
    â€˜I’m terribly squiffy,’ he said in a quick murmur, picking up a glass and putting it down. ‘There are so many words I could say to you—’
    â€˜You must not,’ said Rowena, colouring, and that night she kissed Douglas for the first time since the baby was born. She felt as though she would be eaten alive, and she pulled away quickly and pretended she could hear Caroline cry.
    In the morning, Rowena woke to the baby’s cries with an ache clinging to her forehead, but the light sprang on to the walls and she remembered her new large room downstairs and Gregory Dangerfield’s words in her ear, and the hangover rocked inside her head as she rose, but still she sang a few notes as she went to lift baby Caroline to smell her nappy. Eva was, as so often, out of the house, and Douglas had already left for work.
    â€˜Cat, friends,’ said Bob. He made bubbles with his spit as Rowena fetched his clothes.
    Rowena heard a mewing as she descended the stairs, and she jumped and looked behind her, where the sound seemed to be coming from, but when she glanced out of the thick-set little window that faced the green there was a black-and-white cat among the geraniums on the window box. The smart new