Bodies and Sole Read Online Free Page A

original wide pine, sanded down and waxed up, showed the marks of its age and wore them well.
    She drew a hand across the tongue-and-groove wainscoting that lined the hallway. Original, too – except for the parts that had had to be fixed, a job done so expertly by carpenter Harold MacLean that you couldn’t tell what was old and what was new.
    Strange man, Vera thought, as she looked up to the ceiling to admire the tongue-and-groove there, now painted a brilliant white. He was a carpenter, yet each of his fingers was different, as if each belonged to someone else. You wouldn’t have imagined he’d have any dexterity. But he did. He did.
    It was a pity that the chair lift had to be installed up the beautiful, generous staircase with its milled banister, but that was the price she had to pay for having the family here. Once they were settled in, they’d be up and down. She was fooling herself, of course. Vera sighed. Once in their rooms, that’s where they seemed to want to stay. It was she who used the lift to bring their meals up and down.
    The family. She smiled as she hauled herself up the stairs, needing the banister to be able to ascend herself. It hadn’t been necessary a year ago.
    She was getting old. Who would take care of her when her time came? As she had taken care of them? They certainly wouldn’t do anything for her. The men.
    The family. Soon they would be here. And the house was prepared for them. Each one of them. She opened the first bedroom door.
    Blair would love the mahogany desk. She could see him now, sitting behind it, pen in hand. He wouldn’t use a computer. Blair was strictly a pen and ink man. Fountain pen. It was one of the things she admired about him.
    He hadn’t written anything in a long time. To inspire him, she had left some pages on the desk, a long love poem he had once written for her. Perhaps it might inspire, not only a desire to write but a renewed desire for her. He would become her husband again, not just in name.
    But that wasn’t what she really wanted. She wanted someone new. A fresh face – and funding. She got these feelings sometimes, because their divorce had been such a success. They all had been. She prided herself on that.
    Blair’s only interest now was in his books. He would love that big chintz armchair. The wall-to-ceiling glassed-in cases filled with his library. New books were arriving every day as she ordered them.
    She could see him already, sitting there, chewing on a pipe, his reading glasses perched on his nose, hardly noticing her come into the room.
    The door to the next room was already open. She’d been in there earlier in the morning, setting things up. The easel placed just so in front of the window, to catch the morning light, when Charlie liked to paint. Propped on it, the watercolour he’d been working on most recently, taken from a photograph of Sullivan house, with a man who appeared to be waving from an upstairs window.
    She made her way to the next room.
    There was the new wine silk bathrobe she’d bought for Hank. It was draped artistically over the end of the bed, a beautiful four-poster, made up with crisp white linen sheets, a fat white wool blanket, and paisley bedcover – in wine and cream.
    She walked over to the bed, smoothed the linens, plumped up a pillow, and stepped back.
    Not that Hank would ever get under the sheets. He’d spend his days on it. That was just as well. Saved the making of it. A considerate man.
    She left the door of the room slightly ajar. She expected Hank would be the first to arrive. He usually was, she wasn’t sure why.
    People seemed to find it odd that she housed her former husbands and her current one – and that they all seemed to get along.
    Satisfied that all was ready for the family, Vera retreated downstairs. The boys would be comfortable. It was surprising how much each depended on her, how they put up with each other and got along