Cold in the Earth Read Online Free Page A

fits of grown-up rage and anxiety and which, as recounted by her idol in whispers later, made Laura laugh so much that she cried.
    Dizzy had done all the exotic things Laura longed to do – and still hadn’t, somehow. Equipped with a secretarial diploma and the ability to fry an egg, she’d gone off to backpack her way round the world, picking up casual work on Australian cattle farms and South American ranches. She’d swum with dolphins and run with the bulls in Pamplona. She’d even joined a circus for a bit, until she got alarmed about the ringmaster’s intentions – men always fancied her – and came home only when the money finally ran out.
    It hadn’t been easy for anyone, having an adult, fiercely independent Dizzy living at home. Then one day there had been the row to end all rows, with shouting and slammed doors and tears of rage. Laura had kept well clear, waiting for the storm to blow over; she never remembered one quite as bad as this, but sooner or later everyone would presumably calm down. Even when they discovered she’d gone, leaving a note saying she was going to live her own life, thank you, Laura hadn’t worried – and nor, she thought, had her parents, really. There had been a phone call three weeks later, a brief phone call saying that she was fine and she had a job, then ringing off without giving her mother time to say more than ‘Darling—’
    It was the last word she spoke to her. Jane Harvey had died after fifteen years of living with the dreadful alternatives that her daughter was dead or that she cared so little for her mother as to let her spend the rest of her life in that anguish of uncertainty.
    And there was worse. As she sat on the stairs, six months after Dizzy had gone, Laura had heard them talking about her to the strange man. She was old enough to guess he was a private detective; the police had taken no interest in a twenty-year-old who had quarrelled with her parents and left home. She heard him ask if he could have a photograph and her mother saying she would fetch one; guiltily, Laura fled to the upper landing as the door opened and her mother went to the study where the photo albums were kept.
    Then Laura heard the man say, ‘While her mum’s out, just between ourselves – try something on with her, did you?’
    Laura couldn’t see her father, of course, yet when she thought of it now she could picture Geoffrey Harvey’s face as clearly as if she had – his austere, scholarly face set in lines of shock, eyes wide behind his horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘ I , Mr Wilkinson?’
    Wilkinson jerked his head to a framed photo on the piano. ‘A looker, isn’t she? Can’t say I’d blame you—’ She could remember the man’s hateful, suggestive titter, a fraction of a second before her father’s uncharacteristic roar of rage.
    ‘Get out of my house, now, this minute! I won’t sit here to be insulted by your vile insinuations—’
    ‘Have it your own way,’ Laura heard the man saying, and leaning over the banister railing saw him come out of the sitting-room, smirking, unhurried. Then she saw her mother in the doorway of the study, standing transfixed, and knew that she too had heard it all.
    Her father slammed the front door behind his visitor, then turned and saw his wife. The angry colour was still in his cheeks. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. I found him very unpleasant. I’m afraid you’ll have to find someone else if you think it’s worth pursuing.’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ her mother said, her voice a little unsteady. ‘He – he didn’t give me much confidence either.’ They went back into the sitting-room and shut the door; Laura suspected it was never mentioned between them again.
    Yet, looking back, it was after this that their marriage – happy enough, in Laura’s childish estimation – began to drift slowly, almost imperceptibly, as her mother seemed no longer able to bring herself to make the gestures of intimacy which hold any marriage together.