Framed in Cornwall Read Online Free

left it at that. He had tried hard to make the marriage work. Divorce was against his religious principles but Rita had gone away, waited the stipulated period and filed the papers without any resort to him.
    He thought about what Dorothy had said a few years afterwards, when Marigold had moved in. ‘Time you took over your own destiny, Fred. It’s all very well your sister running your home and helping out in the shop but a man like you needs a wife.’
    He had nodded and smiled and gone on to talk about the chrysanthemums he grew in the small garden behind the shop. Dorothy had made a joke about them being the wrong sort of flower, they ought to have been Marigolds.
    She had been deeply sad when he came to say that Marigold had been diagnosed as having cancer. ‘It’s so unfair, she’s so young.’
    ‘I’d spend every penny I’ve got to find a cure,’ Fred had continued. ‘Every bloody penny. I want the best treatment money can buy.’
    Dorothy had reassured him that she was probably getting it anyway and that he would be wasting his time by paying for private care.
    But Fred had not been able to let the matter go. ‘I could send her to America. You read about people who get sent to specialists over there and get cured.’
    How hopeful he had been in the early days of the disease. He had had an estate agent look over the shop and give him a valuation but even with his savings and any other money he could scrape together he knew he would never get Marigold to the States.
    Was it too late? Wasn’t there something he could do? Of coursethere was. He should not have allowed the pessimistic thoughts to arise.
    Most days his staff would mind the shop whilst he paid a mid-day visit to Marigold in the hospital but he always spent a couple of hours with her again in the evenings. He pulled on his jacket. Tonight, once she became too tired to bear his company any longer, he would make his final attempt.
    Fred Meecham locked the shop door knowing that things would turn out all right.

2
    It had taken Martin most of Thursday to recover from his hangover. He spent the morning cleaning the caravan and washing out his socks and underpants. It was therapeutic, a way of cleansing himself, ridding his mind of the shame he felt at disgracing himself. They were chores which would have taken most people far less time but he always worked slowly and methodically, never undertaking more than one simple task at a time. He polished the windows inside and out, using newspaper soaked in vinegar as he had seen his mother do. As the morning wore on the chill of the past few days evaporated under a hot autumn sun. Martin removed the long seat cushions which doubled as mattresses at night and lugged them out to air, propping them against rocks.
    In the afternoon he walked down to Hayle and cashed his unemployment cheque then bought a bagful of groceries, enough to last him the weekend. He got a cheap cut of meat, a loaf of bread and some fresh vegetables. It was after three when he had finished and he realised that he had enough money left over to repay his mother and just still be able to have a drink. Just one, he told himself. Hesitating only briefly he crossed the road, walked past the lane he should have taken to go home and went into the pub.
    Glancing around he was relieved to see that there were onlythree other people present, none of whom he recognised. The two men he had spoken to on his previous visit must have gone back to wherever it was they came from. They had not been local but he could not place their accent. Martin had not set foot outside Cornwall and things which occurred on the other side of the Tamar Bridge were of no interest to him. He decided they had been holiday-makers and left it at that.
    He jangled the coins in the pocket of his jeans and resisted the temptation to buy a second pint of cider. He felt worse rather than better for the one he had drunk.
    The walk home helped to clear his head. Instinctively his feet