The Love She Left Behind Read Online Free

beds—I mean, we’d share. That way everything would be sorted for you—I can talk to Jenny, is it, make sure . . . I mean, if you want someone to come in and . . . maybe just once a week, sort things out. Maybe you’ve got someone . . . I’ll ask Jenny, shall I?’
    â€˜Nigel said he’d take care of the legal stuff.’
    â€˜I meant in the house.’
    Patrick didn’t move, except to take the glass a small distance from his lips.
    â€˜So we’ll stay then, just for tonight. I’ll bring something back for your lunch. You might fancy it later.’
    The look Patrick wheeled to give her as she closed the door was violent and unfathomable. But it was as Louise remembered, from his visits to see her with Mum: the turning away, back to the glass and the bottle, did most of the damage.
    She’d left her bag up in the bedroom. When Louise opened the door back into the unnatural heat, an impossible movement by the bed caught the edge of her eyeline, escaping with a weightless sigh. Even as she told herself not to be so stupid, her feet met an uncanny resistance. Starting back, she lost her balance.
    Righting herself heavily against the side of the bed frame, Louise saw what it was that had moved against her; the draught from the opening door had agitated a wisp of dry-cleaning plastic that had come untethered from the neck of its hanger when shehad heaped it with the others. It lay on the musty carpet, where it had drifted against her panicking feet. Stretching down, she squirmed to trap it, but it flounced limply away. She caught it on the second attempt. Her pulse returning to normal, Louise stood and hooked the plastic back over the hanger. Stupid.
    It was as she shimmied the sheath down over the unprotected dress that she saw what the clothes had been trying to tell her all morning. Briskly, excited, she walked next door into the spare bedroom and opened the wardrobe there. Sure enough. A row of clothes, feminine, everyday, more recently worn than the spangled outfits abandoned in the room where Patrick slept. All the mess had stopped her thinking clearly; it would do the same to anyone. But the message was obvious, if you had eyes to see. Mum was telling her, loud and clear. Patrick said that they only knew about the cancer a week before she passed. Not enough time to get her and Nigel down to say goodbye. But Mum had been sleeping in the other room for months.
    It was hard to be surprised he’d lie to them.
    Â 
    Cobham Gdns
    April. 9? 10? ‘78
    Sometime in the middle of the night
    My darling—
    I love you, I love you, I love you. You make me a better man than I ever thought possible, even the thought of you when I’m here in this desperate room marking desperate bloody essays about ‘English countryside’ for the Jap students. I can just about bear to work but it’s impossible to read the newspapers without wanting to step in front of traffic. You’re very sensible never to read them but then you seem wise about so many things. Beautiful and wise and irresistible. For all those reasons, your name can’t be Sally.
    Have your excuse ready for Wednesday. I’ve wangled the money for the ticket.
    P xx
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    T WO DAYS AFTER the funeral, Nigel was taken aback to ring Patrick and get Louise on the phone. At first he thought he’d dialled her number by mistake.
    â€˜We’re back home tonight,’ she told him. ‘There’s been that much to do.’
    This was annoying, after all he’d been doing himself.
    â€˜You should have told me,’ he said. ‘I could have arranged to get someone in.’
    â€˜It’s family,’ she maintained. ‘I’ve sorted a few things out you might like, or Sophie, you know, to have.’
    Nigel couldn’t imagine Sophie wanting anything from that grotto of a house. Unless—had there been jewellery? He remembered rings, catching light.
    â€˜How’s