The Sting of Death Read Online Free

other, time after time. She was a truly awfuladolescent, confronting me on every tiny thing. I couldn’t understand it, except to put it down to a genetic inheritance. Her father’s always been very unstable. I think that’s why the doctors agreed so readily to section her when she was really bad.’
    Laurie had heard some of this story before, but it was no easier to listen to this time. ‘Don’t go over that again now,’ he pleaded. ‘It doesn’t do any good.’
    Roma didn’t seem to hear him. ‘I actually do wish I could forget all about her,’ she went on. ‘Animals let their offspring wander off across the savannah and everyone’s happy. It’s the natural order of things. What’s the matter with us that we feel we have to hang on to responsibility and concern throughout our entire lives? It doesn’t make sense.’
    ‘I know what brought this on.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Penn. You often start thinking about Justine when you’ve seen Penn. I’ve noticed it before.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Definitely.’ He reached over and touched her arm. ‘It makes sense, after all. There’s bound to be an association, even though Penn’s always so careful not to mention her cousin.’
    ‘She is, isn’t she. I don’t think she’s lapsed once, in five years. It’s always been me who’s raisedthe subject, and that hardly ever. It’s remarkable, when you think about it. Such control!’
    ‘You think they see each other?’
    ‘They were always good chums. I shouldn’t think that’s changed. But who can say?’
    ‘Helen would know,’ he ventured. ‘She’d probably love to fill you in on the whole thing.’
    ‘My dear sister’s dying to have another go at me, and tell me how it’s all completely my own fault, and I’m the worst mother in the history of the world.’ She sighed. ‘It’s only because you’ve always been here that she’s restrained herself. She’s scared you’ll rush to my defence and tell her off. She’d hate that to happen.’
    ‘We never really know who the strong one is, do we?’ he said obscurely. ‘I can’t believe your sister would care a damn about anything I might do.’
    A flight of swallows swept joyously across the field behind the house, dancing in the air in a show of such soaring exuberance that the human beings were silenced in awe. Roma spoke slowly, after a few minutes. ‘You notice that sort of thing so much more as you get older, don’t you?’
    ‘One of the many compensations,’ he agreed peaceably. His wife’s response startled him.
    ‘No!’ she said in a choked voice. ‘There are no compensations for old age. That isn’t what I meant. The young might be too busy to see whatthe birds are doing … but they’ve got time to make up for it.’
    ‘But—’
    ‘I know. It sounds like a contradiction. It’s idiotic of me to kick against something that happens to everybody, that’s practically the definition of being alive at all. But I can’t help it. It’s completely beyond my control.’
    ‘Well, never mind,’ he soothed. ‘You’re not even sixty yet, for heaven’s sake. You’ve got another thirty-five years at least.’ He turned his face away from her as he spoke, looking out across the garden and the fields beyond. The expression he hid from her was very different from that suggested by his words.
     
    Penn had done her best to give the full background to Drew and Karen, and they’d done their best to accord her their undivided attention. It wasn’t easy. Time went by, the children grew fractious, and Drew remembered some paperwork he’d left undone from the previous week.
    Penn described how she and Justine had always been close. They were only six months apart in age, and their mothers were sisters. ‘But we look completely different,’ she said emphatically. ‘We both take after our fathers, you see. Hers Spanish, mine Polish. We used to joke about that; how our mothers couldn’t have settled for plain ordinaryEnglishmen. And we had