Windfallen Read Online Free Page A

something.”
    “Yes, but it will still need replacing.”
    Behind him, sometimes swamped by the sound of scraping chairs and cheap crockery, Alma Cogan sang of her “Dreamboat.” Lottie glared at the undreamy features of her companion, wishing she had never mentioned their visit to Adeline Armand’s house. Joe always asked the wrong questions. And usually managed to bring the conversation around to his father’s garage. Joe, as the only son, would inherit the ramshackle business one day, and already this weighty inheritance hung as heavy on him as succession on a prince regent. She had hoped that by bringing him into her confidence about their extraordinary visit, he, too, might have been transported by the strange, exotic characters and the huge ocean liner of a house. That he, too, might have found himself far away from the tight little world of Merham’s social confines. But Joe just focused on the mundane, his imagination constrained by the domestic (how had their maid prepared tea if they’d only just delivered the trunks? exactly which light was it that the woman broke? wouldn’t that fresh-paint smell have given them all a headache?), and Lottie found herself becoming both irritated that she had ever told him and sorely tempted to tell him about the painting of the naked woman, just to make him blush. It was so easy to make Joe blush.
    She would have discussed it all with Celia. But Celia was not talking to Lottie. She had not spoken to her since their walk home, during which Celia had spoken rather too much. “Were you deliberately showing me up in front of those people? Lottie! I can’t believe you started spouting all that stuff about the sea. As if you care about fish swimming about underneath it—you can’t even swim!”
    Lottie had wanted to talk to her about the provenance of Hungarian princesses and Adeline’s kissing Frances’s hand like a suitor, and about what relation George was to either of them (he didn’t behave like anyone’s husband. He had paid both women far too much attention). She wanted to talk about how, with all that work to do and her own house in absolute chaos, Adeline had just sat there in the middle of the sofa like she had nothing to do other than let the day go by.
    But Celia was now deep in conversation with Betty Croft, discussing the possibilities for a trip to London before the end of summer. So Lottie just sat and waited for this particular summer storm to blow itself out.
    Except Celia had evidently been more put out by Lottie’s interruption than even she had said. As the afternoon drew on, and the blustery clouds outside grew darker and loaded with rain, and the café filled with recalcitrant children and their exasperated parents, still clutching their damp and gritty beach towels, she ignored Lottie’s attempts to join in the conversation and her offer of a slice of bread-and-butter pudding, so that even Betty, who normally loved a good row between friends, started to look a bit uncomfortable. Oh, Lord, thought Lottie resignedly. I’m going to pay for this one.
    “I think I’ll head back,” she said aloud, staring at the murky dregs of instant coffee in the bottom of her cup. “Weather’s closing in.”
    Joe stood up. “Shall I walk you? I’ve got an umbrella.”
    “If you like.”
    Adeline Armand had had a portrait of herself propped up in what must have been the study. It hadn’t been a proper painting—it was loose and choppy, as if the artist hadn’t been able to see properly and had had to guess where the marks were meant to go. But somehow you could see it was her. It was that jet-black hair. And that half smile.
    “They had a storm over at Clacton on Saturday. Snow in April, can you believe it?”
    She hadn’t even minded about the car. Hadn’t even wanted to look at it to check on the damage. And that man—George—had just peeled off a roll of notes as if he were flicking through old bus tickets.
    “Went from mild and sunny to hail and