After the Funeral by Gillian Poucher

Author:Gillian Poucher [Poucher, Gillian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781910453766
Publisher: RedDoor Publishing
Published: 2019-04-10T16:00:00+00:00

–  CHAPTER 14  –

‘Clare and I will follow Aunt Ada to the hospital,’ said James, as the paramedics carried the old lady through the hotel door on a stretcher. Ada hadn’t regained consciousness in the fifteen minutes it had taken for the ambulance to arrive. ‘You look like you’re over the limit, Julia. I assume your… friend is driving you?’

‘Yes, Pete is driving me,’ she said coolly. ‘I’m not in the habit of drinking and driving.’

James glared at her, knowing the barb was directed at him following his drunken arrival at her cottage the previous Sunday morning.

Clare intervened quickly. ‘I’ll call you later, Julia, shall I? Let you know how she is?’

‘Thanks,’ said Julia. She turned on her heel and went back to the lounge bar where Pete and Edith were sitting in brown leather tub chairs by a round table. ‘I knew when I first clapped eyes on her there was something not right about her,’ the old lady was saying. ‘Befriending Julia’s mother like that, without Julia knowing anything about her. How do we know she wasn’t threatening her too?’

Julia sank into the next chair, suddenly overwhelmed by weariness. ‘We don’t,’ she said. ‘But why would she have painted Mum if she was threatening her? She’d taken a lot of care over those paintings. And she seemed genuinely sorry she’d died too.’ She remembered how Linda’s tears had irritated her at Giuseppe’s. ‘I can’t believe she would have any reason to threaten Mother. But then I can’t imagine Aunt Ada…’

‘From what I saw of Aunt Ada, she wasn’t exactly pleasant,’ cut in Pete. ‘Sorry, but first impressions and all that.’ He glanced at Julia, who looked in turn at Edith.

‘Don’t worry about offending me, duck,’ said the old lady. ‘I’ve known Ada nearly sixty years, and she’s never been an easy person, not even as a young woman. Bitter she became, after her husband left. And you know,’ she turned to Julia, ‘I always thought she resented him dying within the year. She said once it would have spared her the shame if he’d died when they were still together.’

‘Nice.’ Pete looked at Julia. ‘So that’s what she was on about earlier, asking what you’d told me about her?’

‘I suppose so.’ Julia shook her head. ‘Imagine being so concerned with appearances that you’d prefer your husband dead rather than be separated.’ But then, she reminded herself, there was a theory that it was easier to move on with your life if a partner was lost through death rather than separation. It was a theory she had found borne out several times during her counselling practice. Was the same true for her? Would she have coped better with Greg’s death than his unfaithfulness? She sighed and laced her fingers pensively over her mouth.

‘Don’t worry,’ Edith leaned over and patted her knee. ‘I’m sure it’ll be all right.’

‘What?’ Julia looked up. ‘Oh, you mean Ada.’

Pete was watching her. She had an uncomfortable sense he knew something of what she was thinking. Colour rose to her cheeks as she remembered how defensive she had been about Greg with him.

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