Dangerous Pleasures by Patrick Gale

Author:Patrick Gale [Patrick Gale]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780007381494
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-11-05T05:00:00+00:00

Her parents rarely came again however. In the weekends that followed, they were preoccupied with adult impenetrables — Hand Blocked Paper, Damp Course, the demise of a Feature Fireplace and some lengthy and bad-tempered dealings with someone called Artex Removal. But Jane came. She could barely wait for each weekend to begin in order to squeeze through the gap in the fence and visit her new friends. Dougal let her stir paint and showed her how to milk the cows and goat. Jeanette taught her to plait her own hair (which seemed to make her mother cross). She gave her handfuls of bread dough to knead into shapes and bake and she used to stretch a sheet of yellowed lining paper across the kitchen table for Jane to paint on while she worked at her grown-up painting alongside her.

Jane’s parents were perturbed at first, in case Jane were proving an embarrassment, then they seemed to accept the idea that Jane had adopted a second family. They chuckled, in her hearing, about the Hippies and pounced on any small infelicities that crept from their neighbours’ speech into their daughter’s. (Jane, uncomprehending, told Jeanette that her mother said that Jeanette had a terrible Norfolk burr and Jeanette laughed and fed her some cooking chocolate.) That Jeanette could be handy as a child-minder was swiftly appreciated. Jane’s mother was often unable to come to the cottage for more than two weekends in a row. On these occasions, Jane’s father would bring work with him and closet himself with the portable computer in the dining room while Jane went to play with the animals she now thought of as hers. It was not unheard of for Jeanette to invite him to come over with Jane for long, boozy meals in the farmhouse but Jane preferred it when he stayed on his side of the fence. She was not above keeping a proffered invitation to herself and passing back some fabricated apology so as to keep her friends to herself.

When her nursery school began its holidays she was even left behind one weekend to spend seven glorious days as Jeanette and Dougal’s guest. She fitted quite easily into their routines, rising and retiring when she felt like it, washing as little as they did and eating whatever pleasantly meatless meals Jeanette placed before her. Two things set the seal on the week’s pleasure for her: lying awake listening to the loud sighs and open laughter that came from their bedroom — a far cry from the embarrassed coughs and inexplicable creaks that came from her parents’ well-appointed own — and being woken by Dougal at the dead of night to watch one of the cats giving birth.

Her parents joined her for a fortnight’s holiday after that and brought with them bad weather, bitterness and altercation. While Jane sheltered, bored, from the rain, they argued. Jeanette’s name was raised as was that of a young Frenchman who lived with their neighbours in London. Adult impenetrables to

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