Echoes of the Dance by Marcia Willett

Author:Marcia Willett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000, book
Publisher: McArthur & Company Publishing Limited
Published: 2011-04-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

When she wakened it was to a sense of anticipation rather than to the familiar gut-clamping panic of recent months. Sometimes she dreamed – vivid, happy dreams in which David was still alive – and afterwards, during those few drowsy moments of waking, continued to believe that her dream was the reality and his dying was simply a nightmare. Then, wide awake to the horror of the truth, it was as if it were all to do again: as if she were hearing the news for the first time. She would scramble out of bed, pulling on a dressing-gown and hurrying downstairs to make coffee, as if she were escaping from the dread shadows of grief and loss that followed at her heels. Oh, then, how she missed the dogs who would have once come wagging to greet her, stretching and yawning, staying for a caress before she opened the door to let them out, across the garden and into the paddock.

This morning, however, she rose up completely focused on what she intended to do: no room here for the passivity of grief. Instead of wandering downstairs in her dressing-gown to make her coffee, which she took out into the garden if the weather permitted, she showered and dressed as if she were girding herself for action. It was not yet half-past seven and she drank her coffee, pacing restlessly, one eye on the kitchen clock. At eight o’clock she pressed the appropriate buttons on her telephone and listened to it ringing in a converted barn high on the moor beneath Cox Tor. Michael Barrett-Thompson’s small estate agency had long since amalgamated with a larger local company but Michael was still a partner and one of her oldest friends. It was his wife, Harriet, who answered the telephone.

‘Harriet, it’s Kate. Sorry to bother you at this ghastly hour but I need a word with Michael. It’s rather important or I wouldn’t interrupt your breakfast.’

‘Hello, Kate. It’s not at all a problem. Michael’s always up early. Let me call him. Nothing wrong, I hope?’

‘No, no. Everything’s fine. I just need a quick word of advice and it’s not always easy to catch him at the office.’

‘Don’t I know it. Hang on a moment, Kate.’

She waited impatiently, listening to the sounds of Harriet summoning Michael, and then at last he was there.

‘Good morning, Kate. Don’t tell me you’ve made the big decision and you want us to put the house on the market?’

‘Oh, Michael, I think I do. The thing is, I was driving over to Horrabridge yesterday and I saw that Horseshoe Cottage is for sale. I couldn’t believe it. I expect Harriet’s quite forgotten, it was so long ago, but I used to live there.’

‘She’s never mentioned it but then I probably didn’t tell her about it coming on to the market. How strange. But . . . does this mean that you’re interested in it?’

‘I think I might be. It’s such an odd coincidence, isn’t it? When I’ve been wondering what to do?’

‘Mmm.

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