Heartstones by Kate Glanville

Author:Kate Glanville [Glanville, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Contemporary Fiction, Contemporary Women, Contemporary, Romance, Literature & Fiction, Women's Fiction
ISBN: 9781783755493
Amazon: B00J8YA5IG
Publisher: Accent Press
Published: 2014-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

Each day seems endless; I find it hard to be bothered to get out of bed. Gordon has ruled out influenza but thinks I have a chill and doesn’t seem to mind that it is two days since I came down to share a meal with him.

December 24th

I dragged myself downstairs today and did my best to eat burnt pork chops and grey potatoes in the dining room.

Gordon went out to see a patient after lunch and brought home a tiny, twisted Christmas tree. He placed it on the drawing room windowsill, produced a box of fairy lights and ancient baubles from the sideboard, and asked me if I would like to put on the decorations.

‘It may cheer you up,’ he said and walked away. For ages I stood beside the tree, staring sightlessly at its spindly branches and thinking of Michael. I noticed my reflection in the darkening window; I touched my lips and remembered his kiss.

I heard the door open and Della’s reflection came to stand beside my own. She picked up the string of lights and began to untangle them.

After a short while she said, ‘It’s no wonder you’ve been ill. I saw you going out that Saturday when the rain was lashing down.’ She started winding the lights around the crooked tree. I thought she would say more but she was obviously waiting for my reaction. A few more minutes passed; she finished with the lights and together we started attaching the glass balls and spirals to the branches. She had a slyness to her smile I didn’t like.

‘The only other person about that day was that new teacher from the school, I saw him riding his bike towards the beach.’ Again I offered no response, though I could feel my heart beating so loud I felt sure that Della would hear it. ‘I saw you go down the path not long after, was it the boathouse you were going to?’

I felt my cheeks flush.

‘I saw you together another time too,’ she went on. ‘Going up on the cliff. It was ages before you came back down.’

I caught her wrist in my hand and accused her of being Dr Brennan’s spy, I told her she should be ashamed of herself, I told her to tell Dr Brennan to hire a private detective instead of using a girl barely out of school, to do his dirty work. I didn’t know I could ever sound so vicious.

Della looked as though she might burst into tears, the bold young woman was suddenly a child again.

‘It wasn’t Dr Brennan that asked me to watch you,’ she snivelled. ‘I just like to see where you go, to know what you do when you go out in the day.’

I asked her to tell me exactly what she had seen.

‘Nothing.’ I told her I didn’t believe her. ‘Just you and the new teacher,’ she admitted. ‘walking on the beach and when you went out in the rain that day I followed you, just a little way, and I saw you going into the boathouse and that’s all I’ve seen.

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