How to Measure a Cow by Margaret Forster

Author:Margaret Forster [Forster, Margaret]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473523845
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2016-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

VII

NANCY SAW THE nephew arriving, and leaving. She timed him: eleven minutes inside. Come to inspect the house again, see how Sarah Scott was keeping it? Unlikely. He’d already been, already knew. Could he be going to sell it? Quite likely. So, if he did, where would Sarah go?

‘None of your business,’ Nancy said, aloud. She was quite shocked at herself. Sarah was now a friend, or well on the way to becoming one. Shouldn’t a friend be offered temporary shelter? ‘Certainly not. Don’t get ideas,’ Nancy heard herself say, and was instantly ashamed at her own vehemence. Friends should offer help when it was needed. They stood by you, through thick and thin. Nancy nodded her head in tribute to this saying. There crept into her mind the memory of an occasion when she had been grateful for the support of friends. It was all a misunderstanding but it hadn’t seemed so to the shop’s manageress. Nancy had had to appear in court, utterly mortified. She’d looked up at Martin, sitting there, winking at her, and when the case was dismissed he stuck his thumb up. It had taken her weeks and weeks to get over the whole shocking business. People were funny with her. Nobody said anything, but they’d undoubtedly read the small paragraph in the local paper. She felt their suspicion, the ‘no smoke without fire’ reaction, in spite of the magistrate’s decision. But two friends had spoken up for her. The awful thing was that she now couldn’t remember their names. She had married Martin soon afterwards and they moved to Workington, and she never saw these friends again. Now whose fault was that?

Nancy banged the kitchen door closed. Stop rambling, she scolded herself, stop all this muttering. Do something, if you’re so bothered. Don’t be so damned hesitant, don’t let yourself off by claiming you don’t want to be nosy. You do want to be nosy. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to know what is happening to a friend. She could just cross the street and knock on Sarah’s door and say how are you? Simple. Friendly. No need for excuses like offering half a cake. But it would be such a huge break with a lifetime of reticence that Nancy couldn’t quite manage it, and so, when, agitated by all these indecisions, she stood at her front window and saw Sarah Scott crossing the road to her she felt quite faint with relief.

She had the front door open before Sarah could knock.

‘I saw him,’ Nancy said. ‘The nephew. Bringing trouble, was he? Come in, you look worried.’

But Sarah wouldn’t come in. She stood on the doorstep, saying that no, she wasn’t worried, she was excited.

‘Excited?’ Nancy queried.

She didn’t like the sound of this. Excitement was not good. Then Sarah told her why she was excited.

‘He’s selling my house,’ she said, ‘and I’ll have to move, so I’ve been ringing estate agents and I’ve got a whole list of houses to look at, but I

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.