Once a Land Girl by Angela Huth

Author:Angela Huth [Huth, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9781849012751
Google: vpExQQAACAAJ
Publisher: Constable
Published: 2010-04-18T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Prue did not know exactly what time she would leave Devon so she did not tell Barry when she would be home. She arrived at four, noticed that Bertha’s bicycle was not in the garage and remembered it was her day off.

She let herself into the house. There was a strange smell of cleaning stuff scented with some vile artificial flower and – a new addition – an arrangement of imitation pansies very similar to one her mother had had for years at home. All the pleasure that had seeped into Prue on her visit to Ag flew away. Still, she wouldn’t be here for much longer.

She went to the sitting room to light the fire. There was a strong smell of cigars. Barry had plainly been making up for the temporary ban on smoking with which he had struggled while Prue was pregnant.

On the table a tray was laid for tea: two cups and saucers, and a plate covered with a napkin. There was a pile of Shippam’s salmon-paste sandwiches, not quite as usual – as Prue saw when she picked one up and pulled it apart – for there was slice of cucumber on top of the smear of fish-paste. Also surprising was the bunch of parsley on the side of the plate. Altogether grander sandwiches than usual. Prue was curious.

The front-door bell rang. Prue went to answer it. Her mother stood in the porch. Her look of anticipation gave way to one of shock. ‘I wasn’t expecting you, darling. I thought you were down with Ag.’

‘I was. But I’m back. Come on in.’

Mrs Lumley had taken the precaution of dressing carefully for tea with her son-in-law. She wore a fox fur round her shoulders – an old dead fox with glass eyes, its mouth made into a clip to hold its tail. Floppy legs drooped down over her blouse of olive artificial silk. Prue had always hated the fox, but her mother said it had been handed down through generations of her family, it was of sentimental value and not for anything would she get rid of it. She also wore a hat shaped like a saucer balanced on one side of her head, and a new magenta lipstick. Thick blue eye shadow detracted from her green eyes.

She stepped into the hall, cast her eyes round the darkness. ‘The pansies look nice,’ she said. ‘I thought the hall could do with a bit of brightening up so I brought them round last Thursday.’

She trotted ahead of Prue to the sitting room with the air of one to whom the geography of the house had become familiar. Prue followed her, went to light the fire.

‘Barry said he’d be here at four.’ Her mother unclipped the fur stole, slung it over the back of a sofa. Fox limbs now straggled over a cushion. It glared at Prue with an unreal light in its eyes. She had seen enough dead animals to know the clouding of the eyeballs that, in reality, death instantly inflicts.

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