Pompomberry House by Trevithick Rosen

Author:Trevithick, Rosen [Trevithick, Rosen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-07-26T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

I’d become an avid reader of the news. I had never realised how depressing the world had become. I tried to skim over story after story about lives destroyed by the recession, but it could sometimes be difficult not to get sucked in.

However, by far the most disturbing story in this morning’s paper was the one about an old lady who had been killed in her own garden. She was senile and immobile and had had few pleasures in life, besides enjoying the sun. So, her daughter had taken her out into their garden in North Cornwall, to enjoy her lunch under a little spring sunshine. As the younger woman watched from behind the kitchen sink, a seagull had swooped down to steal her pasty. The daughter had run outside as quickly as she could, only to find that her mother’s heart had stopped. It was heart-breaking.

Then, I noticed the photograph. I recognised the poor victim. At first I couldn’t place her but then I remembered where I’d seen her before — Gulls Reach. She was younger in the photograph, and her features were less sunken, but it was still clearly the same lady. I found myself trembling. The seagulls around Pompomberry House were truly evil.

The doorbell rang and I leapt out of my skin. Then Gareth let himself in.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, more aggressively than I meant to.

“Getting some more stuff,” he replied. A visit in itself was not surprising, but before midday? I wasn’t aware that Gareth knew the meaning of 11.12 am.

“Gareth, you can’t just pop in whenever you feel like it.”

This had to stop. He’d only seen me yesterday. He really wasn’t getting the message that we’d broken up at all. I couldn’t think why my words weren’t getting through to him.

He went straight up the stairs into the bedroom — what presumption! However, then I realised that he wasn’t hopping into bed as I had hoped ... I mean, suspected; he was going into the wardrobe.

“What are you doing? You can’t just come in here and root through my cupboards.”

Then he did something so hurtful that he might as well have punched me in the stomach — he took his dressing gown out of the wardrobe and put it in a box.

He was moving on.

Ouch.

Clearly, he wasn’t planning on spending the night here ever again. But wasn’t that what I wanted? Why did getting my own way hurt so much?

“What are you doing?”

“Packing up a few more of my things, like you asked me to.”

“Of course,” I said. Then, trying to sound as casual as I could, I added, “I’ll be downstairs getting a cup of tea if you need me.” Where were my manners? “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“No thanks, Dee, I’ve got places to be, people to see.”

What places? What people? At least he used the plural, which must mean he was seeing many people, not just one, potentially special, person. Or did it?

Oh, pull yourself together, Dee, you want him to move on.

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