Rachel's Secret by Susan Sallis

Author:Susan Sallis [Susan Sallis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2008-10-23T04:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

MERIEL WAS ECSTATIC about Hermione’s visit.

‘It wasn’t only that she got on so well with Georgie – he doesn’t like everyone, you know, Rache. It was the way she got him to do things. She brought a picture, just one. I think it was a Rembrandt, and it showed the prodigal son’s return – in fact, I’m sure it was the one old Hattie used in art classes at school, d’you remember? Anyway, Hermione mentioned the colours, the clothes, the sandals. And he just nodded and said they were broken . . . the sandals. And then he was off finding those wax crayons and his scrap pad and having a go himself. He works in rectangles – I hadn’t sorted that out before, but she noticed it and it’s true. An oblong is a person, a square is something else – he depicted that broken sandal as two halves of a sort of rhombus. He gets the colours right, spends ages on that. Then she mounted his picture on to a card right next to the Rembrandt, and put it on the wall, and they just sat and looked at it for ages. You could feel them doing it – it was fantastic! And then after tea – we had it in the garden and Georgie really looked after her – they listened to music. She had a record with her in her briefcase. It was a Souza march. We all had to clap in time to it. Your girls just loved that, honey, it was like one of Daphne’s rhythm sessions. Of course Georgie knew exactly what to do. He marched round the sitting room – the radiogram is in there, we couldn’t go out, unfortunately. He lifted his legs up high and banged an imaginary drum . . .’ Meriel’s eyes were full of tears. She paused and grinned at me. ‘I’m getting carried away, Rache. It was just so amazing to see Hermione Smith with my son. She is going to write it all up as a report for me to take back home and extract what is needed. She wants to come over and visit!’

‘You’re going to have quite a house full,’ I said.

We were in the garden of the Cheltenham house. The paddling pool was full and the children were climbing in and out and splashing each other indiscriminately. The sort of scene I would remember through next winter . . . for ever, I suppose. I wished my comment hadn’t sounded so bitter.

Meriel was still. ‘He told you, then?’

‘Yes. He’s excited about it.’

‘Yes. But he . . . told you about it?’

I looked at her, my heart suddenly hammering. Surely Dad hadn’t confided everything to Meriel before he told me? I swallowed. Of course he had, and he had made a special call when he knew I would be alone . . . it had all been planned with Meriel.

‘Yes,’ I replied flatly.

She started gabbling again; she had always talked quickly: in rushes and torrents of sentences.

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