Dog's Twilight by Roger Teichmann

Author:Roger Teichmann [Teichmann, Roger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

VIII

MRS OWENS WAS TAKEN HOME in a taxi organised by her daughter Meg. During the taxi ride their conversation persuaded Meg that her mother was almost fully recovered from the aneurysm that had landed her in hospital and twenty-four hours later she felt her conscience clear when she decided to go back to Oxford in the evening. Although she loved her mother, staying with her for any length of time was always a test of Meg’s patience and good will. Moreover, there was a conversation she needed to have with Conrad. It would, she hoped, clear the air; in the meantime it hung over her oppressively so that she was distracted and irritable. Even her mother noticed.

Mrs Owens wanted to see her daughter off at the bus station but Meg vetoed the suggestion as firmly as she was able. ‘You should take it easy for a few more days, mum,’ she said. ‘Doctor’s orders. I’ll ring you tomorrow to see how you are.’ They kissed at the front door of the house Meg had grown up in and then she was off.

Back at 27 Wharf St that evening she met Elise in the hallway with wet hair and wrapped in a large pink towel. ‘Hi, Meg. Conrad called round last night, he said he’d left something in your room which he wanted to collect. I let him go up, hope that was okay.’

‘Did he say what it was?’

‘No, but he must have found it—the front door banged not long after. Conrad always bangs it, doesn’t he?’

‘Mm.’

‘How’s your mum?’

‘Oh, she’s fine, thanks. Much better.’

Meg climbed the stairs with a heavy weight inside her. Why hadn’t Con told her? Maybe it was something trivial he’d left, not worth bothering her about. But she couldn’t help thinking of the memory stick, with what seemed to be a chunk of Tessa Wainwright’s novel on it. Tessa Wainwright who was staying at the hotel Conrad worked at.

Easing open the trap door into the attic Meg pushed her bag through ahead of her then climbed up after it. The room appeared much as she’d left it. Her eyes went to the pile of paperbacks that stood under an old standard lamp with a red shade. It should be sitting on that pile and—her heart sank—there it wasn’t. He’d come for the memory stick after all. Oh well, she thought, it does belong to him, it’s not as if he was stealing. She began making herself a cup of tea. As she waited for the kettle to boil and in order to force her mind onto pleasanter things she sang softly to herself: A ring he gave her of silver and gold. When this to Eleanor was told. . . She was pleased with the song. They’d like it at the Hedgehog. ‘Very Meg,’ Callum would say, ‘very mediaeval.’ Callum played the Northumbrian pipes and was a widower in his sixties, full of zest, wiry and balding. He had a habit of putting his arm round your shoulders but she didn’t mind that, it was more fatherly than anything else.

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