Reading Upside Down by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781911420583
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2019-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

He arrived at 6.45pm, carrying several Pizza Express boxes and a couple of beers.

I raised my eyebrows at the beers. ‘You recover fast,’ I said, letting him in and directing him towards the kitchen, where the table was already laid.

‘Some of us stopped drinking quite early on, actually, Ros,’ he explained, with a smile. ‘I moved onto mineral water at about eleven.’ He sat down at the kitchen table.

‘I wish I had,’ I said, taking a glass from a cupboard and pouring his beer. ‘I must just say sorry, about that incident in the garden, Andrew. I really am.’

‘Look, Ros,’ he took the beer from me with a nod of thanks, ‘you had too much to drink, you met an idiot who didn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘no’. That’s all. I know it was embarrassing for you. God knows you told me that enough on the way home. But, at the end of the day, no real harm was done.’

I wasn’t quite sure that I concurred absolutely with that last statement but I was happy that he seemed to have drawn a line under the matter. ‘Thanks,’ I said, fetching myself a glass of tap water, in preparation for topping up the analgesics in my system, ‘and I will pay your dry-cleaning costs.’

‘That’s generous of you, but I don’t actually have any.’

‘But—’

‘You were sick on the cab driver when he came round to help me get you into the house.’

‘Was he cross?’ I asked.

‘Was he cross? Let me think. Yes. “Cross” or “fecking furious” probably covers it but he didn’t suggest compensation and I didn’t bother putting the idea into his head.’

I groaned and rested my forehead on the table.

‘But I’m not here to talk about you, Ros,’ he said, quietly.

There it was again. Another man appalled at my apparently unswerving focus on self.

I didn’t lift my head. ‘I know that. But what you want to talk about is so dreadful, I can hardly bear it.’

I heard him sigh gently. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘But I need you to tell me because I need to know if she’s OK and, if she’s not OK, what we need to do.’

I looked up at him. Absolutely everyone looked exhausted today. I had never seen Andrew look so tired. The anxiety in his eyes brought to mind his insistence upon talking with Richard Webster the night before. I really had to make him tell me what was going on. But, for now, I had no choice but to let that concern bump around up there with all the others. George had to come first.

‘OK, Andrew,’ I began, ‘well, George is not OK. I spent an hour or two with her this afternoon and she is crushed by the loss of her husband to India Morne, the woman I saw him with on the train that night.’ I paused, waiting for a reaction – perhaps some echoing of my increasing conviction that I should have informed George of my fears at the time – but he said nothing and his face conveyed no hint as to his thoughts.

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