Country Plot Read Online Free Page A

undivided attention to his excited children, sit with them while they had supper, and then put them to bed, and then he wanted a long bath while Sybil prepared the grown-ups’ meal; so it was not until he came down, clean, damp-haired, freshly-shaved and smelling of Radox, and was wandering round the kitchen with a bottle of Burgundy in his hand looking for the corkscrew, that he was able to address his sister’s woes.
    Jenna looked at him admiringly, thinking how handsome he was: tall and strong, with a slightly darker version of her own red hair – auburn, where hers was red-gold – and really blue eyes, instead of the greenish-blue hers were. They both took after their mother in colouring, while the rest of the family were dark like their father. It had always made her feel closer to him when they were children. When she had been mocked at school for being a redhead (
Ginger, you’re barmy!
) he had made her see it as being different in a good way – special. He had been her hero: there was nothing, she had felt, that Oliver couldn’t do. When she was about fourteen she had been so in love with him she thought she would die if he ever went away and got married; but he did go away, of course – to university first, which had eased the parting somewhat. He’d been going away ever since; but he always came back. And when he did marry, it was to Sybil, who was as unlike Jenna as could be, and whom she was glad to be able to feel was worthy of him. So that was all right.
    Oliver found the corkscrew where Tertius had left it under the kitchen table – he’d been using it as an alien robot in one of his savage games – drew the cork and poured them all large glasses. ‘First today,’ he said. ‘God, that journey gets longer every time I do it. Why doesn’t anyone ever want a dam built in St Albans or Enfield?’
    â€˜Next time, maybe,’ Sybil said, prodding the potatoes.
    â€˜The first thing I want to say to you,’ Oliver went on, sitting at the kitchen table across from Jenna, ‘is that you’re not homeless. You can stay here as long as you want. It’s as much your home as mine, after all.’
    â€˜Hardly,’ Jenna said.
    â€˜It’s true. We all grew up here, and Ma didn’t give it to me or anything. I just live here by default, because no one else wanted to.’
    â€˜But she’s bound to leave it to you in the end, because you
do
live here. Isn’t she?’
    He grinned. ‘I hope to God she does. Imagine moving this lot out at a moment’s notice! But I don’t even know if she’s made a will.’
    â€˜Michael would know,’ Sybil said. Michael was not only the eldest sibling, but a solicitor. ‘And if she hasn’t,’ she went on in her practical way, ‘he ought to make her. If she died intestate the state would get most of it, since she’s not married to the Major.’
    â€˜Where are they, anyway?’ Jenna asked. Their mother communicated more with Oliver than anyone else. In every large family there’s always one sibling who is the correspondent, who keeps it all together.
    â€˜On a yacht, belonging to a friend of the Major’s. It’s been lent to them for some unspecified time. They’re sailing up and down the south coast of Crete. But the Major’s apparently got an exhibition coming up in September in Cannes, so they’ll have to be back at Juan-les-Pins by then. You could do worse than think about angling for an invitation, Jenna. The Cap d’Antibes in September? How bad could that be?’
    â€˜It’d work for me,’ Sybil remarked.
    Jenna shuddered. ‘No, thank you. I’ve no desire to see my mother disporting herself among the Eden Roc set. Why can’t she live in a bungalow in Worthing and knit things, like anyone else’s mother?’
    Oliver laughed. ‘Oh, come on! Which would you rather, if you were