Monsoon Summer Read Online Free Page A

occupied. Tudor likes having you around.”
    â€œSo not stinking fish?” I tried to avoid the hopeful glance that nowadays went with any mention of her Tudor’s name. It was an awkward thing, but I’d really taken against him, his languid manner, his prissy way of eating as if the food were some sort of insult, when my mother was trying so hard, the way he treated Daisy like a skivvy.
    Daisy tried to twang my heartstrings with excuses for his boorish behavior: Tudor wasn’t used to so many women around afterthe army, and before that Oxford and an English boarding school. Tudor found it hard to talk at the table (at which my inner censor sagged and said, Oh, poor ickle bickle Tudor). He was fearsomely intelligent and didn’t do small talk. He was half owner of this farm too.
    â€œYou could never be stinking fish,” Daisy said stoutly. “You’re family, not guests.”
    â€œIt’s been good for us,” I said, and meant it. “Mummy and I were barely speaking on the way down, and being together every day means . . .” I was faltering as I said this because it already felt disloyal. “We’re at least under the same roof and I’m not so worried about her.”
    â€œThat’s good.” Daisy’s look was steady and kind. “She loves you, you know.”
    â€œI just wish,” I said eventually, “she could find something to do that she really liked.”
    â€œIt’s not ideal”—even Daisy couldn’t deny this—“but she’s saved my bacon with the housekeeping and she’s a wonderful cook.” I felt the old glow of reflected pride when she said this, and it was justified. Maud, Daisy’s regular cook, was off with her recurring bronchitis, and when snow had threatened to cut off our food supplies, Ma had performed small miracles with sinister-looking bottles of peas and vegetables she found in the cellar, making them into creamy soups with a pinch of this and that, and delicious stews from unpromising scraps of lamb and muddy carrots, or the odd chicken retired from egg laying.
    A shame then that my mother, a practiced hand at nipping the hand that fed her, complained ceaselessly about Daisy’s hopelessly inadequate kitchen utensils, the Rayburn, the heating, the dreariness of the gray skies, but I was used to this. And at least she and I were talking again.
    When I’d tried to tell her a little bit about the charity, she’d crumpled her forehead and said, “Not now, darling,” maintainingshe was too squeamish, but then I’d hear her from another room, boasting about my cleverness at school, delighting in the fact that I was typing again, triumphant vindication of her original plans for me.
    If I wasn’t too tired at nights I took the typewriter up to my room and, fingers flying over Daisy’s battered Remington, wrote to Josie, my dearest friend at Saint Thomas’, the straight-as-a-die farmer’s daughter, with whom I’d shared so many laughs, confidences, and when we could afford it, nights out with during the war. It was Josie who had been with me on the night it happened and told me endlessly it was not my fault.
    Sometimes I wrote in my diary too, and when I finished I’d cross the hall to my mother’s room and kiss her good night. If she was sitting at the dressing table, I’d sometimes brush her beautiful black hair and she’d whimper in appreciation, which made me feel so sad.
    She was so beautiful, my mother then, have I said this? The Indian blood she tried so hard to hide had given her wonderful, smooth, pale caramel-colored skin and glossy hair. And she was tremendously well-dressed considering how broke we were—the quintessential Englishwoman, from a distance, only much, much better-looking; my glamorous princess once, green satin dress, diamond necklace (paste). She was my cook, storyteller, exotic traveling companion too: