Monsoon Summer Read Online Free Page B

funny and superstitious with sudden bursts of gaiety that reminded me of a cat dashing up a curtain. She had the sudden spitting furies of a cat too.
    Some nights, when I went across the hall to say good night, she’d slide her tortoiseshell eyes up at me and say in a little-girl voice, “Read me a story.” She carried with her always a small collection of romantic books; her then favorite was Georgette Heyer’s The Spanish Bride . And so, huddled under the eiderdown together, just like in the old days, I did all the voices—Juana’s, Lord Wellington’s, Harry Smith’s—and she was happy again.
    Sometimes she’d try to persuade me to try on one of her pretty dresses (some of them donated by rich employers, others—how to put this?—self-donated), saying it would cheer everyone up downstairs, meaning Tudor, I suppose. She pleaded with me to let her polish my nails. “A lady is always judged by her hands.”
    (When I’d told Josie this, she’d said, “But what about this?” pointing at her wild red off-duty hair, “Or this?” holding herself erect so the world could admire her bosom.)
    But Josie was working the night shift in London and not available for jokes about my mother, and knowing I’d be leaving soon, I sat patiently (a huge effort) while my mother frowned at my cuticles, and pushed dead skin away with a special little pointed dagger from her shagreen case, and finally held my hand.
    The bigger things between us we brushed away under the carpet like so many unpleasant toenail clippings.
    â€œKit, you’re awake,” she said one night when she walked in and found me wide-eyed at three a.m.
    I’d been thinking about the girl again—her red hair, her screaming—but said something vague about night shifts at the hospital, and how it was hard now to sleep normally again. Sensing distress, she cut me off with a strange fake laugh that was as bad as a slap and said, “Oh, Kitty, let’s not be morbid. The war’s over now.”
    * * *
    On the day when things began to shift and change for me, there was a thaw outside. The cook, Maud, arrived midmorning, red-cheeked, puffing, and with a barking cough, saying it was still blooming cold out there but the snow was melting in the lanes, which made Daisy and me happy. We’d been wrapping parcels of maternity packs, books, and wall charts, which could now leave for India.
    When I walked in for lunch, Tudor and Flora were framed likesilhouettes against a bright window, Tudor behind the pages of The Listener , making important rustling sounds. Flora glanced nervously at him from time to time. Poor Flora, barred by her mother from the kitchen. (“We’re paying , darling. There are people to do that.”) Ci Ci had made it clear that Flora had one job and one job only at Wickam Farm. Earlier, I’d seen her, lipsticked and overdressed, with her mother in the hall, and overheard Ci Ci, who was as subtle as a megaphone, saying, “Oh, for God’s sake, Flora, don’t make a meal of it, go in there and talk. To. Him.”
    Over lunch, Ci Ci kept giving Flora prodding looks, because Flora, apart from a few timid observations about the thaw, and how nice it was to see green again, and the prettiness of raindrops against the window, hadn’t exactly set the table aroar. My mother was in a foul mood: the Rayburn was playing up again—something to do with poor-quality coke—and the turnip and carrot soup was well below her usual standard. Ci Ci had pushed hers aside after a few spoonfuls.
    Daisy came late, her pink face and bouncy walk bringing energy into the room. Melting snow, she said, had flooded one of the stables, and William, the cart horse, was absolutely soaked. She’d been drying him. “Our towels, I expect,” Ci Ci complained.
    The phone rang.
    â€œGet that, would you?” Tudor’s goldfishy eyes swam up from