Free The Water's Lovely by Ruth Rendell Page B

her.
    From the first, she pitied Beatrix. Poor old thing, but she hasn’t a hope. Now she knew this was a typical adolescent girl’s reaction to a mother’s lover. What does he see in her? He can’t be in love with her. She’s old, she’s a mess, she’s let herself go. What wasn’t typical, perhaps, was her thinking he must prefer me. Guy began kissing her when he left in the morning and when he came in in the evening. Just a kiss on the cheek or on both cheeks. But subtly she felt the kisses change. If her mother was there the kiss would be like the one he gave Pam or her mother’s friend next door, an air kiss really, which barely brushed the skin. But when he and she were alone his lips stayed for few seconds and moved closer to her mouth. He always got home at about six and she began making a point of happening to be out in the hall around that time. She had tennis lessons on Thursday evenings and more and more she began missing them so as to be in the hall when Guy came home.
    If her mother came out just as Guy’s key turned in the lock Ismay would feel a sharp, almost panicky, disappointment and resentment too. Heather was often there but Guy took no notice of her. That is, he would say, ‘Hi, Heather,’ and smile at her but he wouldn’t let it stop him giving Ismay those kisses that had moved to her mouth by then. Heather was too young to bother about, Ismay knew he thought. Heather couldn’t understand. She sometimes wondered when it was too late, why Heather hadn’t said something to her,something on the lines of, ‘You shouldn’t let Guy kiss you that way.’ At the time she had felt the way Guy felt: it doesn’t matter about Heather being there, Heather doesn’t count.
    She never thought about what it would lead to, what might happen, though she began to imagine a step further on, a mile further on. Guy might come to her bedroom one night. If only Beatrix would go away somewhere, go away on holiday, for instance, on her own with Pam. Or with Jill and Dennis, the people next door. A scenario developed in which Beatrix and Guy were planning a holiday, and she and Heather were to stay with Pamela. At the last minute Guy couldn’t go. He was too busy at work. But Beatrix could still go and she went alone or maybe she took Heather with her and her old school friend Rosemary. Guy would be working all day but he’d come home in the evening and she’d be there and that first night Guy would …
    That was a fantasy and didn’t happen. But when they were alone (except sometimes with Heather) Guy’s kisses became real like in the kind of films she and Heather were still too young to see unaccompanied. His tongue exploring her mouth and his hands on her breasts. The first time that happened Heather saw. She stood in a corner of the hall where the phone was on a table as if she meant to make a call. Ismay seemed to remember her starting to dial just after Guy had said ‘hi’ to her, starting to dial and then putting the phone down quietly when Guy took her in his arms. Staring and noting what happened, no doubt, only Ismay was too rapt and excited to see.
    It happened that way three times, with Heather there the first and second times but not the third. By then she was showing him she liked what he did, she responded to him, returning his kisses. After that Guy must havebeen busy at work because he started getting home later. Weeks went by without those kisses. And then he got the flu. Beatrix called it flu, though actually it was a virus, the kind that brings a high temperature, a headache, a sore throat and congestion of the lungs. It was high summer, the time when no one is supposed to be ill. The first day Guy went to work but had to be brought home in a taxi. He almost collapsed in the hall. Ismay and Beatrix had to walk him upstairs between them, supporting him until they could get him on to the bed. Beatrix