Free Let's Dance by Frances Fyfield Page B

had left. Isabel did not begrudge the milk: nor was she all that partial to the cat which littered the kitchen almost daily with signs of savagery, but she was suddenly enraged at the impertinence of the alien usurper, all sinuous arrogance blurred by the glass in the frosted pane before she opened the door and shouted at it. Shouted into the dark emptiness of the middle of the night.
    â€˜Go away!’ Then, less self-consciously, ‘Piss
off
!’
    How long had it taken her to realize that shouting was permissible here, even encouraged by the fact there was no one to be disturbed? Two weeks? Time was already immaterial.
    She was too much a townswoman to know the difference between stoat and ferret, or to know the nature of either. If she had, she would not have startled it into such spitting and hissing, its low snarl at odds with itssinister beauty, little white teeth bared, eyes huge. The ferret advanced towards her: she slammed the door shut, watching through the glass as it shook itself delicately and then returned to the milk.
    â€˜Coward!’ Isabel said loudly, addressing herself. If she left it the victor this fastidious thing would return every night. Seizing the broom she opened the door again, shoved it towards the milk saucer, hitting the thief with energy, wanting to watch it run, yelling at it until, with spitting fury and a snarl, the creature launched itself at the bristles, biting and scratching in a whirl of teeth and fur. Isabel crashed the door closed again, stood trembling on the safe side of the glass, unable to move. The creature hurled itself at the door, then settled back to wash.
    There was a sensation of acute loneliness in watching that elegant little beast preen with such nonchalance. Isabel could feel teeth snapping at her face. She was unscathed and unscarred, simply feeling foolish, but if that creature had leapt towards her eyes or fastened on her wrist, no one would have heard the screams. She was the one with the fear, it had none, while upstairs there slept a human being who would never provide help in an emergency.
    This was the way she had committed herself to live, for as long as it took. The protector, never the protected. She was numbingly, blindingly, tired.
    She was going to be brave. Resolute, indispensable. She was loved.

C HAPTER F OUR
    â€˜S he’s been there a month. What do they do all day?’ John Cornell asked his son. ‘I mean, what does a lovely young lady do every day with only an old woman for company?’
    â€˜I don’t know. How should I know? What does anyone do all day? What did we do all day when I was locked in with you?’
    â€˜You had a job of work, that’s the difference. Somewhere else to go. What does it take to look after one old granny? They don’t eat much.’
    â€˜I think it’s more like looking after a child.’
    â€˜Was I like a child?’ Father was teasing. Andrew looked at him and saw a grin of monkey cunning. He had a long memory.
    â€˜Just like a child,’ Andrew said smoothly. ‘But you also had a working brain and you couldn’t move half the time. That had distinct advantages.’
    â€˜Good old days, son. You should have left me to it.’
    The auction room was ready to go. People filteredthrough the porch, paid for the catalogues Andrew had copied that afternoon, wandered between the rows of beds, chairs, tables, speaking to each other in hushed tones, as if this place were still a church. Ah, the reverence of buyers without the refuge of shops. Andrew tried to count how many of them would buy because they loved an object, or because they thought it was a bargain which might turn into an investment, or because it was useful, and how many simply adored the business of poking around among dead people’s things. He was never ashamed of his own propensity to do just that: it was only sensible where objects endured beyond lives. He respected auction-house customers: