Free The Saint Zita Society by Ruth Rendell

meant nothing. ‘Go where?’
    ‘You must know where there are some shops. I don’t. I have a job which takes up all my time, in case you’ve forgotten. Ask people. Look in the phone book.’
    She had been there before. She’d just go and she’d ask. Preston emptied his pockets of notes and coins and handed it to her. The rain had started and she took one of the large umbrellas from the stand in the hall. The whole exercisewould have been insupportable had she not been able to picture Lucy and the girls umbrella-less and getting very wet. Rabia wouldn’t care while Thomas had a hood on his pushchair to keep him dry. Montserrat counted the money Preston had given her for the glue, nearly thirty pounds. He must be mad. She found an ironmonger’s on the Pimlico Road, bought two kinds of glue that the man behind the counter recommended just to be on the safe side. She didn’t want to be sent out again.
    It appeared that Preston had given up. Her trip had been in vain and what to do with two useless tubes of adhesive?
    ‘Oh, put it somewhere. Maybe that Mohammed will have a use for it.’
    Montserrat knew he wouldn’t. She waited till Preston had disappeared along the gallery and up the big curving staircase and then she examined the shakily replaced section of banister and the two rails. Before he started both rails had been undamaged. Now the top end of one of them was jagged enough to reveal the raw wood. Montserrat shook her head and laughed silently. He had left his coffee cup on the carpet by that chair he had sat in. She went back and fetched it, not too resentful. After all, he hadn’t asked for his change back and she was the better off by twenty-five pounds. By this time she was feeling so cheerful that she forgot her usual carefulness and started to run down the basement stairs, grabbing the banister as she went. He had left it so shaky, much worse than before he messed about with it, that she fell over and only just managed to save herself by clutching at the edge of the stair carpet.
    B eginning work on the agenda for the next Saint Zita meeting the same day as she returned from Florence, June included in the matters to be discussed the reallyrevolting question of the little plastic bags of dog excrement and the problem of noise in Hexam Place after 11 p.m. Various notes from members had come while she was away. She had no objection to an item requesting a debate on the smoking habits of members and where they should be able to indulge it. June already agreed that if an employer might smoke indoors why should an employee not do likewise? A request from Thea for permission to be granted to sit on the front steps of
one’s own home
(this heavily underlined) especially when
one was not a servant
, June decided to exclude. Let her raise it under Any Other Business. The date of the meeting was to be lunchtime on 29 October. June quickly made the first item Rules to be Formulated.
    The Princess was watching
Avalon Clinic
, this evening’s episode heavily featuring Rad as Mr Fortescue. June joined her on the sofa, bringing with her two stiff gin and tonics and a bowl of pistachios. Until now, apart from various minor flirtations, Mr Fortescue had mostly been presented in his role as hardworking gynaecologist but now he appeared as embarking on a love affair with the glamorous sister from Estonia. Both were married to other people which complicated matters delightfully.
    ‘Thea told me you can get a boxed set of the first series,’ whispered June when Mr Fortescue was off the screen for fifteen seconds. ‘Shall I?’
    ‘Yes. Tomorrow. Don’t talk, please. How many times do I have to tell you? He’s just coming back.’
    Gussie, fetched from the boarding kennels in a taxi, snuggled up on the Princess’s lap, from where June had to dislodge him for his evening walk round the block. Descending the steps, whom should she see on the other side of the street but Mr Fortescue himself sneaking out of the basement