Free Her Living Image by Jane Rogers Page B

down. Had it been blocked before this morning? Had she forgotten it? She remembered going to the seaside. They had gone once with school.
She remembered the coach ride, and having no one to sit next to because Mandy was ill. They went to a strange place, with no piers or fun-fairs or candy floss. By the sea the empty beach was wide,
and the dunes were dotted with bristly little bushes. Then the sand dunes flattened out and there were pine trees. They were quite far apart, it was light but still felt enclosed: you could look up
and see the high tops of the pines swaying in a wind that you couldn’t feel down on the ground. The air smelt sweet and sticky, and there were those big wide-open pine cones lying on the
sand, with their little woody layers peeled back like petticoats. Mr Marshall told them you could forecast the weather with pine cones. After lunch they all trooped back down to the beach with
plastic bags and jars for specimens, and Carolyn lagged behind. Following the tidy path through the pines, past a picnic site with slatted wooden tables and large litter bins, she was soon out of
sight of any other people. There was the sound of the sea, at a distance, like regular quiet breathing. There was the secretive rustling of the wind in the tops of the pines. There were sudden
sharp sounds, a fir cone dropping to the ground, a seagull. Mainly there was silence, in still greenish light, as if she were at the bottom of a pool. She sat and held her breath, and felt that she
could hear the trees growing around her and that she was part of the same quiet measured progress, in a world devoid of people.
    Carolyn began to get better. Although Clare had decided to call in Meg, she didn’t; at first because in the morning things weren’t so pressing as they had been at night, and then
because she was too busy at the Refuge, and then because it really didn’t seem fair. She could see that Caro was trying very hard.
    Gradually these impressions, and the passing of time, merged with her observation of Caro’s improvement to wipe all thought of Meg from her mind.

Chapter 8
    As Carolyn got better, she stopped hearing her other story. She no longer needed it; didn’t have time for it.
    The story, once started, continued though, as stories will – quite unknown to Carolyn. It featured a Carolyn no less real than herself: her double, her living image, separated from her
only by a second’s timing in a rainsoaked dash across Leap Lane. A Carolyn who led another life, with no more than the ghost of a thought that things could have been different.
    Carolyn never really understood Alan’s reaction to her being pregnant. Two days after the scene in the pub, he rang her up. His voice sounded forced and sulky, as if
someone was telling him what to say.
    “I’m sorry if I upset you. Let’s get married.”
    There was a silence. She couldn’t think of any reply.
    “All right? Carolyn? We’ll get married at Christmas. I’ll come back again next weekend and we can plan it.”
    When she had put the phone down she went and sat in her bedroom. She was very relieved, so much so that she felt weak. It would be all right at the weekend. They would be able to talk and
explain.
    But she was disappointed. Alan remained distant and slightly sullen. He insisted on discussing practical details, as if they were planning a sale of work or an expedition. At last she lost
patience.
    “You don’t have to marry me.”
    “I know,” he said evenly.
    “Well why are you?”
    “Because I want to.”
    “Well why are you being so horrible about it?”
    “I’m not.”
    “You are. Why are you being so distant and unfriendly? Anyone would think someone was standing behind you with a gun.”
    “It is a shot-gun wedding,” he said and grinned, making it, briefly, all right.
    “No one is. We don’t have to.”
    “Look I’m OK. I’ve decided – unless you don’t want to?”
    She hesitated. “I don’t want you to do me a