Free Drowning Rose by Marika Cobbold Page A

no sign or anything and I don’t remember seeing any camera crews, so how was one meant to know?’
    Ruth was shaking her head. ‘That’s all irrelevant.’
    I hung my head. ‘Yes. Yes, of course it is. I do understand what you’re saying.’ I looked up at her. ‘Ruth, I’m sorry. I really am.’
    ‘Well, good. Because what I am trying to explain to you is that your self-destructive behaviour doesn’t only affect you.’
    ‘I really am so sorry,’ I said again. ‘I never realised.’
    Ruth paused. Then she said, ‘No, I don’t suppose you did.’
    The silence had been expertly positioned. It might not have told more than a thousand words but it certainly managed about twenty. Some of these being: but you would have, had you ever shown any real interest in me or in my family. ‘No man’s an island sufficient unto himself, Eliza.’ Ruth winced suddenly, straightened in her chair and arching her back.
    ‘I’m sorry. Is the chair uncomfortable?’
    ‘No, no, it’s fine. It’s my old disc problem. Just remember . . .’
    I had been fingering the TV remote control and now I pretended to press the pause button, pausing Ruth before she could say anything else.
    ‘. . . that if your godfather wants to help you then you should let him. It would be one thing less for your poor mother to worry about. She worries a lot about you, you know. Especially since you refused to take any of the money you were entitled to in the divorce.’ As she spoke, Ruth was watching me the way a laid-back bird might watch a worm making its painstaking way to the surface of the soil. Now she said, ‘I haven’t upset you, have I?’
    I gave her a newscaster’s smile. ‘Of course you haven’t.’
    Next thing I knew she was crying. I stared at her. ‘All right, you have. I am upset. There, you can stop crying now.’
    Ruth looked up at me with tear-blurred eyes. ‘What are you talking about?’
    ‘You. You’re upset. Because I’m not upset. But you needn’t worry. I am. I just wasn’t . . .’
    ‘Will you listen. I think my husband might be having an affair.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘You don’t seem very surprised.’
    I gave a regretful shrug. It was hard to believe that anyone, Ruth included, could be truly surprised. Having affairs was what her husband did. Ruth herself had been an affair once when Robert was married to his first wife. I had thought that kind of a start to a relationship might give a person a clue as to what the future was likely to hold, but it seemed it seldom did. Then again, what did I know? Gabriel had never been unfaithful in any relationship before he cheated on me. There were some situations where being the first was not at all flattering.
    ‘I had rather hoped that fresh start would be for us together ,’ she said.
    ‘That’s funny,’ I said.
    Ruth looked up at me, her fine dark eyes glittering with tears. Then she grinned. For a moment I felt comfortable with her. ‘I’ll get a tissue,’ I said.
    She blew her nose and tucked the tissue up the sleeve of her wine-red jersey. ‘I’m sorry. I came here to talk about your problems not whinge about my own.’
    ‘I don’t have any problems,’ I said. ‘And I am just pleased you wanted to talk about yours with me. It seems I owe you.’ I didn’t add that I liked hearing about other people’s troubles – as long as those people were ones I didn’t particularly like. It perked me up. Until I remembered that wasn’t very nice at all and then I got depressed again.
    ‘No, really. I have not the slightest evidence against my poor boy. I’m being silly, aren’t I?’ She looked up at me as if she were expecting a reply.
    ‘More tea?’ I asked.
    She shook her head. ‘But thank you. I should be on my way. I just wanted to make sure you were all right. As I said, Olivia was worried.’
    I fetched her coat and walked her to the front door. There she turned round and looked at me with a peculiar little smile. ‘I don’t know what I would do