Free Drowning Rose by Marika Cobbold Page B

if it was happening again. And do you know, the worst of it is that I can feel people looking at me and then looking at him and thinking, “What else could she expect?” If they see me at all. Being large doesn’t stop you from being invisible, you know.’
    I felt suddenly defensive of her. ‘You’re worth ten of him,’ I said.
    Ruth frowned. ‘Why do you say that? Most people think Robert’s quite a catch. Maybe not compared with your Gabriel but then I don’t set my standards quite that high.’
    I put my hand out and touched her arm. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dismiss Robert. I simply wanted you to see that you have no reason to feel grateful or inferior.’
    Ruth clasped her shoulder bag to her side with her elbow and opened the front door. ‘Well, don’t be a stranger,’ she said. ‘Although now I know what you really think of Robert . . .’
    I closed the door behind her, my head feeling like a snow-globe that had been given a good shake. I tried to get back to my work but when after several attempts the Wolf’s sheepish grin still looked more like the smirk of a psychopath, I gave up and put my things away. Then Uncle Ian called.
    He hoped he wasn’t interrupting my supper and I told him not at all; the timing was perfect.
    ‘Good,’ he said. He went on to say that he had spoken to my mother, who agreed completely.
    ‘I can’t see how she could,’ I said. ‘She always gets the timing wrong when she calls.’
    There was a pause. ‘What are you talking about?’ Uncle Ian asked.
    ‘Timing. What were you talking about?’
    I heard the impatient sigh at the other end of the phone. ‘The house.’
    It was like listening to the radio with only intermittent sound. I must have missed something.
    I decided that asking, ‘what house?’ would irritate him even further so instead I tried an, ‘Aha, the house .’ Hoping this would lead him to reveal more.
    ‘As I told your mother, people are apt to make their wills with the excitement of buying Christmas presents, forgetting they won’t actually be there to witness the unwrapping.’
    I paused, still confused as to where exactly this was all heading. ‘Ain’t that the truth,’ I said finally.
    ‘You’re not an American.’
    ‘Ain’t . . . No, no, I’m not.’
    ‘So what do you say?’
    ‘Good-oh?’
    ‘So you agree. Excellent.’ The ‘excellent’ came out like the sound of a starting gun. ‘I’ll call your mother and tell her the good news. She’ll be thrilled.’
    ‘Uncle Ian.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’
    There was silence. I crossed and uncrossed my ankles. I did good toes and naughty toes. Eventually he spoke. His voice was a model of enforced patience. ‘Olivia told me your rental agreement on your current place runs out on the second of April. If we start looking now you might just get somewhere in time.’
    ‘Ah, I see. And thank you . . . for caring, but I’m not worried. I’m on to it. I’ve got plenty of time to find another flat.’
    ‘We think a house.’
    ‘I wasn’t thinking of a house.’ This was not strictly true. I was often thinking of a house, a house like the one that Gabriel and I had lived in when we were married or some house in the abstract, a house just for me with a workshop and a garden where I could grow bluebells beneath a small pink magnolia. But in the sense of actually living in one I was not thinking about it. I wanted to stay in the area and the rental on even a tiny flat like this one was on the edge of what I could afford.
    ‘With a flat you’re always in the hands of other people, even when you own the lease. You have very little control over matters such as when maintenance and repairs are carried out, or by whom, or over the cost. No, your mother agrees, a house is a better idea.’
    I reminded myself that age had had its way even with Uncle Ian and that he was now a very different man from the one I had once known. ‘I