A Bouquet of Barbed Wire Read Online Free PDF

hands. ‘Darling, you’re going to have to get over this. We all had a lot to say at the time, we were upset and quite rightly, and we said what we thought and they took it. That’s enough. It has to be enough. They’re married now and Prue’s having a baby and it hardly matters any more when she started it. A few people will gossip but that’s all. It’s over. It’s settled. It’s not an issue any more.’
    ‘Is that how you think of it?’
    ‘How else can I think of it? Darling, look, I was as upset as you were when it happened but—’
    He interrupted her. ‘No. No, I don’t think you were.’
    ‘Well, nearly. It’s always worse for fathers of daughters.’
    ‘How calm you are. Putting it all into neat little categories. It’s
Prue
you’re talking about, you know.’
    ‘Yes, I know. But it’s
over.’
    They stared at each other for a long moment. Finally Cassie got up and went over the window. Manson closed his eyes again. She sounded very distant when she said, ‘You do have other children, you know.’
    ‘What on earth does that mean?’
    ‘Just that. Prue doesn’t have to be your sole preoccupation, especially now.’ An apologetic note crept into her voice. ‘After all, she is officially off our hands.’
    ‘Yes.’
    Cassie turned from the window and walked back to him. He noticed that her new middle-aged roundness of which he had only recently become aware was emphasised by a dirndl skirt and blouse in the same shade, giving her two main curves above and below a wide waist. The outfit was green, almost as grass, and had a homespun quality about it, as if she had made it herself—though he knew she had not. She had a peasant air, which intellectual women often acquire, perhaps in compensation, as if hiding a brain behind the earth-mother image, wide child-bearing hips, freckled skin. He remembered a holiday in France when the children were small and Cassie had worn her then honey-coloured hair in plaits round her head. They had eaten bread and cheese by the roadside, drunk rough red wine and camped in a tent, and she had seemed the personification of unthinking sensuality. I seek refuge in her, he thought, but she is not like me, she does not see things as I see them.
    Cassie said, ‘You haven’t accepted it yet, have you? But you must. They’re married. She doesn’t live here any more.’ Her voice was tender but she spoke slowly, as if to a foreigner unfamiliar with the language.
    ‘I know that,’ he said, brushing away the tenderness. ‘It’s the future I’m worried about. What sort of life will she have with him? What are they going to live on?’
    ‘If he gets his degree,’ said Cassie placidly, ‘they should be all right. It won’t do them any harm to struggle for a bit. Look, darling, I hate to be so unoriginal, but what’s done is done. You know?’
    ‘Yes. And we let it happen.’
    ‘Well, we discussed it very thoroughly. But we didn’t have a lot of choice, did we?’
    ‘We could have stopped them.’
    ‘And had them go to court?’
    ‘They might have been bluffing. We should have called their bluff.’
    He was not aware how grim he sounded. Cassie sat down again, saying, ‘Just a minute, are you telling me now that we made a mistake?’
    ‘I’m saying that they made a mistake and we helped them perpetuate it.’
    Cassie looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment. ‘Do you really think he’s so bad?’
    ‘Well, he’s hardly what I would have chosen for Prue.’
    ‘No. But Prue chose him for herself.’
    ‘Did she? Do you call that a free choice? After what he did.’
    She said mildly, ‘It does take two, you know.’
    ‘Cass, you know I hold him entirely responsible.’
    ‘Then you’re just not being realistic. Prue isn’t a child and she isn’t a fool. She knew what she was doing.’
    ‘That’s ridiculous.’
    ‘Peter, he wasn’t the first.’
    Manson was suddenly aware of the empty glass in his hand and the longing to break it. He put it