A Kind of Grief Read Online Free PDF Page A

appropriate than can’t . “But as an artist, I will say this. Just work, Joanne. Just keep on writing, or in my case painting, and something will come.”
    â€œI’ll try. But everyday life leaves little time.”
    Alice laughed. “Not an excuse. Yet I take your point. We women are always putting off our dreams.”
    In the farmyard, with the sun gone, the wind bit.
    â€œThat’s my thinking corner.” Alice gestured to a south-facing spot against the wall of the outbuilding where a bench, a table, and a dilapidated deck chair sheltered in a thicket of fading chrysanthemums and climbing rose. “Next year I’ll build a conservatory where I can work. Or sit for whiles doing nothing.”
    â€œBusy doing nothing, working the whole day through,” Joanne half-sang. Then stopped and blushed. “ Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs .”
    Alice looked blank.
    Then Joanne remembered that only mothers had to sit through three showings of the same film. “I’m not sure I ever have time to do nothing,” Joanne confessed. “I’d like to. Though if I did, I’d end up feeling I should be getting on with something, anything.” Joanne knew she was blethering again but couldn’t stop.
    â€œAh, yes, that Scottish Presbyterian guilt complex. Know it well.” Alice held out her hand. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Joanne. Sorry I can’t help you find your witch. Though I’m certain you’ll find your story.” Alice’s hands, rough gardener’s hands, were warm. As was her smile. “Just listen to the wind, is my advice.”
    At the top of the track, watching Joanne walk on the center ridge out of the muddy ruts, Alice called out, “Your dog, where is he? She?”
    â€œMy dog?” Joanne turned back. “I don’t have a dog.”
    â€œThe one on the rug in front of the Aga?”
    â€œI thought he was yours.” Joanne looked around at the empty hills, the distant mountain to the west, the glint of water to the far east, and saw no sign of habitation. “He came up the glen with me, and I assumed . . .” Now the light was fading. “Sorry, I can’t help you. I have a long drive.”
    â€œYes, yes, leave him with me.” Alice waved her away.
    Back in the kitchen, the dog looked up at her, cocking one ear. Yes? You wanted me? Receiving no reply, only a long silent stare, he harrumphed softly and went back to sleep.
    â€œOne night.” Alice spoke firmly. She knew how to handle dogs. “One night, then you go back wherever it is you belong.”

C HAPTER 3

    A t first Alice had found the gossip amusing, the overheard snatches of conversations, the furtive muttering in the butcher’s, the baker’s, the five-bar-gate maker’s, abruptly halting as her presence became known. She’d later laughed about it and shared the stories with the hens.
    Alice doesn’t worry when the local policeman came plodding up the track, holding on to his hat with one hand. He is not a threat, perhaps visiting to warn her of dogs on the loose worrying the sheep. Plainclothes policemen of mysterious variety are threatening; they are the ones she fears.
    â€œMiss Ramsay. Constable Harris.”
    â€œCome in. I’ll put the kettle on.”
    He is too much of a Highlander to refuse.
    As he sips the tea, he looks around. Frankly, openly, he stares. The kitchen, with slate floors and whitewashed walls and cooking range—an Aga, he notes—is similar to most farm kitchens yet like nothing he’s ever known. The bright cushions, curtains, rugs he takes no notice of. The flowers and leaves hanging from the pulley, the fresh tree branches standing in a zinc bucket in a corner, he notices and doesn’t understand. However, the paintings and, most of all, the small and larger skulls used as ornaments, and in the case of a broken fox skull, a pen holder, fascinate