A Week in Winter: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

you could try to break it down whilst I’m here. If we’re going to have a new door it wouldn’t make much difference, would it?’
    He frowned thoughtfully. ‘I’d rather not leave the house with a broken door,’ he said. ‘Anyone would be able to get in, wouldn’t they? I wouldn’t want to arrive tomorrow morning and find the house full of New Age travellers. There’s a party of them up on Davidstow, so I’ve heard. Give me a chance to think about this. I want to be able to leave the place secure, whatever I do.’
    ‘Sounds reasonable. Telephone me when you’ve done it and if you need me I’ll come down.’
    ‘I’ll do that.’ He looked at her, smiling a little. ‘I promise not to sneak off with any treasures I find.’
    She was pleased to see him relaxed again, less touchy. ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘why don’t we go down to the pub and have a pint and a sandwich before I go home?’
    He laughed. ‘Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse. I’ll lock up and be right with you.’

Chapter Four
    Driving back towards Launceston Maudie found herself rehearsing different ways of telling Selina that Moorgate was to be sold. Her fear was that, in a fit of misguided nostalgia, Selina might insist that she and Patrick should buy it. Despite the injection of cash from the sale of the London house, Maudie knew that her stepdaughter was not in a position to attempt such a quixotic act; not unless they intended to sell up and move to Cornwall. The idea of Selina living on the edge of Bodmin Moor made Maudie snort with laughter; childhood holidays were one thing, real life another. Selina’s smartly shod feet required a pavement; her love of entertaining and being entertained demanded delicatessens, theatres, restaurants. No, it was unlikely that she and Patrick would make any such sacrifice. The real problem was that Selina might insist that Moorgate should be kept as a place for holidays; that she might try to persuade Patrick that it was their duty to save it.
    Looking out at the bleak moorland landscape, the black, twisted thorn, the dying, rusty bracken, Maudie suddenly felt all the melancholy of the season. She knew that she was, once again, to be cast in the role of wicked stepmother. Patricia and Simon, happily settled in Australia, would receive letters and telephone calls reporting this latest calumny, and Selina’s boys—Chris and Paul—would be prevailed upon to add their weight of disapproval. As she slowed to allow a sheep to meander across the road, Maudie shrugged. Patricia was too far away to lend more than a token support; as for the boys, they didn’t give a damn about Moorgate and weretoo busy with their own lives to take action. For once, however, Posy might be on her mother’s side.
    Rain misted the windscreen, drifting across from the sea in thick vaporous clouds, smothering the granite outcrops in its clammy embrace, obliterating the road ahead.
    ‘Damn,’ muttered Maudie, switching on the car’s sidelights and turning the windscreen wiper to intermittent. ‘Damn and blast.’
    Driving carefully she cast her mind back to brighter, sunnier days; a glorious summer twenty years before, when she and Daphne had spent the holidays at Moorgate. Daphne’s daughter, Emily, had been unwell and Selina, committed to assisting with the boys’ school trip to Venice, had been let down by the au pair who was supposed to be looking after Posy. It was Hector who had suggested that they should all go to Moorgate: Maudie and Posy; Daphne and Emily. The sea air and walks on the moor would be good for them, he’d said and, somehow, it had all been arranged—although Selina was clearly unhappy at the plan. Hector and Philip, Daphne’s husband, appeared at intervals—punctuation points in the long, slow, hot days which slid seamlessly past. By day the house had been filled with sunshine; the flagged floors shockingly cold to hot, bare feet; by night the bedrooms were washed by moorland air and