After Rain Read Online Free PDF Page A

this house Margy had met Philip’s legal colleagues and was left in no doubt that he was held in high regard, that he commanded both loyalty and respect. Meticulous, fair, precise as a blade, he was feared by his court-room opponents, and professionally he did not have a silly side: in his anticipated heights of success, he would surely not become one of those infamous elderly judges who flapped about from court to court, doling out eccentric sentences, lost outside the boundaries of the real world. On the other hand, among a circle of wives and other women of his acquaintance, he was known as ‘Bad News’, a reference to the misfortune of being placed next to him at a dinner party. On such occasions, when he ran out of his stock of conversational questions he tried no more, and displayed little interest in the small-talk that was, increasingly desperately, levelled at him. He had a way of saying, flatly, ‘I see’ when a humorous anecdote, related purely for his entertainment, came to an end. And through all this he was not ill at ease; others laboured, never he.
        As Margy dwelt on this catalogue of Philip’s favourable and less favourable characteristics, husband and wife passed by the kitchen window. Francesca smiled through the glass at her friend, a way of saying that all was well again after her small faux pas of nagging too soon after her husband’s return. Then Margy heard the french windows of the sitting-room being closed and Philip’s footsteps passed through the hall, on their way to the children’s bedroom.
        Francesca came in to help, and to open wine. Chatting about other matters, she laid out blue tweed mats on the Formica surface of the table, and forks and other cutlery and glasses. It wasn’t so much Philip, Margy thought; had he been married to someone else, she was sure she wouldn’t have minded him so. It was the marriage itself: her friend’s marriage astonished her.
        
        Every so often Margy and Francesca had lunch at a local bistro called La Trota. It was an elegant rendezvous, though inexpensive and limited in that it offered only fish and a few Italian cheeses. Small and bright and always bustling, its decorative tone was set by a prevalence of aluminium and glass, and matt white surfaces. Its walls were white also, its floor colourfully tiled — a crustacea pattern that was repeated on the surface of the bar. Two waitresses — one from Sicily, the other from Salerno — served at the tables. Usually, Francesca and Margy had Dover sole and salad, and a bottle of Gavi.
        La Trota was in Barnes, not far from Bygone Antiques, where Margy was currently employed. In the mornings Francesca helped in the nearby Little Acorn Nursery School, which both Jason and Ben had attended in the past. Margy worked in Bygone Antiques because she was, ‘for the time being’ as she put it, involved with its proprietor, who was, as she put it also, ‘wearily married’.
        On the Tuesday after Philip’s discovery of the concrete in his golf-bag they lunched outside, at one of La Trota’s three pavement tables, the June day being warm and sunny Two months ago, when Margy had begun her stint at Bygone Antiques, Francesca was delighted because it meant they would be able to see more of one another: Margy lived some distance away, over the river, in Pimlico.
        ‘He was livid of course,’ Francesca reported. ‘I mean, they said it was a joke.’
        Margy laughed.
        ‘I mean, how could it be a joke? And how could it be a joke to say Miss Martindale’s mother was dead?’
        ‘Did Mrs. Sleet’s headscarf ever turn up ?’
        ‘You don’t think they stole Mrs. Sleet’s headscarf?’
        ‘What I think is you’re lucky to have lively children. Imagine if they never left the straight and narrow.’
        ‘How lovely it would be!’
        Francesca told of the quarrel that had followed the discovery of the golf-bag,