All Change: Cazalet Chronicles Read Online Free PDF Page A

pay for a babysitter and have a night out at the cinema and the Blue Windmill, a very cheap Cypriot restaurant where you could have lamb cutlets and dolmades and delicious coffee. They would come back on the 59 bus, her head on his shoulder. She often fell asleep then – he could tell because her head and his shoulder became perceptibly heavier. We should have splashed out on a taxi, he often thought on the longish walk down the street to their home. They would get back to find Mrs Sturgis asleep over her knitting and he would pay her while Clary went to see the children, who shared a small bedroom. Bertie slept wedged between fourteen woolly animals lining each side of his bed, and one – his favourite monkey – with its paw in his mouth. Harriet lay flat on her back. She would have undone her pigtails and pushed all her hair to the top of her head, which she usually did ‘for coolth’, she had once explained. When Clary kissed her, a small secret smile would flit across her face before it was again abandoned to the stern tranquillity of sleep. Her darling, beautiful children . . . But those were rare days and usually ended in the often temperamental flurry of children’s supper and bathtime.
    Sometimes Archie cooked supper while Clary read proofs. Occasionally her father, Rupert, and Zoë came to supper, bringing treats like smoked salmon and Bendicks Bittermints. Rupert and Archie had been friends since the Slade – well before the war – and Clary’s marked hostility towards her pretty stepmother had mellowed into friendship. Their boys, Georgie and Bertie, were both seven and despite their different interests – Georgie’s menagerie and Bertie’s museum – they had good times together at Home Place in the holidays. What a blessing that house had been, with the Duchy and Rachel always pleased to see them! So, on the morning that Archie had gone off to paint his City worthy, while she was sorting out the children’s clothes for the coming week in France, it was a shock to be rung by Zoë and be told of the Duchy’s death. Everyone in the family had known that she had been ill, but telephone calls to Rachel had always elicited a stalwart response, ‘She’s doing well’, ‘I think she’s on the mend’, that kind of thing. She hadn’t wanted to worry them, Zoë said Rupert had said.
    No, Clary thought, Aunt Rachel would say those things. It was odd how, when people didn’t want to worry each other, they worried them more than ever. Poor Aunt Rachel! She felt sadder for her than for the Duchy, who had had a long, serene life and had died at home with her daughter beside her. But I feel sad for the old lady as well. Or perhaps I just feel sad for myself because she was there all my life, and I shall miss her. Clary sat at the kitchen table and had a small weep. Then she rang Polly.
    ‘I know. Uncle Rupert told Gerald.’
    ‘Do you know when the funeral will be?’
    ‘I should think they’ll arrange all that at the weekend.’ Polly seemed faintly shocked.
    ‘I know it sounds awful, but we’re supposed to be going to France, and of course we won’t go if it means missing the funeral. I just wondered . . .’ Clary tailed off to silence.
    ‘Well, you’ll be able to go later, won’t you? Sorry, Clary, but I’ve got to go. Andrew’s on the loose. It’s one of his days for not wearing clothes. Gerald has taken the girls to school and then Nan to the dentist to have a tooth out. See you soon.’ And she rang off.
    Clary sat looking at the telephone. She wanted to tell Archie, but he hated being interrupted when he had a sitter. She felt besieged by guilt. Someone she loved had died and all she was doing was worrying about the holiday and the financial implications. Archie would have had to pay for the caravan and probably their tickets on the ferry. They almost certainly wouldn’t be able to pay for all that a second time. And going to Home Place would stop: she couldn’t imagine Aunt Rachel