Call of the Undertow Read Online Free PDF Page B

yourself now it’s gardening time,’ Graham said. ‘When I first moved up from Stirling, someone kept coming in and deadheading my dandelions when I was
out.’
    ‘That’s a bit creepy,’ she said.
    ‘They didn’t want them re-seeding in their own gardens, I suppose. It all stopped when Mary moved in and we started taking the garden a bit more seriously.’
    Maggie wondered vaguely if he was telling her this to make clear his marital status. It came as a relief.
    ‘Aye, they’ve found their breakfast,’ Graham said of the gannets, binoculars poised. ‘Just deciding whether they want it on toast.’
    One of the birds then drew in its wings and arrowed into the sea, returning soon to a surface still frothing with its impact.
    ‘Can dive up to 60 miles per hour, these guys,’ Graham said. ‘They’re wearing crash helmets you know?’
    Maggie laughed.
    ‘Little air sacs under the skin of the head and neck that protect them. Eye guards as well. Like racing drivers.’ He grabbed his hands onto an imaginary steering wheel and growled
the noise of an accelerating engine.
    Maggie took the binoculars from her eyes.
    ‘Bang!’ Graham said next to her. A gannet cracking onto the surface of water. Knifing through it into a different world.
    She felt slightly sick. She was off-kilter, still hearing the imagined car. A terrible skid with a bump at the end of it; a softish sound, not a crack or a bang. Followed by a dragging
sensation. She shook her head, shivering it away.
    Then Graham was speaking, peering at her, waving. ‘Hello?’
    ‘Yes?’ she said.
    ‘Lights are on but the house is empty, eh? You’re a bit vacant.’
    ‘You what?’ She clutched at her stomach.
    He laughed and turned back to the gannets.
    A knock came on her door on a Saturday morning a week or so later. She was taking the weekend off. A rest from the computer and relief for her creaky limbs. She left her study
and saw straight away through the glass there was no one there. Surely not a knock-and-run game this far from the village? When she opened the door to look out she found a parcel lying on the
decking outside the door and heard gravel crunch under tyres as the postie pulled away.
    A book, ‘Home Baking’, and a tiny note: ‘Hope your first weeks have gone well. Thought this might help pass the evenings now you’re away from city lights and missing out
on your weekly cinnamon swirls at Joey’s. We thought of coming up to see you for the long May weekend, but when John looked it up on the AA site, he said we’d spend the whole weekend
driving. So had to put this in the post instead. Sorry!’
    Helen. Still trying to be her friend. Most of them had drifted away from her even before Frank had. ‘They didn’t drift. You shooed them,’ Carol had said. Perhaps what she meant
was that Maggie didn’t answer their questions. Not unless they were about cakes, singing, or work.
    She flicked through the pages. Why on earth would she want to bake? But when she came to photos of plump seeded loaves and salty focaccia with rosemary, her mouth watered slightly and she
thought of the loss of her local bakeries and delis in Oxford. Delicious fresh bread was something she missed here where the village shop couldn’t do much better than sliced ‘Scottish
Pride’.
    She was queuing for the till in the village shop later that morning with a bottle of wine in one hand, and a bag of ‘strong white bread flour’ and dried yeast in
the other. A refrigerator unit by the door spelled out ‘healthy eating’ in faded lettering. Its shelves were practically bare, except for some out-of-date macaroni pies and
‘Dairylea Dippers’. She tutted inwardly.
    ‘Maggie?’
    She turned and looked down on a small, dark woman dressed in what seemed to be jogging gear. Recognition slowly dawned. ‘Mrs Thompson.’
    ‘Do call me Audrey.’ She smiled. ‘How are you?’
    ‘Fine, fine’. She noticed Audrey had children’s comics and sweets in her