Fay Weldon - Novel 23 Read Online Free PDF

from Felicity. I said as much to
Joy. It was unwise. She slammed her feet down on both brake and accelerator
together and when the bump and stop came - Volvos can do a lot but cannot mind
read - insisted on turning off the headlights to save the battery and going
right into the forest with her torch, clambering up banks and down gullies in
search of a deer she was convinced she had winged. This time I refused to go
with her. I had remembered Lyme’s disease, the nasty lingering flu-like illness
which you could catch from the deer tick, a creature the size of a pin’s head
which jumps around in these particular woods. They leap on to human flesh, dig
themselves in and bite. All is well if you bother to do a body search and your
eyesight is good and you pluck them off with tweezers within twenty-four hours:
but overlook just one and they bed in and you can be off work for months. I was
safer in the Volvo with the doors and windows closed. I did not know how high
the ticks could jump. The next thing would be - if this were a comedy film -
Joy would break her ankle, and the volume of her distress would be awesome.
Even as I thought these uncharitable thoughts there was a rumble and a rising
roar and an eighteen-wheel truck swerved past us, the breath of its passing
shadowing the windows, missing me and the Volvo by inches. It went blazing and
blaring off into the dark. I simply blanked my mind, as I do during the
commercials on TV, waiting for real life to start again. I was in shock.
                 These
truck drivers should be prosecuted,’ she yelled when she got back into the
driving seat seconds later. They should remember there might be cars parked
out here, with their lights off to save the batteries.’
                 ‘Of
course they should,’ I said. Though we weren’t exactly
parked.’ Her veined hands tightened on the wheel.
                 ‘I
can see you have a lot of Felicity in you,’ she said. She’d quieted
considerably. ‘You English can be so sarcastic. This car could have been a
write-off and you’re so cool about it.’
                 I
refrained from comment. We drove the rest of the way in silence. She seemed
chastened. There were no more animal stops and she peered ahead into the
dappled dark and tried to pay attention. There was something very sweet about
her.
                 One
way and another, what with travel, terror, amazement, and the effort of not
saying what I thought, by the time I got to Felicity’s I was exhausted.
Felicity had waited up, playing Sibelius very loud, the privilege of those who
live a fair distance from their neighbours. Lights were low and seductive, the
furniture minimalist. She reclined on a sofa, wrapped in a Chinese silk gown of
exquisite beauty, which fell aside to show her long graceful legs. Not a sign
of a varicose vein, but she was, I noticed, wearing opaque tights, where once
she would have been proud to show the smooth whiteness of bare unblemished
skin. The central heating was turned up so high she could not have been
feeling the cold. She looked frailer than when I last saw her, which
disconcerted me. She had always been light and thin and pale, and
fine-featured, but now she looked as if someone should slap a red fragile
sticker on her. Her hair, so like mine in colour and texture, had faded and
thinned, but there was still enough of it to make a show. Her eyes were bright
enough, and her mind sharp as ever. She looked younger, in fact, than her
friend Joy. She had one arm in a sling and a bandaged ankle, which she kept
prominently on display, just in case I decided she could look after herself. I
was family, and she was claiming me.
                 ‘How
was Joy’s driving?’ Felicity was kind enough to ask me, having been the one to
inflict her on me. ‘I hope she wasn’t too noisy.’
                 Crazed
by weariness I replied by singing A
Tombstone Every Mile at the top of my