Jump! Read Online Free PDF Page B

gates so assiduously that he had been nicknamed ‘Mother Fucker’.
    Those blond, delicate looks, soft voice and languid manner misled women and more often their husbands into thinking that Alan was gay. Women felt safe with him, until it was too late.
    ‘Being married to a workaholic,’ Alan was fond of saying, ‘gives you a lot of days off.’
    Despite leaving him so frequently to his own devices, Carrie had inherited her father’s insanely jealous nature and kept her husband very short.
    Alan’s arrival at Bluebell Hill the following afternoon coincided with the end of the Cheltenham Festival. Having had a good win on the Gold Cup, he brought for Etta, to whom he was devoted, a tube of Berocca, a bottle of vodka, a huge bunch of freesias and a white cashmere scarf to relieve the black of her funeral outfit.
    ‘Poor old darling,’ he said, hugging her.
    ‘I can’t get used to the quiet and him not calling for me,’ mumbled Etta. ‘So awful I wasn’t there.’
    ‘Trust the old bugger to depart in Cheltenham week.’
    ‘Is that where you were?’ said Romy reproachfully.
    To his wife, brother-and sister-in-law’s disapproval, Alan got stuck into the whisky. He then produced a lovely piece of Milton, appropriately from Samson Agonistes , for Martin to read.
    ‘Dad loved Bunyan – what about something uplifting from Pilgrim’s Progress ?’ suggested Carrie.
    ‘Giant Despair had a wife and her name was Diffidence,’ quipped Alan. ‘Sums up your dad and mum to a T.’
    Then, when they looked disapproving, he suggested Carrie might ‘read the bit about Mr Valiant-for-Truth and the trumpets sounding for him on the other side. We could hire a trumpeter to play the Last Post.’
    ‘That would cost money,’ complained Martin. ‘Dame Hermione is singing “Where’er You Walk” for nothing.’
    ‘Drummond wants to get up and describe all the nice things he remembers about Grampy,’ said Romy, putting on a soppy face.
    ‘Shouldn’t take long,’ murmured Alan, looking down his list. ‘And for you, Romy …’
    ‘I prefer to source my own material. I’ve found this lovely piece about only being in the next room.’
    ‘I love it,’ said Martin, crinkling his eyes engagingly. ‘“Call me by my old familiar name.”’
    ‘Stingy old bugger, in Sampson’s case,’ muttered Alan, who’d detested his father-in-law, a dislike that had been reciprocated.
    Carrie often vanished to work in Sampson’s office, but she and Martin also kept sloping off round the house earmarking loot.
    ‘Don’t they remind you of the Walrus and the Carpenter,’ Alan remarked to Etta, ‘sobbing over the oysters? Boo hoo, I can manage the Sickert if you can accommodate the Nevinson.’
    Etta didn’t laugh. Getting ice out of the fridge for Alan’s whisky, she proceeded to drop four cubes into Bartlett’s water bowl. She was haunted by a memory of Sampson sitting on the edge of the bed looking bewildered, not knowing where he was, like a torch battery running out. She shouldn’t have left him.
    Alan wandered upstairs to talk to Hinton, the gardener, who was dismantling the hoists in Sampson and Etta’s bedroom. He and Ruthie, he said, though shaken and worried about their own future, were determined to look after Etta as long as possible.
    ‘Poor soul’s pushed herself too far. I wish she’d rest. The boss made her use teabags twice. He was so tight with money.’
    ‘I’m tight without money,’ sighed Alan, aware that he’d overspent at Cheltenham. Wandering downstairs and finding Romy and Martin sipping sherry in the drawing room, he poured himself another large whisky.
    ‘If you’re writing that book on depression,’ said Romy beadily, ‘perhaps you could counsel Etta. I’m drawing a blank. She’s selfishly refusing to listen, and I’m such a good listener.’
    ‘All roads lead to Romy,’ observed Alan and received a scowl from his brother-in-law.
    Alan wished he hadn’t embarked on the bloody