OUT OF THE BLUE a gripping novel of love lost and found Read Online Free PDF

soon, I think. Barbara, my stepmother, isn’t in good health.’ She lifts the carrier bag. ‘I expect I’ll be in again tomorrow, I’m sure to have forgotten something.’
    She keeps moving away, wanting to be gone but Mrs O’Donovan follows her out, holding her hand palm upwards to the fine drizzle that is falling. ‘That’s in for the rest of the day now, I’d say. The forecast says we have the makings of decent weather coming. ‘Twould be good to have some fine days before the nights draw in. Isn’t that a handy little car you have?’
    ‘It’s easy to drive, I thought it would be useful to have one.’
    ‘For sure, you couldn’t do without. Are you here long?’
    ‘A couple of months, probably.’
    Mrs O’Donovan makes an O of surprise with her lips and sticks her thumbs in the top of her trousers. ‘And do they give you them kind of holidays in England?’
    ‘Some of it’s holiday, some of it a sabbatical.’
    She waves goodbye from the car and turns left by the pub. She is tired by so much dialogue. At home, she has got into the habit of economical conversation. The fewer words you speak, the less likely you are to be asked the awkward questions that probe your dull secret like a drill bit on a worn tooth: ‘I saw Douglas at the bus stop, is he anxious about driving after his accident?’ ‘Your husband was looking a bit pale when I met him in the market, I suppose he’s had that awful flu virus.’ She is always aware of her fixed, bright smile, the false buoyancy of her voice when she replies. She is the master of the swift glance at the watch and the need to hurry away and has a ready battery of excuses to refuse social invitations. It is understood that she is doing a PhD and needs to study in her spare time.
    She reflects on the information that Mrs O’Donovan extracted from her, smiling to herself. Nanna wouldn’t have approved; Eileen O’Donovan, she always claimed, had a curious mind and a careless tongue, a deadly combination. It was best to keep your business to yourself and plough your own furrow, her grandmother maintained; that way you had no grounds to fall out with your neighbours. It is the path she follows herself in London, Liv thinks, shifting down a gear to negotiate a bend. But here, without her heavy history at her shoulder, she can afford to be more open. She thinks how Mrs O’Donovan speaks, the way her rolling accent and easy phrasing tease out a response, her statements disguising questions. The interrogative comment. She tries it herself, adopting the Cork brogue, making a splashing sound with her lips; ‘and ishn’t it . . . and you’re beyond . . . he’s shtill in the plumbing.’ Best of all, she thinks with relish, is a ‘touch of women’s troubles.’ She smiles, then chides herself for being an oversophisticated Londoner.
    As she negotiates the deserted, twisting lanes she feels her heart give a little lift. She spreads her fingers wide on the steering wheel and moves her shoulders up and down. The sun has ventured out again, despite Mrs O’Donovan’s forecast and there is a rainbow to her left. She hears the rush of water, smells its brackishness in the air. The hedges are high, filled with the red blaze of fuchsia. Now and again between the hedgerows there is a teasing glimpse of the Atlantic glittering in the distance, like a mirage. Crossing the hump-backed bridge over the river, she counts to fifteen and there it is perched at the top of the glen, a low white cottage with dark green door and windows. Glenkeen; beautiful glen. Before her father had a driveway tarmacked up to it, the only access had been via steep steps, which were often treacherous with moss. She hums and the sound of her voice startles her. It is a long time since she’s sung. Douglas mentioned that to her a couple of months back: ‘when we first got married, you were always singing around the house, it was like living with a lark or a nightingale.’ She’d looked at his rueful