Out of the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

a marine electronics firm in Weymouth. The job fell through after a few years." The phrase was another triumph of reticence. He did not think Iris was ready to hear how he had been falsely accused of embezzlement. "A friend offered me a caretaking job at his villa on Rhodes around the same time, so .. ."
    "This friend would have been the disgraced government minister Alan Dysart?"
    "Yes. But he wasn't a minister then. And he hadn't been disgraced."
    "How did you come to know him?"
    "He worked for Barry and me when he was a student." Harry shifted awkwardly in his chair. "Look, where's all this getting us?"
    "The present, Harry. Your present."
    "I live at 78 Foxglove Road, Kensal Green. I have a flat on the first floor. My landlady and her cat live downstairs. I pay the rent by working part-time at a nearby garage. I get by. I live from day to day. I survive. What more do you want to know?"
    "Never married?"
    "Since you ask, yes. Just a few years ago."
    "But you don't live together?"
    "She moved to Newcastle to find a job. She has a cousin who's a solicitor there. He took her on as a secretary." Growing caution prevented Harry explaining that he had married Zohra in order to save her from being deported back to Sri Lanka. It had been an act of unambiguous generosity. But somehow he did not think it would sound like it. "That's enough about me. What about you? And David?"
    She drank some tea, palpably playing for time before answering.
    "There's something you need to understand, Harry. Something that isn't easy to say. What happened between us thirty-four years ago had an ... ulterior motive."
    "What do you mean?"
    "Claude and I had been trying to have children for a long time. Without success. And I wanted children. Badly. Claude was a good man. I loved him. But.. ."
    "He couldn't get you pregnant?"
    "No. Whereas .."."
    "I could."
    "It sounds awful, doesn't it? So clinical. So ... calculating."
    "I thought we were having fun. Simple uncomplicated fun."
    "Simple, yes. Uncomplicated, no."
    "So, the realization that you were pregnant by me wasn't a horrible shock so much as a satisfactory outcome. Did you tell David that?"
    "Yes. Which is why he would never have come looking for you."
    "Well, thanks," he said, allowing the bitterness to break through in his tone. Thanks a lot for making my son understand I was just a means to an end."
    "Your son in the strictest biological sense only." She threw back her head, as if in search of calm as well as logic. "I won't stop you visiting him, Harry. I could, but I won't. On the other hand, I'm not going to let you invade his life. Or mine."
    "How long do I have before you switch him off?"
    "It's not like that."
    "Will you at least warn me ... when you reach a decision?"
    "Yes." She looked at him gravely. "I will." She took a tiny notebook from her handbag, tore out a page, wrote something on it and slid it across the table towards him. "My sister's address and telephone number. You can contact me there ... if you really need to."
    "Does she know about me?"
    "She will."
    "And Ken?"
    Iris shook her head. "I'm not going to answer any more questions, Harry. You already know as much as you've a right to. Probably more."
    "Not in the opinion of whoever left me that message."
    "If there was a message."
    "You said yourself I couldn't have found out any other way."
    "I suppose not. It's just another mystery."
    "Like the overdose? If it wasn't a suicide attempt and it couldn't have been an accident.. ."
    "Stop it." She had raised her voice for the first time, sufficiently to attract a curious glance from a nearby table. "I'm tired of such speculation. Don't you think I've been through it all in my mind, over and over again? In the end, the whys and wherefores don't matter. They won't help him breathe or eat or speak or walk. Nothing will." She was trembling now, her eyes brimming with tears. "Could it be some kind of punishment for deceiving Claude, I wonder? I asked myself that about his diabetes