Plotted in Cornwall Read Online Free PDF Page A

special.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d like that.’
    Michael grinned and walked away. He had expected a refusal. That was another thing about Miranda, she was far from predictable.
    Names and numbers came up on her screen. Miranda tried to concentrate, made herself do so, but all the time she was thinking about what she would tell Michael over dinner and how he would take it.
    When the working day was over her head ached but she would not back out. Her mind was made up. She had placed her resignation letter in an envelope and left iton her manager’s desk. During the afternoon he had called her in and asked why she wasn’t happy with them.
    ‘It isn’t that. It’s silly, I know, but I’m homesick.’ He had not been able to understand it nor had he been able to persuade her to stay.
    And now she must tell Michael because, in the way of all offices, the news would travel fast. He mustn’t hear it from someone else.
    The London bus lumbered through the streets so slowly she might just as well have walked. People got on and off, singly and in groups, some laughing with the relief of another day of work being over. Christmas lights shone in some of the shop windows but not overhead yet. She would still be there for the switching-on ceremony. Crowds thronged the pavements, homeward-going workers, shoppers with carrier bags, tourists and people wanting a meal before the theatre. And I won’t miss any of it, she realised with a sense of freedom. All I want is to walk by the sea, to hear it crashing against the shore, to feel the wind in my hair and smell the salt in the air. And more than that, I want to see my mother.
    But Michael first. She would shower andchange and break it to him gently. I don’t want to hurt him, she thought, knowing it to be true. If he loved her, which she suspected he did, she would not be able to avoid it. But if she stayed she might hurt him more. Either way she couldn’t win.

3
    At five to nine Rose said, ‘Okay, you can pack up now. What I’d like you to do for me for next week is a still life. I know it might sound boring, and it certainly isn’t my favourite art form, but it’s still good discipline. Choose one household object and sketch it. Keep it simple, a plain background, and concentrate on the lines and perspective. We’ve all seen paintings of a bowl of apples or a jug on a table, but it isn’t as easy as it looks. And don’t forget the direction of light and shadows. That’s it, then. See you all again next week.’
    Chairs clattered and conversations began, noisy after the near silence of the last two hours. Friendships had been formed during the six weeks the course had been running.Rose knew who gave whom a lift and those who walked part of the way home together. Harry Osborne, a retired widower, waited alone at the front of the building inside the glass doors until his taxi arrived to carry him off. She was thinking of him, wondering if he was lonely, when Joel came over and made his strange request. She listened patiently, nodded, and found herself agreeing to do as he had asked.
    When the last of her varied bunch of students had left, Rose turned down the heating and locked up.
    In any group there was always one outsider, one person who did not and never would fit. Humoured or tolerated, ignored or ridiculed, there was no way to draw them into the natural cohesion which usually formed between those who shared a common interest. Joel Penhaligon was such a one, but Joel had talent and he had stamina and Rose had recognised that from the start. It was this which set him apart from the others. Of the eclectic group who turned up each week he was also the youngest. She was interested in him and his work but he was not an easy person to talk to. He was as Cornish as his name, with the squat muscular body, swarthy skin andnear-black curly hair of his ancestors. Neither ugly nor handsome but pleasant-faced, Rose decided. When he smiled, which wasn’t often, there was a