Pure Juliet Read Online Free PDF Page B

narrow, winding lane leading direct to Leete, where fields, of so dark a brown as to look purple, stretched away on either side behind hedges of withering thorn.
    ‘Away from what?’
    But he knew.
    ‘People,’ was the muttered answer.
    ‘People! What’s the matter with people?’
    ‘Always on at you.’
    ‘Not always. I—’ He turned to her, swept by one of the impulses he usually came to regret. ‘I – I won’t be, Juliet, I promise you.’
    ‘You won’t get the chance,’ she grinned, and set one foot firmly down in a puddle. ‘Damn, now that’s gone up me tights.’
    This silenced Frank. The immodesty of his past loves had been sensuous, and carefully calculated to stimulate, in a satisfying way. But this – this suggested a fifteen-year-old boy on his way back from the rugger field. And the legs covered by the torn tights were thin and shapeless. Frank, to his surprise, found himself thinking: Poor little beast. The very way she splashed through the puddles was like a heedless boy.
    Why? She had youth, lovely hair, apparently unshakeable self-confidence and a rich patroness. Why should he think of her as a poor little beast?
    He decided to persevere.
    ‘How did you meet Great-Aunt Addy? Something about squirrels, wasn’t it?’
    She gave him a cautious sideways look, and now he felt suspicion. Why should she look cautious? But, if she lied to him, he could always check with Great-Aunt. Unless she was lying to Aunt Addy as well. His suspicion increased. He was fond of his aunt, and would see to it that she was neither deceived nor hurt; the latter was the more important.
    ‘Oh – four years ago, it was,’ Juliet now said. ‘She came up to this hospital near where I live, see, ’cos they got some machine there what’s good for her illness, o’ny one in England, it is, and one of them at the hospital had her out for a breath of air in one of them wheelchairs – when she was a bit better, that was – and I was comin’ home from school through the park. She was feeding the squirrels and I’d got a few nuts, so I stopped too. And we got natterin’. ’Bout the squirrels. That’s how it was.’
    It was the longest speech she had made for days.
    He had no conception how long, nor what an effort it had been for Juliet, who had, very early in life, discovered that talking used up energy that could be more usefully employed; also, that silence was a weapon.
    He said: ‘What a coincidence.’
    She whirled round on him, stopping full in her swift walk, fixed him with eyes that, for one startling second, seemed to be darting flashes, and snapped loudly: ‘What?’
    ‘What?’ He stared, but before he could speak she said again, louder:
    ‘What j’oo say? About coincidence?’
    Frank was irritated; he was used to softness, teasing, mystery, and remote sweetness in the female friend.
    ‘I meant that it was an extraordinary coincidence that there should be that one hospital in England with that machine, and she should go there , and that you should be coming home through just that park and you should meet . . . And here you are. The whole thing due to a series of coincidences. That’s all I meant.’
    Juliet’s nose was raspberry pink, and what he could see of her legs were spattered with mud, and the sun had gone in, so that her hair looked dull. She stood, staring at him.
    ‘Don’t be cross, Juliet,’ he said gently. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’
    ‘Who’s upset?’ She began to walk on. ‘Yes, it is a – coincidence. Funny. I . . . I been thinking how funny it is, these four years.’ Her voice died away, and there was a long pause.
    ‘And then – who wrote first?’ he pursued at last.
    ‘Auntie. She took a fancy to me, like, and asked for me address and we used to meet every day, after that, and she asked me would I send her a line how I was getting on. Goin’ in for me O levels, I was.’
    ‘And you’ll be here for a year? Whose idea was that?’
    ‘You naturally nosy or