Return to Mandalay Read Online Free PDF

unhappy when Alec was such a good man who tried so hard? And really, she had everything she could ever need.
Apart from your daughter
, a small voice whispered back to her.
Apart from your father. Apart from Nick
.
    She slipped the apron over her head and tied it behind her and round. This was a new apricot silk blouse and she didn’t want to get any stains on it.
    It was just that back then it was a different sort of happiness. The sort that made you feel truly alive. The sort that had nothing to do with a comfortable home or money. And everything to do with love.
    Rosemary reached up to get the Kilner jars down from the top cupboard, everything she didn’t use too often was kept there.
    Back then, she’d had a job she enjoyed, working as a legal secretary to a friendly bunch at their local solicitors. And she had a daughter she loved – they had wanted to have more children but it just hadn’t happened for them. She lived close to the parents who had brought her into the world, with whom she got on well and who were always there for her. And she had a husband she adored.
    On the drainer was a basket of sloes, small and plump from the rain. Rosemary had picked them this morning from the patch of wasteland behind their apartment building. It wasn’t a garden and it certainly wasn’t countryside. Even so, the white flowers were pretty in springtime and in autumn the berries clustered like bunches of tiny black grapes. More importantly, they reminded her of England. Of hedgerows and country lanes in Dorset. And inevitably of her life in Dorset, of Nick.
    Rosemary sighed. The problem had been, of course, that Nick was her life. You couldn’t love like that more than once in a lifetime. And so when she lost that … Her house of cards had simply come crashing down. Which was what lifewas like, of course. Just when everything was going well, just when you thought you could relax and enjoy what it had to offer, that’s when life would hit you for six.
Ouf
. Rosemary could feel the pain right in her belly – just as she’d felt it that day.
    ‘Nick?’ She’d come home for lunch. Cheese on toast, she decided, as she was walking up the path. Then she’d clear up – she hadn’t had time that morning – before heading down to the supermarket to get a few bits and pieces before she picked Eva up from school. She only worked mornings, which was ideal, and in the holidays her parents were more than happy to step in, especially Dad. He adored his granddaughter, he seemed to have bucket-loads of patience and time for her. And Rosemary tried not to feel resentful. It was different when you were a grandparent, she reminded herself. You weren’t working, you welcomed the chance to give your grandchildren the time you hadn’t given your own kids. Perhaps she’d be the same …
    ‘Nick?’ He always came back for lunch unless he was seeing a client who lived some distance away. Nick’s workshop was only a few minutes round the corner. He designed and made stained glass for doors, windows, churches even. Beautiful stained glass that could recreate a bygone era, that could send an echo of the twenties or thirties in Art Nouveau or Deco geometrics and curves, that could send a warm amber glow into a hallway when the sun shone, a shaft of blue like a summer’s day, or even a spark of fire.
    She went into the kitchen. ‘Nick?’ Dropped her bag.
    He was lying, crumpled on the floor. He’d fallen. He was unconscious. ‘Christ, Nick.’
    She could still see it, see him; the image was branded on her memory. Rosemary picked one of the berries up and rolled it between her forefinger and thumb. She still had a few spines lodged in her fingers – blackthorns were not kind to predators and she supposed she was a predator in a way. And they weren’t pleasant to eat raw, the taste was bitter and dry. But in gin … Sloe Gin at Christmas was Alec’s favourite. The longer you steeped the berries, the richer the drink; Rosemary