Sheer Blue Bliss Read Online Free PDF

said.
    â€˜Well, take Alfred home then, we’re not Siamese twins.’
    â€˜Constance!’
    â€˜Sorry, Father, but … it’s just so glorious and it’s well away from the war, isn’t it? What war could there be here?’
    â€˜We’ll talk about it.’
    â€˜Please let me.’
    â€˜We’ll see.’ It was no good wheedling. Connie left them before they could send her to bed and wandered about in the garden breathing in the cooling fragrance of the flowers, watching how the pale roses seeped light, glowing like small planets in the dusk.
    And in the morning it was decided that Alfie would return to London and that Connie could stay. ‘But think of it as a holiday,’ Mother said, ‘a trial period, nothing is set in stone and if you’re homesick …’
    â€˜I won’t be.’
    â€˜We’re not talking about for ever,’ Father chipped in. ‘Understand, Connie, this is a temporary expedient, for the duration only.’ Connie smiled past him at the swallows swooping for gnats. They had been left alone to say their goodbyes, Patrick was gardening and Sacha had gone off somewhere to paint.
    â€˜If you change your mind …’ Mother held her at arm’s length, looking at her as if she was searching her face for something, or memorising her features.
    â€˜Be good,’ were her father’s last words to her. His kiss was dry on her cheek, her mother’s loose and powdery as if she was leaving a trace of herself on Connie’s skin. Their embrace, so soft with their breasts squashed between them embarrassed Connie and she pulled away a little too soon.
    She stood and waved a white handkerchief, watching the car disappear and appear again growing smaller and smaller on the winding, dipping drive, watching the white flash of Alfred’s handkerchief waving back from the window. The air was busy with flying things, the thin squeal of the swallows was like a wet finger on the rim of a glass. She closed her eyes as the car, at last, disappeared. She threw out her arms and twizzled, letting the handkerchief drop, spun round and round and round, her skirt flying out until she was so dizzy she staggered and sank down on the step.

SEVEN
    Donna’s flat has a sweetish girly smell. In each room there is a bowl of dusty scented petals and dead fragments. The bowl on the coffee table is wooden and the pot-pourri has pine cones in it, twigs, seed-husks. Tony lifts a handful, lets it fall. The sweet dust makes him sneeze. It’s good in Donna’s flat. It’s mostly clean. Donna has this waxy stuff to polish the leaves of the rubber plant with. The plant reaches halfway up the wall. Tony strokes a thick leaf with his finger, cool gloss, no dust here, she must have dusted it before leaving. He can feel the pleasure in the leaf as he moves it gently between his fingers, caresses would be the word for the soft stroke he gives it, enjoying the waxy texture on top, the duller veined surface underneath. It’s a strong plant, you can feel the force of life in it. Tony has no plants of his own, odd, considering his fascination with Patrick and Patrick’s with plants. But when he has settled, when he has roots he will root plants to mark the place. And maybe that is not so far away.
    Donna has no secrets from Tony. No need to go fumbling through her drawers or her clothes. Did that long ago. There’s nothing hidden about Donna. Felt kind of let down to find there was nothing, nothing shameful, not so much as a dirty book or a vibrator in her underwear drawer. She hasn’t even had a boyfriend for a year. He likes that she’s alone in there, no laughing going on that excludes him, no sex, just her and her telly, music sometimes. They have a chat and lend each other milk, tobacco or a slice of bread. She goes out to work, some local-council kind of thing, comes back, watches all the soaps, goes out mostly on a Saturday