Soon Read Online Free PDF Page B

in the air above the pool. Roza was gathering her things and shuffling into her pink jandals. She slid on her dark glasses.
    â€˜Here he is.’
    David limped around the side of the pool house, wearing baggy board shorts decorated with hibiscus flowers.
    â€˜Hello all. Roza, are you going? Who’s going to keep me company? You’ll stay here, won’t you, Karen?’
    Karen said of course she’d stay. She took David’s towel and lotion from Troy and arranged them on the table beside his deck chair.
    David tossed his shirt to Troy and dived into the pool. They watched the wavering form under the water, frog-kicking through the loops of light. He surfaced with a snort of bubbles, fair hair streaming.
    And now Elke came through the gate and stood at the edge of the pool in her striped bikini, one hand on her hip and shading her eyes. She was wearing a necklace Roza had given her the night before. Vague, tentative, she walked to the side and lowered herself to sit with her legs in the water.
    Simon remembered when she was eight, back when they’d brought her home for the first time. She had long, slender fingers, thin arms and legs, soft hair. She was always shying away. She still had that elusive quality. But when Roza passed behind her and touched her shoulder Elke leaned her head back and looked at her mother upside down and actually grinned.
    Karen called out. ‘Elke. Put on some lotion.’
    â€˜God, Mum, you’re obsessed with the sun.’ She slid into the pool and sank to the bottom to sit cross-legged on the tiles, her hair waving above her head.
    Roza and Simon walked up to the main house. She said, ‘Can you wait while I get changed?’
    He sat out on the deck, looking at the sea, with its million points of light. David’s elder son Michael was lying on a towel nearby texting, and his sister Izzy walked past, carrying her giant white cat, Suzie. Izzy paused and frowned at her brother.
    â€˜Tulei says you fed Suzie,’ she said.
    He said, looking at his phone, ‘So what?’
    â€˜But you don’t care about Suzie. You’ve never fed him. He’s mine.’
    The boy lowered the phone. He smiled. ‘You think Suzie’s yours. You think he “loves” you. But it’s all just about food. If I fed him all the time, he’d love me .’
    Izzy stared. Then she walked down the steps and away across the lawn, lugging the cat.
    Roza appeared in the doorway. ‘Why did you say that, Michael? She loves that cat.’
    The boy rolled over. ‘I just fed it.’
    â€˜But why? You don’t care about the cat. That’s so gratuitous. Telling her it doesn’t love her.’
    â€˜I fed it,’ he said. ‘Why shouldn’t I? Maybe I just felt like being nice to it.’
    â€˜Oh, rubbish.’ Roza turned away angrily. ‘Come on, Simon.’
    At the gate she was peremptory, refusing when Ray, one of David’s staff, said he would go with them.
    â€˜Let’s get out of here,’ she said, setting off at a furious pace. ‘That Michael. Why think up something like that, just to upset Izzy?’
    Simon’s legs were aching. He said, ‘You mean he’s trying to demonstrate that it only cares about food? He’s trying to take over the cat? To show her?’
    â€˜It’s so bloody gratuitous. Why shouldn’t she believe the cat loves her?’
    â€˜Even though he’s right.’
    â€˜Yes, he’s right, but why — oh, I don’t know, strip her of her illusions? It’s nasty.’
    He hurried to keep up. ‘What if he really just wanted to feed it? What if he’s got fond of it? It’s not necessarily a strategy .’
    She gave him an amused, bitter look. ‘In our household, everything is a strategy.’
    They went to the shop to buy drinks. A blonde woman in a tight white dress was bending over a toddler, unwrapping an ice cream.
    â€˜Roza,