Spilt Milk Read Online Free PDF Page B

her. There were pale sweat marks on her blouse. Her heart-shaped face was pink and flushed under the wide brim of her straw hat. Her blonde hair curled around her cheeks, and her eyes were wary.
    Nellie looked again at Joe. He was watching Vivian, studying her the same way he looked at his painting, as if there was more to discover. She thanked God that Rose wasn’t here to see this.
    ‘Is that your sister? What’s her name?’
    ‘Vivian,’ said Nellie, her throat too dry to say any more.
    Louisa Moats, the old midwife’s daughter, had stood beside Vivian when she first arrived at the riverbank, telling her about the dance in town. After the annual horse fair, a group of horse dealers had paid some musicians to set up a band and play all night in the beer gardens of the Rose and Crown. She’d danced until the heel of her boot had fallen off.
    ‘So I took them off and carried on barefoot.’ She lifted her skirt to show off a dance step. ‘You should have come. They have a gramophone with stacks of recordings. You should have some fun while you can.’
    Vivian could imagine Louisa throwing off her shoes. At school, she’d been a slow-witted girl, always barefoot, dirty necked. Now she was a woman, unmarried, and still slovenly.
    ‘I was right as a mailer that night. Couldn’t stop dancing, even danced on the way home.’
    ‘You use such odd expressions,’ said Vivian, and knew she sounded stuck-up, like she thought she was a grand lady. It wasn’t such a strange expression either. Rose used to say the same thing.As prompt as the mail, as right as a delivered letter; satisfied and timely. That was all the expression meant.
    ‘Look at her,’ said Louisa, nudging Vivian, acting as if she hadn’t heard her. ‘The wheelwright’s wife. What a sight.’
    Vivian stared, though she knew she shouldn’t. The wheelwright’s wife sat leaning against a tree, a baby at her exposed breast. Milk glistened on the infant’s chin and spilled from the corner of his red mouth. Field flies drifted around the baby’s sticky cheeks, the mother batting them away with her hand. Such a sleek and plump infant. He gazed at his mother with open adulation, as if she was everything he would ever desire in life.
    Vivian wondered what it might be like to be so very loved by an infant. To have those dark-lashed eyes look at you that way, like you were sweeter than all the plum cake and honey in the world.
    ‘Is that your sister over there?’ Louisa tipped her chin towards the river. ‘Do you see her, sitting alone with a man? I didn’t know she was courting.’
    Vivian turned reluctantly away from the sight of the baby. She looked back across the field, startled by the sight of Nellie in conversation with a man.
    ‘She’s got her heart set on that one,’ said Louisa, nudging Vivian in the ribs. ‘And he looks pretty happy too.’
    Vivian didn’t answer her. She hurried towards Nellie, all thoughts of the baby quite forgotten.
    ‘Hello again, Miss,’ said Joe as she arrived. ‘Joe Ferier. You remember me? I came in a boat and rescued you in the floods.’
    Had he rescued them? She didn’t remember it that way. He lifted his hat. His eyes seemed to have sunlight in them, small flecks of gold in the brown. He reached out and shook hands with her, gripping her fingers firmly, the way Vivian imagined a man might take a girl’s hand to lead her into a dance. Then he let go and stepped back, smiling at both women, lookingfrom one to the other, a hand shading his face from the fierce sunlight.
    ‘It’s the eyes. You’ve got the exact same eyes. There’s the resemblance. You wouldn’t know you were sisters unless you looked at your eyes.’
    He was studying them openly and Vivian felt irritated by him. A helpless sense of dislike rose up in her and made her cheeks burn. She knew how he saw them. Spinsters. Sad old maids to be pitied and laughed at. No doubt they looked as sombre to him as the shadows the trees threw over the