Swimming Pool Sunday Read Online Free PDF

sloped and stepped in a vague Italianate fashion, embellished with carved stone walls, urns and slabs, until the ground flattenedout a few hundred yards from the house. And here, framed by a decorative paving area and, beyond, endless smooth lawns, was the swimming-pool – cool, blue and shaped like a kidney bean. It had been installed by the people who lived in Devenish House before the Delaneys, at a time when the kidney-shaped swimming-pool was the ultimate in status symbols. Many times since moving in, Hugh had threatened to fill it in; to replace it with something oblong and functional and further away from the house, or even with nothing at all.
    ‘That pool could be a putting-green, you know,’ he would exclaim, on days when the tarpaulin cover flapped in the wind and the very idea of plunging into anything cooler than a hot bath brought on a shiver. ‘It could be something useful. Or at least tasteful.’
    ‘Count your lucky stars,’ Meredith had retorted the first time she heard him. ‘It could be painted black and in the shape of a penis.’
    As Louise approached the entrance table, Ursula looked up.
    ‘Louise, dear! How lovely to see you! And Amelia! No Katie?’
    ‘Katie’s gone fishing for the day with Barnaby,’ said Louise shortly.
    ‘Oh dear,’ said Ursula, her face falling slightly. ‘Hugh will be sad not to see Barnaby.’ She paused. ‘But I can quite see that it would be a little awkward …’
    She broke off and looked from Louise to Amelia. Only recently had Meredith managed to persuade Ursula that it was really true about the Kembers splitting up, not just malicious village gossip, and when finally convinced, Ursula had been most upset. ‘I find it terribly sad,’ she said vaguely. ‘I suppose …’ She paused and adopted a delicate tone. ‘I suppose you find it very painful to see Barnaby.’
    ‘Not particularly,’ said Louise tightly.
    She glanced at Frances Mold, who smiled back sympathetically and said in a hurried, cheerful voice, ‘Hello, Amelia! How nice to see you!’ But Ursula was lost in her own hazy reflections.
    ‘Poor dear Barnaby,’ she said without thinking. Then, realizing what she had said, she gave a little start. ‘Oh, Louise! My dear, I didn’t mean …’
    ‘It’s quite all right,’ said Louise shortly. She opened her purse and handed Frances Mold a note. ‘Here; that’s right, isn’t it?’
    ‘Yes, exactly right.’ Frances gave Louise an apologetic glance. ‘See you later.’
    ‘Maybe,’ said Louise, discouragingly, and stalked off. She was, she realized, being unfair to poor Frances, who was the most tactful creature in the village. But Ursula’s foolish remarks had, today, for some reason touched Louise on the raw. She clenched her fists angrily by her sides as she strode towards the swimming-pool, and felt an angry frown crease her forehead.
    ‘Stupid fool,’ she muttered crossly. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid.’
    Louise had never been quite as friendly with Ursula as Barnaby was with Hugh. The two men had become friends years before, when Amelia was a baby. Barnaby had overheard Hugh talking in The George about some hedging that needed doing on his land, and immediately offered to help; Hugh had reciprocated with a case of burgundy. After that, the two men had fallen into an easy, relaxed friendship, and Louise had made an honest attempt to forge the same kind of relationship with Ursula. But it had not been a great success. Louise found Ursula rather old, rather dull, and exceedingly stupid. When she started to fuss irritatingly over first Amelia and then Katie, Louise began to find more and more excuses not to accompany Barnaby to Devenish House.
    And then everything had changed — with the dreadful death of the Delaneys’ son, and the year they’d spent abroad, and the arrival of Meredith.
    Louise had not taken to Meredith. At their very first meeting, Meredith had scowled at Louise’s carefully composed expressions of sympathy and