The Drowning River Read Online Free PDF Page A

supposed, pulling down the sleeves of her T-shirt, you might be glad of the chill inside, and the dark, and the bath that really was made of stone and therefore instantly cooled the water down to barely lukewarm, but they wouldn’t be here in the summer, would they? For the first time, Iris felt a stab of regret. Or maybe she was just dreading what she’d have to do once this reprieve was over. Somewhere a church bell began to clang and she pulled the window shut. Time to get going.
    Before she left Iris looked in at Ronnie’s room, out of duty if nothing else. It was bigger than hers, though that wasn’t strictly Ronnie’s fault. Iris had claimed the smaller one, grumpily assuming the role of paid companion; she had been reading Edith Wharton preparatory to coming – Ma’s idea – and saw a number of quite satisfying similarities between herself and the impoverished heroines in the novels. She was supposed to make herself agreeable, or useful. Iris wasn’t sure if she was good at either.
    Ronnie hadn’t seemed even to notice. ‘All right,’ she’d said carelessly. ‘Whatever.’ And actually, Iris reflected now, it was likely that she really didn’t care. Ronnie probably knew how things were going to pan out, that she’d only be spending one night in three here anyway, and the rest coming in at two in the morning, singing to herself, high as a kite on dancing and drinking and flirting. And maybe it was because she’d never been short of money, but one thing Ronnie wasn’t, was mean.
    The room was dark and fusty and empty; clothes everywhere. The shutters were almost closed, but not quite; Ronnie never did anything thoroughly. The bed was unmade, the laptop left on, a box of Tampax spilling its contents on the bedside table and two pairs of knickers on the floor. Iris went over to the small table – inlaid, rickety, like everything in the flat it was more decorative than useful – and stared at the screen; Ronnie’s MySpace page. A picture of her upside down, herdark brown hair with the blonde streak across her face, and a dozen friends’ pictures up; her MySpace name was Da-doo-ron-ron.
    Guiltily, Iris scrolled down to check out the messages people had posted. There was a lot of cheerfully insulting stuff from people back home,
saw ya last night, what are you like, love and kisses, loserrr.
Florence is Grrr8, Ronnie’d posted on Monday night, and she’d pasted in a Leonardo drawing; she’s changed her tune, thought Iris. A couple of weeks ago she’d have mimed a big fat yawn at the mention of Leonardo’s name.
    Knowing she shouldn’t be doing this, Iris minimised the page, flicked to the mailbox, surfed up and down Ronnie’s messages; there was a man, she bet there was, Ronnie’d never head off just to hang out with friends of the awful Serena, even if they did have a castle.
    But if there was a man, he wasn’t emailing her. Iris read a couple, cool, non-committal messages to her mum, stuff to Antonella Scarpa at the school about the course, paying her bill for supplies, thank you for the extra lesson to the course director. So formal, so unlike Ronnie:
It was very kind of you, I am most grateful.
Maybe she was growing up. Nothing about any man, nothing about this trip to Chianti; you’d have thought she’d be boasting all over MySpace.
    Iris didn’t do MySpace; it made her nervous, like being back at school, all that bitching and bullying and those snide remarks, but Ronnie loved it. Ronnie’d never been got at in her life, she didn’t have anything to be afraid of.
    In fact, Iris didn’t have a computer of her own; wasn’t that weird, everyone said, like she was an Amish or something. Which was stupid; she knew how to use one. But Ma didn’t like them; there’d been computers at school and when Iris came back to do the IB she’d bought her a big old desktop, secondhand from Emmaus the other side of Marseille, but that was her limit. She didn’t have the cash and, anyway, computers