The Sea House Read Online Free PDF

gaudy scene. Sunset on the Suffolk coast. The picture must have been taken from a boat. The sea, the shore, the sky, all turned to molten gold. She hoped to make him smile with it, but even more, to galvanize him into driving up. Working hard, making good progress , she wrote. Very quiet and peaceful. Average age here – 82. Average colour – beige . She didn’t know why she was telling him this if she wanted him to come. Nick was allergic to anything dreary. It made him feel his life was running out. She imagined him in the Steerborough tea shop where the old women outnumbered the men by three to one. We could hire bikes – she felt optimistic suddenly – and do an architectural Lehmann tour. Write to me? Please. Love, Lily, XX
Lily looked towards the window, unsure whether to risk Eastonknoll without her jacket or not, when she saw two heads bobbing about below the sill. She tiptoed nearer and glanced out. The two girls from next door were squatting in her front garden.
‘Hello.’ She tapped on the glass. They didn’t look up. They were lining up a row of pebbles, setting them up like sentries on the low wall. As she watched, the elder girl took a large stone and tried to spin it through the barricades. Lily looked down on their bent heads, the sandy partings of their hair, the dusty plaits tied with elastic bands. ‘Hello,’ she said, opening a window, and two sets of pale blue eyes turned up towards her. ‘Would either of you like a biscuit?’ Lily was intending to pass the biscuits out through the open window, but as she rummaged in the bread bin the door behind her opened and the girls trooped in. They stood behind her quietly, waiting, and when she brought out her half-eaten packet of chocolate digestives, they took one each, seriously, and without a word went into the sitting-room and sat down.
Lily glanced at her watch. It was nearly twelve now and if she was going to go to Eastonknoll the last ferry before lunch would be about to push out into the tide. She took a biscuit herself and stood in the doorway, watching them eat.
‘Do you like living here?’ she asked and, still munching, both girls nodded their heads.
‘Yes,’ they mumbled, their mouths full, and then in the ensuing silence all three watched as a fine film of crumbs rained down on to the floor.
Lily tried again. ‘How old are you two, then?’
The oldest one gulped down the last of her biscuit. ‘I’m seven. I’m Em’ – she pointed to herself – ‘and Arrie’s five.’ Arrie looked straight at Lily and quite unexpectedly smiled. She had a heart-shaped face and a soft layer of plumpness that made you want to hoist her up into your arms. But even then she stayed still as a donkey, her legs dangling resolutely from her chair.
‘I was just going down to get the ferry,’ Lily said when they’d all stared at each other for a few minutes more. She picked up her jacket and the one large cottage key and, seeing her waiting there, they filed out of the room. Carefully Lily locked the door and then smiling she walked away towards the river mouth. But the girls were following. Lily turned and smiled, more definitely this time, with a parting nod, but when she walked on, she could still hear their steps behind her, and so instead she slowed a little to accept them, and they all three walked on side by side. It was ten past twelve and from the jetty they could just see the ferry girl tying up her boat on the other side. Lily waved at her, just in case she thought it worth making one last crossing for the sake of thirty pence, but she only waved back, straddled her bicycle and headed away for lunch. Lily stood looking across at Eastonknoll, its light-house as white and bright as an illustration, its houses dotted unevenly over the slope of the hill. Of course you could get there by road, and Lily had driven in on her second day to buy provisions, but the estuary forced you inland for at least four miles before the land was solid enough to