The Shift Key Read Online Free PDF

utter secrecy.
    So how on
earth –
?
    A good few relationships were strained that day, and many snapped.
    The first disaster to ‘go public’, as it were, was the case of Phyllis Knabbe.
    Some time very early – it was still too dark to read the bedside clock – Miss Knabbe rose in answer to the squalling of her tomcat, called Rufus for his ginger fur. Until the year before last she had lived by herself, apart from a succession of cats, since the death of her parents. They had died when she was thirty-six; now she was forty-two.
    But the little cottage, not fronting on the green, which the price of their larger but much-mortgaged home in Wedget Minor had sufficed to buy, cosy though it was, had often felt lonely. Cats were not enough.
    Thank goodness, Miss Knabbe thought drowsily as shepadded to the kitchen door in dressing-gown and nightie, for the arrival of dear Moira when she had to let a room.
    Moira O’Pheale was her own age to within months, and had been widowed, though not tragically. What she had recounted about life with her husband – miraculously, they had remained childless – had done nothing but reinforce Miss Knabbe’s own feelings concerning single blessedness.
    On the other hand, she was having vague second thoughts about the companionability of cats, especially whole toms like Rufus. Last night she had wandered the garden until some unconscionable hour, not daring to call his name out loud because the windows of nearby houses were in darkness – and, besides, dear Moira had already gone to bed. It had been midnight at least before Rufus condescended to return, to lap some milk and purr around her ankles, for all the world as though he had done nothing disobedient.
    And now, at this chill darkling hour, he wanted to make off again …
    She was standing beside the back door. It was ajar and he was gone. Very well! That settled it! If not tomorrow, then next week, he must be taken to the vet, to rectify that fault she would herself have liked to set right in her father – who had, as her mother had if not said outright then frequently hinted, inflicted his lusts on her in most disgusting fashion.
    As for what Declan O’Pheale had done to Moira, who had married him in dazzlement for his tallness and good looks, only to find he was a drunkard and a lecher …!
    Images of what Rufus might by now be up to mingled in Miss Knabbe’s imagination with their human-to-human equivalents. She closed the door on her decision and found her way back upstairs by touch. She had refrained from turning on the lights lest Moira be disturbed.
    Herself already in the clutch of Morpheus again, she groped for a door-handle, turned it, entered the room, let fallher dressing-gown, and slipped into a warm and welcoming bed. Her hands encountered smooth nylon, and groped beneath it as she sighed with pleasure. What a relief it was to live with Moira now, instead of that horrid – randy – Rufus, that disgusting
male
…!
    ‘Mary Mother of God! What do you think you’re up to?’
    A cry, almost a shriek. The bedside light snapped on. Moira was sitting up, the shoulder-straps of her nightie drawn down to expose her breasts.
    And crying, ‘Phyllis! Are you mad? Get out of here!’
    Miss Knabbe fought back the tide of sleep. ‘Is something wrong?’ she ventured.
    ‘What the hell do you mean? I’ll bloody say there is!
Get out of my bed!’
    ‘But …!’
    But this was the bed the two of them had shared since Moira came here. Miss Knabbe knew it was, she knew it in her bones. Had she done something wrong?
    She asked that very question, ready to apologize – and Moira slapped her cheek.
    ‘You must be bloody mad!’ she cried, magnificent with her mop of brown hair tousled round her face, snatching back the nightgown-straps that Miss Knabbe had dislodged. ‘If I’d known you were bloody queer I’d not have spent one night beneath your roof!
Get out!’
    ‘But this is our room!’ whimpered Miss Knabbe, raising her