Worst Fears Read Online Free PDF Page B

itself, with a little help from friends.
    The wailing and keening below was louder now; so was Diamond’s barking. Just beyond the hedge, if she craned, Alexandra could see a brown hunched back moving to and fro. It seemed to be some kind of animal, roaming up and down as animals will, restless and miserable, in a confined space. But the confinement was wilful, unless the creature was on some kind of chain. And how could that be? Downstairs, trapped in the morning kitchen, Diamond hurled himself against the closed back door. He wanted out.
    Alexandra dressed quickly, glad now of an occupation. Trainers, jeans, one of Ned’s shirts: denim; tough, rough fabric, which partly restored the feeling that she and he were one; and went down to the kitchen. She put Diamond on the lead and went out the back door. The dog pulled and tugged her round to the front of the house, to the privet hedge which divided garden from field. A human head rose into view on its far side. It was Jenny Linden, still keening; blotched face and puffy eyes.
    “What are you doing here?” asked Alexandra. Jenny Linden stopped wailing.
    “I only wanted to take the dog for a walk,” she said. She had a soft voice and a West Country lilt. She reminded Alexandra of Gollum in The Hobbit , a pale, white, underground thing; solid yet sinuous. Diamond wrenched the lead away from Alexandra’s surprised hands, and leapt at Jenny Linden. He leapt in welcome, in friendship not hostility, and Jenny scratched him under the ears in the way Ned was accustomed to do. Alexandra never did that. She did not want to break her nails.
    Alexandra watched as Jenny fell on her knees, embracing Diamond.
    “Oh poor dog,” she cried, “poor dog. Poor us!” Diamond licked Jenny’s face with enthusiasm and Jenny let him. Presently she became aware of Alexandra staring.
    “Did I wake you or something? Leah says I have to let my grief out.”
    “Leah?”
    “My therapist. She taught me how to keen. Didn’t Ned tell you?”
    “Tell me what?”
    “About Leah. I suppose he wouldn’t. You would have laughed. What am I going to do? I want to die .”
    Her podgy face was puckered. She was in her mid-forties, older than Alexandra. Her short hair was unkempt and needed washing. She wore no make-up. She put her little white soft hand on Alexandra’s lean arm, and Alexandra felt the touch like an electric shock and pulled away. “I only came to see if I could walk Diamond,” Jenny Linden said. “He likes to get out early. But you don’t know that. You have to sleep late every morning because of the theatre.”
    She raised her double chin to the heavens and wailed again. The early moon was still in the sky, palely loitering. It was a really beautiful morning, Alexandra noticed. Dew on the roses, a spiderweb glittering in the very early sunlight. Where was Ned? This was why you grieved for the dead, because they could no longer be part of the exhilaration of renewal.
    “Glad that I live am I,” she sang at the other woman until she stopped her dreadful, Leah-recommended keening and stared in astonishment. Two could make a noise as well as one, and hers, Alexandra’s, at least was more disciplined and had some meaning. She had hated ululation at Drama School, though she could set up as good a classic wail as anyone else. Dirges seemed mindless, and she didn’t like that. She preferred a hymn, and offered one, dimly remembered, roughly quoted.
Glad that the sky is blue
    Glad for the country lane
    Glad for the fall of dew.
    After the sun the rain,
    After the rain the sun.
    This be the way of life,
    Till the work be done.
    “Don’t be angry with me,” said Jenny Linden, though Alexandra could not see that she had displayed anger in any way. “I’m the one you should be sorry for.”
    “Why’s that?” asked Alexandra.
    “I loved Ned,” said Jenny, “and he died. You didn’t love him. There, I’ve said it.”
    “You need treatment,” said Alexandra. Now she was angry.