Read Online I Am the Only Running Footman by Martha Grimes - Free Book Online Page B

approximation to those fantasies he had had about his own. They were fantasies that Dolly fed, not for any gain other than that she fed her own ego in the telling.
    For professional reasons, she said, she had changed the spelling of their name to “Sands.” It was easier to remember, looked simpler when the name flickered on the television screen at the end of the news report. Dolly had done well, very well. She had popularized something pretty dull.
    Kate switched the carryall to her other hand, finding it a tiresome burden. The rashers and chops were best quality and probably half again as much as the price she would collectfor the room. Dolly had been extremely put out to find that the house, old and dark but still elegant, was being turned by Kate into a bed-and-breakfast. They didn’t need the money, she had complained, and taking in roomers seemed terribly lower class.
    Privacy. Kate had always heard her sister complain before of too much privacy — not even a servant to bring Dolly her early morning tea. Since Dolly never rose in the morning before nine, Kate didn’t know to what use the morning would have been put.
    Kate made for the promenade and the news agent she patronized, where she bought a Times and a piece of Brighton rock. It was a sweet she had loved as a child before they had moved here permanently, when they had come (as her father liked to say) for the season — as though those were the Edwardian days of parasols and tea at the Royal Pavilion.
    She walked toward Madeira Drive. Round and round in her mouth she turned the rock candy, its cloying sweetness like the aftertaste of childhood.
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    Dolly sat at the kitchen table, smoking and drinking tea and occasionally reading a tidbit from a review of a new American film as Kate cut up some potatoes and swede. They might have presented a picture of conviviality, even intimacy, to a stranger. Kate knew they were neither. She had said almost as much, asking Dolly why she bothered with this Brighton trip now their father was dead. The answer had been a stock one, that she didn’t want Kate to be “on her own” for the holidays. It was all dead dialogue out of one of Dolly’s own television programs.
    Leaning her chin on her cupped hand, Dolly said, “I don’t know how you stand it, Kate. You should sell up and come to London and get a flat.”
    â€œAnd do what?” Uninformed advice always irritated Kate. Dolly’s was always that sort, suggesting that changing her lifewas of no more moment than handing over a claim ticket at the lost luggage counter.
    â€œOh, you’d find something,” Dolly said vaguely, her eye returning to the social page. “You’ve got the education and you’re really good-looking when you fix yourself up.”
    Kate turned up the flame on the cooker and positioned the pot with the basin over it. She laughed briefly. “Thanks for that . But when anyone says, ‘Fix yourself up a bit,’ that generally means a thorough turnout, like spring cleaning. The face will of course have to go. And the results of my A-levels dusted off and displayed —” She was getting angry. It was what she felt to be Dolly’s total indifference to her masked by this spurious interest that made her situation stand out in sharp relief. “You haven’t really thought about it. There’s something a little mean about dragging out my dubious qualifications for this hypothetical something.” Loneliness washed over her in waves. She felt she was back looking out over the sea again, not here in a warm kitchen.
    Dolly’s silence in face of this little outburst made Kate turn to look at her. She was looking out of the window with much the same intensity of Kate looking out over the sea.
    â€œDolly?”
    Her sister turned. In the clear skin Kate saw little lines etched, worrisome little lines.
    â€œIs something