Read Online The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress by Beryl Bainbridge - Free Book Online Page B

do any good to stir up the past, certainly not in front of Rose. Nothing would bring Dollie back.
    Rose was sitting at the table, gazing up at Webster, mouth open. He was squeezing her shoulder and looking serious. Harold said, ‘Everything all right?’
    â€˜Nothing I can’t handle,’ said Webster.
    Small talk followed, mostly about the route they should take towards Saratoga Springs, and then Rose mentioned that the van was making a funny noise. Webster offered to take a look at the engine. Harold protested that it wasn’t necessary, that he’d find a gas station, but already Webster was opening the door.
    The dog was still on the lawn, scrabbling at the grass with its paws. Head under the hood of the camper, Webster said, ‘Shaefer’s worried about you, you know.’
    â€˜He’s a good friend,’ Harold replied.
    â€˜We both think you’re a fool to go to Wanakena. It won’t solve anything.’
    â€˜So what?’ he said, kicking the gravel and wishing it was Webster.
    â€˜Have you forgotten what happened when Bud took on his Pa?’
    Harold did remember. Bud had been left a large sum of money by his mother. His father had contested the will on the grounds that his son was too young for such wealth and would probably drink himself into the grave. Bud won. His father, hopelessly in debt, threw himself from the twenty-ninth floor of the SunLife Insurance building. After that Bud drank like a fish.
    Harold said, ‘I have to see Wheeler.’
    â€˜It won’t do no good.’
    â€˜Lots of things don’t do no good,’ he retorted. ‘Including the part you played.’
    Webster shot up and slammed the hood down. ‘Anyone else,’ he shouted, ‘unless fucking blind and deaf would have known what was going on.’
    â€˜You were my friend too,’ Harold said, and heard the whine in his voice. The dog bounded towards them, barking.
    â€˜Fuck off,’ bawled Webster; he wasn’t talking to the dog. Seizing Harold by the shoulders he sent him sprawling. A bunch of keys jerked onto the grass.
    What happened next was embarrassing. Rose ran down the steps and, enfolding him in her arms, shouted at Webster to go away. Her lips were on his cheek, breath musky with tobacco smoke. She wriggled two fingers behind his ear, scrabbling at his skin as though it was the cat she held. Cradled there, Harold reminded himself that women were programmed to show sympathy, not rationally, merely from need.
    After a conciliatory handshake with Webster, he strode towards the camper, followed almost immediately by a hasty return and an undignified crawl on all fours in search of the spilled keys.
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SIX
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    T he journey continued down shimmering roads bordered by curly trees. Miraculously, or because of Web­ster, the thumping of the engine had gone away.
    Rose felt considerably more at ease now that she’d actually touched Harold. He didn’t show it, but she sensed the animosity between them had shrunk. It was a bit like the shyness one felt before having sex and the familiarity let loose once it had happened. She’d always been uncomfortable during preliminaries, hadn’t known how to behave, swum free when penetration happened, experienced a tearful relief when love evaporated like steam puffing from a kettle.
    For all their new understanding, she still thought Harold a funny man. For some time he parroted on about how badly Webster had behaved to the woman on the stairs with the painted toenails. He’d obviously let his lover down, he said, treated her with a lack of respect. Rose felt obliged to point out that only women had lovers, not men; Dr. Wheeler, being an educated man, had corrected her on that score after she’d mentioned her involvement with a bulky professor of physics. Besides, scarlet-toes was Webster’s sister, and she’d been in that hysterical state because her husband