Read Online The Water's Lovely by Ruth Rendell - Free Book Online Page B

bit of spontaneity. To make love to you on the sofa, for instance. On the floor – why not? In the bath. I don’t want to be treated like half of an old married couple stopping the night with friends.’
    â€˜It’s not like that, Andrew.’
    â€˜It is just like that. Are you going to tell me you don’t keep quiet because they’re there? You’re not careful to stop the bed from creaking? If you have to go to the bathroom you’re not conscious that one of them may be in it? Now that’s embarrassing if you like.’ Andrew was dressed by now, peering into the mirror to tie his tie. ‘And don’t say it’s as bad coming to me. You know Seb mostly stays in his room. Besides, I can’t live in my place without his rent.’
    â€˜I wasn’t going to say anything.’ Getting up, Ismay wondered if the bathroom was free but knew that if she asked Andrew another storm of protests would begin. ‘Edmund’s found a flat, he’s expecting to sign the contract soon. He and Heather are engaged and as soon as he can move he will and she’ll go with him.’
    â€˜And how long is that going to be? In my experience it’s only when people pay for property with ready cash that these deals get done fast. Someone I know in chambers waited a year from signing a contract on a house until completion.’ He turned round and put out his arms, holding her naked body against him. ‘I love you. I love holding you like this whenever I want. I want to be alone with you and I don’t want to wait a year.’
    â€˜Of course it won’t be a year, darling.’ Ismay took her dressing gown off the bed and wrapped it round her. ‘April is what Edmund’s solicitor says.’
    â€˜Look at you. You have to cover yourself up to go to the bathroom. In case your sister’s boyfriend sees you. And in half an hour we’re all supposed to sit round the kitchen table having breakfast together like two married couples sharing a
gîte
in the Dordogne. Oh, please. But I’m not doing that. Not this time. I’m going to leave now and call into Starbucks on my way.’
    But they were engaged, Edmund and Heather, she thought when he had gone. They would marry as soonas they had somewhere to live. Heather would go and Andrew could move in. It wouldn’t be long, a few months at most. This will all work out, she told herself. It will come right. And as she made her way to the bathroom, passing Heather’s door which was a little ajar, she caught a glimpse of Edmund and Heather standing as she and Andrew had stood a few moments before. Quickly she looked away but not before she had seen that Heather was naked, Edmund’s arms enclosing her. The difference was that they were kissing.
    Looking back, Ismay supposed she had been in love with Guy. He was her type, the prototype of her type really, the first one of a few that ended in Andrew, thin, tall, dark men with fine-drawn features and beautiful hands. When her mother first brought Guy Rolland home she and Heather had been antagonistic, loyal to their father’s memory, absolutely unable to understand that Beatrix, at not quite thirty-nine, might not yet be past the age for love. And that attitude had continued as far as Heather was concerned. She liked Guy as little as she was to like Andrew. In fact, when Ismay thought about it, she saw that her sister reacted to both men in the same way, had been similarly hostile – though rather less so – to those boyfriends who had come in between. Was it that they all looked a bit like Guy?
    The first evening that Guy came into the house with Beatrix they had been to the theatre and Guy brought her home. It was only their second date, the first being the dinner with Pamela and Michael. Guy was the marketing manager in the firm Pamela worked for at that time. There had been no matchmaking intended, she said afterwards, and it was hard to see