Read Online Touched by Joanna Briscoe - Free Book Online Page B

and hugged her hard to her, burying her nose, almost snorting the milk-warm scent of her skin, because there was the faintest undertow of the perfume that bothered her in the room, emerging from Eva’s trunk of clothes. She pressed against Caroline’s hot cheek so hard that the baby began to cry, bawling loudly with life and protest that destroyed the skeins of scent and decay. She should not, could not, be up here on her own, thought Rowena, and called out quite urgently to Bob, who was on the green outside, to come home. Jennifer was still standing there under a beam of light that was like her own sun.
    Bob bounced in holding Rosemary’s hand, and Rowena kissed them both and sat them down for their orange juice.
    Later, when the church clock struck six, she went by herself and stood at the gate, breathing in the still-hot air. There was a boy behind her, needing her. No, there wasn’t, she thought impatiently. But there was a smell, like ice lollies; ice lolly warmed on skin. She made herself turn. This was all Eva’s doing. The infernal Freddie creature she insisted on. The film people were packing up, and the trickle of the stream across the green was just audible, comforting after the North Circular, the ducks circling the pond. She stood and watched, sensing that life held far more than was apparent within the dozing confines of Crowsley Beck. New excitement was beginning to take hold of her through the fug of baby-feeding sleepless nights, just as new anxieties were unexpectedly gripping and shaking her mind.
    The MG appeared through the arc of horse chestnuts leading into the village and crunched to a halt on the lane.
    â€˜Got you a viewing of the rushes,’ said Gregory, letting his dog leap out.
    â€˜I’m sorry?’
    â€˜Come and see the rushes tomorrow. The dailies. What they filmed today.’
    â€˜Already tomorrow?’ said Rowena, bemused.
    â€˜Oh, they put it in the bath overnight and the important bods view a rough cut. Lally knows the producer – rather well, if you ask me – and I persuaded her to get us sneaked in to the viewing theatre as a favour, to have a squint at today’s footage.’
    â€˜But . . . Douglas?’ Rowena murmured, looking at her toes.
    Gregory hesitated. ‘He can come along too, I’m sure. It’ll be only a few seconds, you understand. Who’ll be left with the brats?’
    â€˜We have no sitter yet.’
    â€˜I’ll send ours over. Mother of the star, of course you must come along. A rare opportunity.’
    â€˜She has four words,’ said Rowena, noticing that she argued with Gregory or contradicted him by rote, when she wanted to do quite the opposite.
    â€˜I’ll pick you up at eight. Or you and old Douglas. Then we’ll bowl over to Elstree.’
    â€˜I – Greg—’
    â€˜Come on, it’ll be fun. It’ll be a Friday night, so Lally says they might get up a bit of a party.’
    â€˜The Pollards want you to visit again,’ said Eva to Jennifer in a low monotone. ‘You are
want
ed at Brinden.’
    â€˜Oh,’ said Jennifer. ‘All right.’
    She gave a slight smile, and it was that smile that made Eva want to scream close to her face.
    The smoke was so thick in the screening room, Rowena blinked. She coughed, intimidated by these people who were alien to her, a world apart: a planet of louche ease, hardness, success. ‘Join them,’ said Gregory, and she took one of his Stuyvesants. She was trying to get the taste back for smoking, because her London friends had unanimously declared it kept them trim. She felt her stomach again surreptitiously as she sat, and held it in for Gregory, and wondered whether Douglas would stray before she could force herself to make love with him again, because after all, who wanted to be tied to a frigid dairy cow? She tensed her stomach even harder, and pulled in her cheeks.
    â€˜Relax,’ whispered