Read Online Why Don’t You Come for Me by Diane Janes - Free Book Online

being ‘in touch’ with long-deceased writers or royalty. None of which altered the fact that Jo could not help but feel a special bond with the tragic queen, whose life had been scarred by circumstances mostly not of her making. Poor Mary, who had been steadily deprived of almost everyone who was dear to her, including the child snatched from her when he was just a baby, after which she had never seen him again.
    ‘You know, darling,’ Marcus said as they drove away from Melissa’s house, ‘you were being rather difficult over that scheduling. Melissa is extremely good about the fact that one of us always has to be at home now because of Sean. I do wish you would try to go with the flow a bit more.’
    ‘Go with the flow,’ Jo repeated. ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Is it Marcus-and-Melissa speak for “do as you’re told”?’
    ‘Of course not.’
    ‘Because it looks to me as if the two of you are running things now, and I simply have to go along with everything you decide.’
    ‘That’s just silly …’
    ‘No, it isn’t. You two plan a Daphne du Maurier tour and it goes straight into the list. I suggest Lake District Artists …’
    ‘Which is a great idea,’ Marcus cut in, ‘but it needs more work. How can we include it when you haven’t got a definite itinerary? We can put it into the programme in 2011, when you’ve had time to formulate it properly.’
    ‘ And Melissa has taken my Mary Queen of Scots tour.’
    ‘Now you’re just being childish. We have to do what’s best for the clients, and you won’t be at your best if you’ve just driven hell for leather from Manchester to Newcastle. We all have to accept the strictures that scheduling sometimes imposes. That occasionally means guiding a tour we’re not so keen on, or giving up one of our favourites to someone else.’
    ‘I do wish you wouldn’t talk to me as if I were a ten-year-old.’
    ‘Don’t act like one, then.’
    It was rare for them to bicker. Jo had been on the point of taking issue with him over the Cornwall trip, but she thought better of it, and they continued the journey in silence, arriving just as the school bus deposited Sean at the place where the lane forked towards Satterthwaite, thereby saving him a ten-minute walk in the rain. In spite of this, he did not appear particularly pleased to see them, climbing into the car with no more than a sullen grunt, which might have been ‘Hi’, and banging his school bag on to the seat beside him.
    As soon as they reached the house Sean went straight up to his bedroom, while Jo followed Marcus into the kitchen. ‘Why does he have to be so rude?’ she demanded.
    ‘Please don’t start,’ Marcus said. ‘It’s been a heavy day. Anyway, he wasn’t rude – not really. Kids hate being quizzed about what they’ve done at school.’
    ‘I wasn’t quizzing him; I was just trying to make conversation.’
    ‘Maybe you should just leave him alone.’
    ‘So it’s me that’s wrong, as usual.’
    ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Jo, cut the kid some slack, why don’t you? It can’t be easy for him, having to move into a completely new environment …’
    ‘As if I didn’t know all about that.’
    Marcus faced her wearily. ‘This isn’t about what you have had to deal with in the past. This is about Sean and his life, and what he is having to deal with. Everything isn’t always about you.’
    He left her standing in the kitchen, feeling crushed. She sank down onto a chair, momentarily defeated by the curious humiliations of the day, but after a minute or two she pulled herself together, stood up again and began to prepare the bolognese sauce for the lasagne. Whenever she paused in the act of chopping the onions, she could hear the drone of the television in the sitting room, and from somewhere above her head came the persistent thudding of Sean’s CDs. Fainter still was the patter of rain on the windows. It was already almost dark outside; the low clouds had brought