Read Online Worst Fears by Fay Weldon - Free Book Online Page A

Bristol, 12—1, Leah. Bristol was 20 miles away. It was now five past twelve. Jenny Linden had dropped everything to get to her therapist. She had not taken her address book with her. That was open by the telephone. Alexandra’s address book was crammed and messy. Jenny’s was neat, but there were few entries. Ned’s name wasn’t there, not under L, not under N. Alexandra herself was there, in the A’s. Her London address and telephone number. How had Jenny Linden come by that?
    Alexandra looked at the photographs pinned up on the wall. Ned everywhere. Ned at parties at The Cottage, Ned with Diamond in the garden, Ned in the garden putting up the bean-stalk pyramids. He did that every year. Who had taken these? Jenny? Lurked behind the hedge and snapped away? Had she stolen them, acquired them from Ned himself? Or entered The Cottage when they were both away and pried into the family photographs? It was horrible to think of that. They locked the house only if it was empty, but anyone who knew the house could break in easily enough. And Jenny Linden seemed to know the house so well. She couldn’t talk to Ned about it. She would never be able to ask Ned anything again. The photographs had a curious flatness, as photographs do when they represent the dead, not the living. “The dead” was a strange notion: you could only define it by a negative: someone, something, once alive, now not. A rock wasn’t “dead”—it was just inanimate. Alexandra found she was standing in the centre of Jenny Linden’s living room in suspension once again, thoughts looping. Whatever her business was here, and she was not yet quite sure what it was, she could not afford to waste time. She did not want to be discovered by Jenny Linden. The orange cat stared at her; slowly got to its four feet, arched its back idly, and walked from the room to sit by the front door. She worried for a moment in case it could talk, but that was absurd. A thought transposed from her thoughts about Diamond. If he could talk, what would he say? It seemed wilful of him not to, as if he wasn’t on her side. But this wasn’t a matter of “sides.” Why did she feel under attack? Well, obviously—mad Jenny Linden. Enough to unsettle anyone, make them worry in case cats talked.
    Ned’s books on the shelves; a letter in Ned’s handwriting on the board above the table. Dated two years ago. “Dear Jenny—thanks for the Rosmersholm pics. Brilliant as usual. Talk to you soon. In haste, Ned.” And two crosses for kisses beneath the familiar signature. Well, what was wrong with that? Ned always put two crosses for kisses, for friends. Or was it one? She herself got three. Jesus, was she in competition here.
    On the table was a cheque for £200 signed “Vilna Mansell.” It lay there as if no attention had been paid to it at all. It was dated last Sunday. Well, someone sometimes told the truth. Vilna too was barking mad, but at least had the excuse of war back home, and saw herself as Alexandra’s friend, to the value of a couple of hundred pounds. She was troubled.
    Alexandra stared at the photographs some more. She thought she herself had taken the one of Ned putting up the bean poles. That had been in May. Three months ago. She’d taken the roll to Boots the chemist to be developed. Most people did the same. If Jenny had an arrangement with someone at Boots she could siphon off any number of photos of Ned. Just ask her to look out for them; have another copy made. Alexandra observed that Jenny had burned away her half of a snapshot of the two of them, herself and Ned down at Kimmeridge Bay, where the fossils lurked in the flaky slate cliffs. Abbie had taken that. They’d all gone down in the car. Three years ago. Had they met Jenny Linden and her husband there, accidentally? Shared the contents of the Lindens’ thermos of coffee? She seemed to have some such memory. Dave Linden, that was his name. Had Sascha been in that snapshot too? Alexandra thought so.