Extract from A Cut Above The Rest
CHAPTER ONE
- 'You said Markenlea was a peaceful, sedate village when you moved here,' Dodie Fanshaw said accusingly.
She'd thought it idyllic when she'd arrived the previous day. The
large green was surrounded with clusters of thatched cottages, a
squat-towered Norman church, and several gracious old houses. Some
more modern villas sat among the older ones bordering the Thames. And
she had high hopes that Elena might be contemplating marriage at
last.
Elena, busy with the coffee filter on the far side of the big
kitchen, laughed. 'That racket last night wasn't typical, Mum. It's
the first disturbance I've heard since I moved in, and I've been here
over three months, since March.'
- 'It sounded like an orgy,' Dodie insisted. 'I was quite envious, it's a long time since I got involved in an orgy.'
- 'Come off it! I don't believe half your tall stories about your past. It wasn't nearly as lurid as you claim. You're almost respectable.'
- Dodie chuckled. 'I'm not telling you everything. It might give you ideas. That can wait for my memoirs. But that's not the point. There's a mermaid in your garden.'
- 'A what?' Elena left the coffee to drip and came to stand behind her mother's chair in the big bay window. 'Good grief!'
- The girl walking slowly across the lawn, her long green skirt clinging to her legs, her skinny pink tee-shirt outlining her ample breasts, and gleaming swathes of black hair plastered across her face, did bear some resemblance to Matthew Arnold's mermaid. The placidly-flowing river behind her was hardly the sea, dotted as it was with pleasure boats and racing skiffs, willow trees fringing the far bank, and a blaze of colour all around her in Elena's garden. Elena sighed and moved across to the door.
- 'I don't know what it is about this stretch of the river, but that's the third shipwrecked rower I've succoured so far. Hello,' she added to the sorry-looking girl who was hesitating at the edge of the terrace. 'Need help? Were you on your own, or is there anyone else?'
- The mermaid sniffed, and somewhat fruitlessly tried to wipe her face dry with the edge of the sopping tee-shirt. She glanced nervously behind her, then shook herself, and seemed to register Elena's question. 'Anyone else? Oh, no! I was alone. The boat caught in some weeds, I think, and tipped up.' She gulped, and brushed angrily at her eyes. 'I got onto that island, then managed to swim across. I can't swim very well, I was so glad it wasn't far. May I - but I'll drip all over your floors!'
- 'Don't worry, the kitchen's tiled. Come in and strip off while I get you a towel.'
- 'There's no need, honestly. If I – or perhaps you'd do it for me – I need to call someone to come and fetch me.' She shivered and began to pick off some shreds of river weeds that clung to her clothes. 'I lost my sandals. I can't go back to – walk back, in bare feet.'
- 'The local taxi-drivers won't bless you for soaking their upholstery, either.'
- 'Oh yes. I hadn't thought of that. Nor – nor my friend. Whatever can I do?' She glanced across at the Aga. 'Perhaps they'd dry on the rail?'
- 'I can rinse your clothes and put them in the dryer, while you have a cup of coffee,' Elena suggested.
- The girl hesitated, sniffed again, this time at the aroma of coffee which reached her as Dodie was filling three mugs. She swallowed nervously, then came up to the doorway. 'If you're sure? I was going to ring a friend, but he – well, his car's a new one – new to him, I mean, and anyway I'm not sure he's at home. I don't know what to do. I'd better get a taxi.' She stifled a sob and brushed wet hands across her face.
- Elena persuaded her to come in, and led her, protesting through her tears that she was frightfully sorry to be such a nuisance, through the dining room and into the shower-room across the hall. 'Strip off those wet things. There's a towel, and a spare robe, shampoo, a comb. Take a shower, you're shivering. Look, have your coffee in there, and chuck out your clothes so that I can start them drying.'
- Dodie watched her daughter organising the child – she was not very old, nineteen or so, perhaps. But the gap in sophistication between her and Elena was far more than the half dozen or so years in age. It was good to be with her daughter again, after several months abroad, though she admitted to herself she was worried about the reason she'd had to come to England. And this house out in the country Elena had moved to was far better than the London one would be at this time of year.
- It was a charming house. A row of centuries-old cottages had been converted to one house ten years before. Many of the internal walls had been knocked out, and the formerly dark and poky small rooms had been transformed into three double-aspect rooms and a large entrance hall, overlooking the village green and the river. Rose Cottage lived up to its name. Gloire de Dijon rambled over much of the front of the cottage, and the drive was bordered with a score or more varieties of hybrid tea and floribunda roses, all currently in full bloom and chosen, by the previous owner, for their abundant flowering and delicious perfume.
- She sighed slightly. She'd have to stay in London when she went for the tests, but hopefully that would not be for more than one night. As Elena came out of the utility room she firmly banished gloomy thoughts.
- © 2004 Marina Oliver
