Skeleton-in-Waiting
Page 18
They kissed. Louise turned on her side and massaged the small of her back into the hollow above his hip. His arm was still stretched out beneath her neck. He would sleep on his back all night, mysteriously managing not to snore. She felt for his hand and held it. It was good of him to have let her talk her day through—he hadn’t really wanted to—he’d much rather have stayed in his maze, but instead he’d actually listened, helped, paid attention to nuances … Like Soppy, she was tired of skeletons, and though these ones had mainly been of no real concern of hers she felt that at last she had taken them out of their shadowy cupboards and laid them in the earth where they belonged. They could all sleep now.
Piers was asleep already. Davy? England was four hours behind Baku, so it would be getting on for half past ten at Quercy. Helen might be in the nursery this very moment, doing a last check-up. If Davy was starting a cold she’d be in for a restless night. In Louise’s mind the nursery lost scale. The cot and the bending figure dwindled, remote figures in a vast dim room. Needs another cot, needs populating, she thought. Drowsily she counted months. Joan had been keeping a six-week gap in the diaries, a clearing among the prisoning thickets of entries, a glade into which, if she got it right, Louise could drop her fawn. It was still a month too early to start. On the other hand she’d got it wrong with Davy, been a tiresome three weeks late … A girl this time please … You weren’t supposed to say that, not even to think it … Louise remembered talking to Soppy about this sort of thing, just after the Garden Party. I was a bit too tough with her, she thought—hope she took no notice … Anyway, it’s nonsense what Piers was saying, about it being interfering with someone else getting them born in the first place—it’s just as interfering deciding not to. Remember to tell him in the morning.
Gently she ran her fingertips over the coarse-boned wrist and along the muscle towards the elbow.
After we’ve done the practical, she thought. Before he’s started thinking. And the hell with the diaries.
About the Author
Peter Dickinson was born in Africa but raised and educated in England. From 1952 to 1969 he was on the editorial staff of Punch, and since then has earned his living writing fiction of various kinds for children and adults. His books have been published in several languages throughout the world.
The recipient of many awards, Dickinson has been shortlisted nine times for the prestigious Carnegie Medal for children’s literature and was the first author to win it twice. The author of twenty-one crime and mystery novels for adults, Dickinson was also the first to win the Gold Dagger Award of the Crime Writers’ Association for two books running: Skin Deep (1968) and A Pride of Heroes (1969).
A collection of Dickinson’s poetry, The Weir, was published in 2007. His latest book, In the Palace of the Khans, was published in 2012 and was nominated for the Carnegie Medal.
Dickinson has served as chairman of the Society of Authors and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2009 for services to literature.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1989 by Peter Dickinson
Cover design by Mimi Bark
978-1-5040-0495-4
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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