Canarino

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Katherine Bucknell. Canarino

Canarino. Katherine Bucknell

Prologue

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

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Thanksgiving. The junior colleagues from the office were the first to appear. David had said he didn’t want them to feel that the party was a work event, but they evidently perceived it as such. They arrived as a tribe, wearing, Elizabeth felt certain, the clothes they had worn to the office that morning. Though some were tall and some were short, some were men, some were women, they looked to Elizabeth to be all exactly the same, in the ungraceful, wrinkled uniform of number-crunching, obedient ambition. They exuded not the least aroma of aesthetic inclination, nor even imagination. How on earth would they be able to appreciate the subtleties of David’s party? He should have taken them off on a golf outing, she thought, or maybe just given them each a wad of cash—cash which is so straightforward and which, once given, feels extremely personal.

As she shook their hands one by one, Elizabeth smiled and nodded, murmuring, ‘Hello’, or ‘I’m Elizabeth’ maybe, or ‘Welcome’, her voice hushed low so that the young men and women leaned toward her, with a polite question in their eyes, wondering just what she had said.

.....

This elicited a monumental sigh. David wasn’t sure he knew the answer, and the topic seemed endless.

‘She was never happy here. At least that’s what she says. After September Eleventh, this whole American thing got to be such a big deal. She never stopped telling me that the rest of the world doesn’t understand what it means to be American. She got desperate about the children’s education; they had to go back right away. She bills herself as a country girl at heart; just wants to be back in the US of A, riding, walking, whatever. Elizabeth never took to the English countryside, the village life, the county thing. Can’t stand all the competitive socializing. It gives her claustrophobia.’ He shrugged with his eyebrows, half-closing his eyes, giving in. ‘She has a point; it is relentless, the jockeying for position. And the reward for success is having to go on doing it forever. It’d be one thing if you could make money out of it, but it’s all about getting the next invitation.’

.....