Читать книгу The Grip Lit Collection: The Sisters, Mother, Mother and Dark Rooms - Koren Zailckas, Claire Douglas - Страница 36
ОглавлениеBeatrice marches down the street without an umbrella, not caring that the wind is whipping at her red mackintosh or that the rain splashes against her bare legs, not even noticing how soaked her leopard-print pumps are. The sky is dark, moonless, she shouldn’t be out this time of night on her own, but it’s Bath. She feels safer out here in the wind and rain than she does in her own house at the moment.
She shelters in the doorway of the café in the high street and lights a cigarette. She’s started smoking more since Abi moved in. Her fingers tremble as she puts the cigarette to her lips and inhales deeply, savouring the sickly taste of the tobacco as it burns the back of her throat. She’s still reeling from the argument with Abi and at the way she was cast as the bad guy at dinner tonight; her heart races when she recalls it. How can they treat her this way? After everything she’s done. For both of them.
She had made an effort to be polite when she asked Abi to return her clothes this afternoon. True, she wanted them back, but it had been two weeks, surely Abi could have bought some summer clothes by now? And anyhow, she didn’t want to see Abi wearing her dresses. Not after everything. Even so, she had been shocked when Abi angrily pulled her precious dresses from their respective hangers and almost threw them at her as if they were nothing more than rags. Then her facetious remark about making another bracelet, like it didn’t matter about the first one, it was nothing that Beatrice’s reputation was on the line, her hard work down the drain.
It had made Beatrice want to smack her smug face.
She takes another drag of her cigarette. Maybe I was wrong to accuse Abi of stealing the bracelet, she thinks as she exhales smoke into the damp night air. She tried to apologize at dinner, but it infuriated her to see how Abi had obviously gone running to Ben, making out that she, Abi, was the victim in all this. She had the gall to sit there, clutching Ben’s hand, her face contorted with worry, playing the innocent little girl act while Ben sat next to her, big and protective and on her side.
Are you trying to turn Ben against me?
She had noticed the maroon tea-dress hanging in Abi’s wardrobe this afternoon as well as the brand-new, still in the box, Dunlop Green Flash trainers on the shelf. Beatrice wonders if it has occurred to Abi how similar the two of them look. The same heart-shaped faces, ski-slope noses, fair hair, slim frame?
Are you trying to replace me, Abi? Is that what this is all about? Is that why you bought identical trainers? The type of dress I’d wear? This thought makes her shiver and she wraps her coat further around her body.
There would have been a time when Beatrice would have felt secure in the knowledge that she was Ben’s number one girl, his priority. But now she’s not so sure. It’s true that she might have had an ulterior motive when she asked Abi to move in initially, but this is the last thing she thought would happen.
A streetlamp hums and flickers, its orange halo illuminating the fine rain that continues to fall. She takes another drag of her cigarette then stubs it out against the wall, flicking the stub behind her.
Whatever game you’re playing, Abi, she decides resolutely as she thrusts her hands deep into her pockets and heads back into the rain, towards home, I won’t let you win. I’ve got too much to lose.
