My Lies, Your Lies - Susan Lewis Page 0,59
trapped in the tower with access only to the writing room above.
A wave of unease swept over her.
She took a breath, and another.
It was crazy to think that Freda had just imprisoned her. Why on earth would she do that? She wouldn’t of course. Nevertheless Joely wasn’t responding well to being shut in here with no way of contacting someone on the outside apart from during the random moments her phone connected to the WiFi. She ran up to the writing room to get it, not because she needed to call or text anyone now, Freda was on her way to open the door, it simply made her feel better to have it with her.
Long minutes ticked by – many more than it would take for Freda to descend the front stairs and walk along the corridor into the kitchen. Joely tried the door; the latch wouldn’t budge. She listened hard, expecting to hear footsteps on the stairs, but the only sound that reached her was the wind whistling in from the sea, up over the cliffs and around the tower.
This was crazy. She wasn’t locked in here.
She rattled the latch, and was about to shout out for Freda when the door suddenly opened and Freda was there.
Feeling foolish as her panic subsided, Joely quipped, ‘I thought you’d forgotten me.’
Ignoring the comment, Freda said, ‘I won’t be joining you for dinner tonight, but Brenda has something prepared. Please bring your printed pages to breakfast tomorrow.’ And with a strange little gesture that might have been a wave, she returned to the stairs and disappeared down them.
Still shaken, Joely took a Larousse encyclopaedia from a bookshelf and propped the door open while she returned to the writing room to send her day’s work to the printer. She had no idea what the last few minutes had been about, the music, the opening of a hidden door, keeping her waiting so long in a locked room. Perhaps they were about nothing at all and she was spooking herself into creating discomfiting scenarios where they had no place to be.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Joely, can we talk. Please call me. Cx.
Joely looked away from the text she’d received while in town earlier and stared at the flames in the kitchen hearth. She hadn’t replied yet, and had decided she wouldn’t until she was sure of what she wanted to say. There was so much going around in her head, words inflamed with anger, softened by sadness, riven with guilt even, and she didn’t think any of them belonged in a text. Or in a phone call. They needed to see one another face to face for what she had to say, and whatever he had to say would have to wait until she was ready.
Freda was sitting in her usual chair, apparently lost on her own thoughts as she too watched the fire. It was listless, yellow flickers rising from a glowing pile of hot, scorched logs. There was a mouth-watering aroma emanating from the Aga, one of Brenda’s flavourful veggie concoctions, and Joely found herself remembering what her father used to say to her mother when something smelled delicious.
‘It makes you want to take a bite out of the air.’
She missed him so much; the grief was as tenacious as the bond they’d shared, as consuming at times as the need to hold onto him, but he’d gone and she felt as though she was clutching at air.
She shifted slightly in her chair and glanced at the time. Brenda had left several minutes ago and neither Joely nor Freda had spoken since assuring her they understood what time the pudding was to come out of the oven, and yes they’d be sure to have a lovely evening, thank you.
Freda’s legs were stretched out towards the fender, the latest pages in her lap, but Joely had no idea yet if she’d read them for she’d done another of her disappearing acts for the day. However, Joely had spotted her standing at the end of the meadow earlier staring out to sea. She hadn’t moved, had seemed oblivious to the wind that was buffeting her short hair and padded coat as she fixed her gaze on whatever she was seeing in the waves.
The next time Joely had looked out of the window Freda had no longer been there.
She’d turned up here, in the kitchen, about ten minutes ago, bringing only her iPad, which she’d put on the table before coming to sit down. It was very possible,