Shadow Over Edmund Street by Suzanne Frankham (best e reader for android .txt) 📗

wouldn’t it make her sad to be there? Is it true? What she was telling me, about her friend?’

Rose watched as Juliana took another sip of her coffee, her hand trembling as she put the mug back on the table. Her voice when she spoke was hoarse. ‘A can of worms, that’s what it is. A real can of worms. Question. Was it odd Edwina wanted to buy number eleven? It is a very cute little cottage, isn’t it? Now I mean, not when we were kids. Perfect for one person. The price was right. She made a packet out of selling the old place which I might add was a millstone around her neck, disgusting inside.’ She shuddered. ‘Revolting. Nothing done to it in years. I’m not even sure if she had hot water, except for an ancient water heater in the kitchen. So no, any sensible person would have got rid of it.’

Rose nodded, her expectations deflating, hopes ebbing away. It was a sensible thing to do. It had been a practical decision. And there was the money. For the first time in Edwina’s life there had been money. It must have been an unbelievable fortune to her.

‘Yes, you’re right. I think I was becoming fanciful. It’s been preying on my mind, you see. I can’t let it go.’

‘I didn’t say you were wrong.’

‘What?’ Rose jerked upright. Saw the glint in the woman’s eyes. They were alight with mischief.

‘You’re spot on. It was weird. Bizarre now I think about it. At the time it didn’t stand out from all the other crazy stuff she was doing … but buying number eleven? Now you mention it, it wasn’t right. I would have thought it was the last place on earth she’d have ever wanted to set foot in again.’

Rose leant forward. Almost touching Juliana. ‘Why? Tell me. I really want to know.’

Juliana glanced out the window. Rose could see in her eyes she was back in the past.

‘I haven’t got time to tell you all of it. Not now. I’ll just say there were three of us. Friends at school. Edwina, Trudi and I. It was Trudi who died when she was twelve. Trudi, her brother and Edwina were in the backyard. It used to be much bigger then, went the whole way back to the other road. Been cut into two. Trudi was playing on the swing, an old tyre they’d strung up, and the rope snapped. She fell off and hit her head on a sharp piece of something. Died instantly. One of those freak accidents.’

Juliana wound her hands together in front of her face. Gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Edwina didn’t speak for months. Months, I tell you. She was struck dumb. So, to go and buy the house? You know, I didn’t think about it when she said she was going to buy it. I hardly saw her anymore, truth to tell, but now you’ve mentioned it, yes, it was bloody odd. Even for Edwina. Freaky.’

Rose felt hope flare. ‘Tell me more.’

‘No. Not now,’ Juliana said. ‘The shop will get busy very soon, and I need to think about this. Why don’t we talk about it later? Say dinner, Friday night? Here, seven?’

‘They serve dinner here?’ asked Rose looking around.

‘It’s Jack’s Place, love. They pretty much serve whatever

you want.’

* Work was a torment. Rose tried to settle, concentrate on the laboratories she was supervising. It was the start of the semester, lots to organise. Invertebrates this time. The wrong way around, she thought, vertebrates in semester one and invertebrates in semester two. But the reasons for the decision were not based on the natural evolution of species, but the natural evolution of money. It spun and wove its way more towards vertebrates than to invertebrates. Give the people what they want, was the mantra of the day.

It was easier to work with invertebrates. The chances of a student fainting over the dissections were fewer, but not unheard of, and on Thursday morning, it was Rose’s unfortunate duty to be holding the head of a young girl over the sink in the storeroom as she chucked up her morning breakfast. All because of a few polychaetes. ‘They’re just worms,’ Rose said, but it didn’t help.

‘The smell,’ the girl said waving a bunch of tissues in front of her straight nose and perfect white teeth. Rose muttered all the right things as she held the girl’s forehead, pulling the long brown hair (with caramel tips) back from her face. God forbid something should soil the shiny soft hair. She wondered how on earth this young girl would cope if she ended up having a life like Edwina’s.

She’d been stunned to discover Edwina’s friend, Trudi, hadn’t died from an illness but from an accident, leaving Edwina so distraught she didn’t talk for months. Had she somehow caused the accident? If so, then why on earth would she want to buy the house? It made no sense.

‘I think I need to go home now,’ the girl said, wiping her mouth with a tissue Rose had provided. ‘I’ll rest for today. I should be fine tomorrow.’

‘I think you need to go outside, get some fresh air for ten minutes, then come back and finish the lab.’

The girl turned to Rose, shocked. Her mouth open.

‘Go. Do it. Come back. You’ll be fine,’ Rose said, her voice firm, wondering when she’d turned into such an old witch.

She was no different at home. ‘Time to clean your bedrooms you two, vacuum those corners that haven’t seen a clean in all the time we’ve lived here. Pick up the rubbish, remove the clothes off the floor.’

The children, adults really, smiled. ‘Yes, Mum,’ they said. Which meant, here we go again. She knew they expected one or two days with her in this mood, then everything would be back to normal. That was how it always worked, wasn’t it?

* Rose couldn’t wait for 7.00 pm Friday. When it came, she was there, dead on time, shown to