Читать онлайн «Silent Voices»
Автор Энн Кливз
MACMILLAN
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter One
Vera swam slowly. An elderly man with a bathing hat pulled like a fully stretched condom over his head went past her. He wasn’t a strong swimmer, but he was faster than she was. She was the sloth of the swimming world. But still she was almost faint with the effort of moving, with pulling the bulk of her body through the water.
She hated the sensation of water on her face – one splash and she imagined she was drowning – so she did a slow breaststroke with her chin a couple of inches from the surface of the pool. Looking, she suspected, like a giant turtle.
She managed to raise her head a little further to look at the clock on the wall. Nearly midday. Soon the fit and fabulous elderly would appear for aqua-aerobics. The women with painted toenails, floral bathing costumes and the smug realization that they’d be the last generation to retire early in some comfort. There’d be loud music, the sound distorted by a tortuous PA system and the appalling acoustics of the pool, so it would hardly seem like music at all. A young woman in Lycra would shout. Vera couldn’t bear the thought of it. She’d swum her regulation ten lengths.
The swimming had been her doctor’s idea. Vera had gone for a routine check-up, prepared for the usual lecture about her weight. She always lied about her alcohol intake, but her weight was obvious and couldn’t be hidden. The doctor was young, looked in fact like a bairn, dressed up in respectable adult clothes.
‘You do realize you’re killing yourself?’ She’d leaned forward across the desk so that Vera could see that the perfect skin was uncovered by make-up, smell a discreet grown-up perfume.
‘I’m not frightened of dying,’ Vera had said. She liked making dramatic statements, but thought this one was probably true.
‘You might not die, of course. ’ The doctor had a clear voice, a bit on the high side to make for pleasant listening. ‘Not immediately at least. ’ And she’d listed the unpleasant possible symptoms that might result from Vera’s over-indulgence. An old-fashioned school prefect laying down the law. ‘It’s about time you started making some difficult lifestyle choices, Ms Stanhope. ’
