Read Deep Blue Sea for Free Online Page B

fallen on to the floor. Diana was relieved to see that it was a bill; nothing personal, nothing useful. But she could also see that Sylvia had immediately grasped what her daughter was doing.
    ‘I really think you should leave this alone,’ she said, handing the bill to Diana.
    ‘I’m just spring-cleaning.’
    Her mother raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘I think you should come downstairs and eat. Mrs Bills has made some chicken soup and a batch of madeleines that look ravishing.’
    ‘I’m fine up here, honestly.’
    ‘Best if you come. Liz just called. They’re ten minutes away.’
    Diana nodded. It was another reason why she had spent the morning sifting through drawers and cupboards; something to take her mind off the fact that the preliminary inquest into Julian’s death was being held at noon. She had had no desire to be there, and Liz, Julian’s older sister, had assured her that there was no need for her to be and had gone in her place. Diana knew she could not have faced it, but it was just one more item to add to the long checklist of things to feel guilty about.
    ‘How did it go?’
    ‘Liz said it all went as expected,’ said Sylvia soothingly. ‘It was just a formality today.’
    Sensing her daughter’s disquiet, she walked across and ran her hand up and down Diana’s arm.
    ‘Come on now, you’ve got enough on your mind without worrying about things like that.’
    ‘I know. You’re right.’
    She sat down on the bed again and looked around the suite.
    ‘You know, Julian used to call this the row room,’ she said softly. ‘I used to come and sleep in here sometimes when we’d argued. It was always over little things. A bit like you and Dad.’
    Julian and her father: the two most important men in her life. Now both dead.
    ‘Every couple on earth argues, Diana,’ said Sylvia. ‘It’s silly dwelling on things like that.’
    The trouble was, Diana couldn’t do anything else, turning over every row and disagreement: had that been what had made him so unhappy? Had he really been so dissatisfied? She thought of how she and Julian had moved here four years ago, after the scandal. Diana had always associated moving house with moving on. They had decamped from Sheffield to Devon after her parents’ divorce; from Devon to London after her unexpected pregnancy. It was her own version of wiping the slate clean, except with removal vans and storage boxes. They had bought Somerfold hoping to make a fresh start, hoping to rebuild the trust in their marriage. Hoping to start a family. And actually, the row room hadn’t been used very much; they’d both made an effort to get along better, and eventually, day by day, their so-called ‘perfect marriage’ had clicked back on track. Or had it?
    ‘I wish we could have a row right now,’ she whispered, feeling the tears well up. ‘I’d give anything to hear his voice. But it’s just one of those things that’s never going to happen again. I’ll never see his face, hear his laugh, feel him next to me in bed . . .’
    Her words started to falter. All the emotions that she’d been holding in were finally spilling over the dam.
    ‘Why?’ she said, her voice swallowed up into a sob.
    Sylvia sat down next to her and held her tight as Diana’s tears soaked into the soft crêpe of her mother’s top. Somewhere inside, Diana felt some small relief that she was finally crying. She knew from the death of her father ten years earlier that grief was unique and it never happened the way you thought it should. Back then, she had been unable to stop crying for days, whilst her sister Rachel, who so often wore her heart on her sleeve, had been like stone.
    There was a quiet knock at the door. ‘Mr Denver and Elizabeth have arrived,’ called Mrs Bills from outside.
    Diana grabbed a handful of tissues from the bedside table, blew her nose and wiped the tears away from her face. She glanced at her reflection – not good. Her skin was so pale, no one could miss