Читать книгу Round the Bend онлайн

39 страница из 103

She had put a cushion in the oven and put her head on that, and lain down to die. She had a copy of The Picturegoer in her hand, open at an article about Anna Neagle and Michael Wilding, the great lovers.

There was no letter, or anything like that.

Her father was inclined to be apologetic to me. "I dunno if we should have written to tell you, after he went off," he said. "At the time it seemed the best thing to let time go by a bit, like. We knew you'd be home before so long, and we thought things 'ld settle down...."

To comfort him I said, "I couldn't have done much, if I'd known." And while I said it, of course, I knew that I was lying. I could have done one thing. I could have written and told her that I loved her.

They had the inquest the day after I arrived, and I went to that with her dad and mum. Her dad had to give evidence about our marriage and this Captain Wysock, and the baby, and me coming home, and how he found her. The coroner asked me if I'd written to her lately, and I said no, and told him about the first letter when I said I wasn't going to divorce her till she'd thought it over a bit longer. The doctor gave formal evidence about the cause of death, and then the coroner summed it all up.