The Full Legacy by Jane Retzig Page A

with corks to keep them at bay.
    Even so, it was a beautiful, gently warm summer’s evening and I was feeling nice and mellow as I worked. I’d been thinking about Turner and I was in tune with some pretty sensual memories. The softness of the air caressing my bare arms and legs reminded me of our lovemaking. I found myself smiling up into the evening sky as the shadows lengthened.
     
    Then I heard the back door opening and turned to welcome Kay.
    ‘It’s looking really good,’ she said, ambling up to me. She had a cheese and Branston sandwich in one hand and a condensation beaded can of Carlsberg in the other. She wafted lazily at the midges.
    ‘We could do with a smoker out here,’ she said. ‘That’d keep ‘em away.’
    ‘Yeah,’ I stepped back onto the crazy-paving to take a look. Everything seemed much fresher now that I’d watered it. I might even have smelt the freshness if it hadn’t been for the sour tang of pickle leaking from Kay’s sandwich.
    She bit through the two thick slabs of wholemeal bread and munched heartily. The very sight of it made my jaw ache. The lager looked tempting though. I reckoned there must still be another one left in the fridge.
    ‘No Ros tonight?’ I asked, brushing my hair back out of my eyes and flopping down onto the garden bench.
    Kay sat beside me.
    ‘No, she’s at her yoga class.’
    ‘Yoga, eh?!’
    We grinned at each other, amused.
    ‘Don’t suppose it’ll last any longer than her Transcendental Meditation phase,’ she added. ‘Anyway, how are you feeling now?’ She sounded very tentative suddenly, knowing she was heading into a sensitive area.
    ‘Oh, okay.’
    ‘No more spooks then?’
    ‘No.’ The shadowy sense that had felt so alien at first was almost a part of me now... Like a transplant that had taken.
    ‘You’re losing weight.’
    Was I? Now I came to think of it, my trousers were feeling a bit on the baggy side. I looked down at myself.
    ‘Oh well,’ I said. ‘I probably needed to.’
    Kay looked dubious. ‘You’re really pale too,’ she persisted. ‘You’d tell me, wouldn’t you... if you were worried about anything?’
    I nodded, not really listening. I was fascinated, as always, by the way she was eating her sandwich. She kept twisting it round 180 degrees and licking the edges to stop pickle dripping everywhere. She was wearing stone coloured shorts too. I feared for them.
    ‘What kind of day have you had?’ I asked.
    I knew it had been a long one. She’d only just got in.
    ‘Oh, not bad.’ The sandwich was all gone now. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and took a swig of the lager, perching her foot up on the edge of the wooden seat and resting her elbow on her knee. She scowled across over next door’s privet hedge, into the setting sun. ‘Granny group this morning. Mixed singles tonight. I spent the afternoon checking out some new equipment in the gym. I suppose all jobs get to be pissing boring when you’ve done them for long enough.’
    I was surprised to hear her talk like that. I hadn’t realised she was so fed up.
    ‘I’ve never got bored with mine,’ I said.
    ‘Yeah, well I don’t suppose I’d get bored either if I spent most of my life photographing women in their undies.’
    She rubbed at her eyes and nose, irascibly, digging around in her pocket for a tissue. It didn’t seem like a good time to ask what the difference was between undies and leotards in the interest stakes. The pollen was obviously bothering her. Her voice was getting thicker and snufflier by the minute. She blew her nose loudly. ‘Anyway... Look, Gill...’ she hesitated, and I knew she was going to say something I wouldn’t like. ‘I think you ought to know that a friend of Georgie’s was out on the town last night and she saw Suzanne.’
    My stomach clenched.
    ‘So?’
    ‘She was with Turner.’
    I literally saw red. It was like a cascade of blood sweeping down over my eyes. I struggled to keep my breathing