‘Your father started them. And it’s the only way I can keep in touch with our friends when I’m buried down here all year round. I wish to heaven I could sell the place and move back to London.’
‘You know the terms of Dad’s will,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until Laine comes of age for that—if you still want to.’
‘I’ll want to,’ she said. ‘If the house is still standing, that is. The damned place is falling apart, and Latimer won’t release enough money to do what’s necessary. Then I have to put up with people treating the place as a shrine—turning up in droves so they can see the room—the desk—where he created “all those amazing fantasy novels, Mrs Sinclair”,’ she added, in a savage mimicry of a Transatlantic accent.
‘And I’m sick of them telling me what a tragedy it was he was taken so soon. Do they think I don’t know that? I’m his widow, for God’s sake. And he wasn’t “taken”. It was a heart attack, not abduction by aliens.’
‘Well, don’t knock the faithful fans,’ Simon advised crisply. ‘After all, it’s Dad’s royalties that have been paying the bills, and frankly they’re not as good as they were a few years ago. In fact, I wonder …’
Вы ознакомились с фрагментом книги.
Приобретайте полный текст книги у нашего партнера: