Previews Dangerous Echoes by Mai Griffin | Page 22

Dangerous Echoes
for Sarah to accept – it suddenly seemed like a good idea.
There had been little light relief during the last few
months; a change of scene might do her good and she felt
inclined to enjoy it.
On Friday afternoon, Polly drove Sarah to the village
salon to have her hair done. When they returned and
Clarrie joined them for tea, Sarah talked happily about her
early association with the couple. She had never met Jay’s
father. Just before Amy and John married he had a stroke
of some kind from which he had still not recovered, but
his mother, Dorothea, was at the wedding.
“I remember Mrs Johnson,” said Polly, “she had a small
apartment somewhere near Goring, surely?”
“That’s right,” Sarah confirmed. “She wanted to be
nearer to the psychiatric hospital where her husband is.
She died about a year ago, but never lost hope that he
would recover. I probably missed her more than they did;
we became close friends.”
Polly and Clarrie were pleased that Sarah was having
a break in routine. The Johnson place was near a quiet
village south of Oxford – a picturesque, sleepy village,
where it seemed that nothing ever happened. They could
not have wished for a better place for Sarah to relax.
Clarrie had visited Dorothea there before she moved
out and described it to Polly as one of the most fascinating
houses she had ever known. She said that an air of old-
fashioned quality permeated every niche, yet it wasn’t
heavy with antiques. Even on entering the grounds there
was a pervading sense of timelessness. It always brought
to mind Tennyson’s poem about lotus-eaters. She could
well imagine how easy it would be to languish there,
letting the rest of the world go by!
In view of the change of plan and Clarrie’s
announcement that she was definitely leaving early on
Saturday morning, Polly informed them that she would
like to go away too, to Dan’s in Oxford – just until Sunday
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