Read Online Don't Tell Eve by Airlie Lawson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Airlie Lawson
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towards the kitchen.
‘No, no … no, don’t.’ Kate’s brain stirred into motion. The doll was lying on the kitchen table and while she was sure it wasn’t a joke, she couldn’t bear the possibility that he might think someone was making fun of her. ‘But you win. Wait in the sitting room – trust me, you don’t want to go anywhere near the kitchen, and I don’t want you anywhere near the kitchen. I’ll be back down in a minute and we can go out.’ This was the doll’s fault. It had been in the house less than ten minutes and … She stopped, she was being silly. It was a doll.
‘Excellent idea, just what I was going to suggest. There’s a new bar I’ve been meaning to check out – we’ll head over there.’
To Kate’s relief, Oliver obediently changed direction and made his way to the sitting room.
Barely used, her sitting room was always tidy, if dusty. Along with dust, the room harboured two ceiling-high overflowing bookshelves, which Oliver automatically gravitated towards.
Involvement in other people’s lives was normally something he avoided, but Kate was perpetually on the verge of a nervous collapse, even when things were going well, so the subtraction of both husband and job meant he felt compelled to keep an eye on her. Plus, he knew what it was like, having watched his own mother struggle to bring him up on her own. And Kate had the twins, whose purpose in life so far seemed to be to induce mental instability in any adult they encountered. Oliver himself had had a narrow escape.
The first time he’d met the boys, they’d been hiding in the back of his beloved, if ancient, Figaro, stowaways in a space designed for tennis racquets and golf clubs, not children.Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell them to go home, or indeed drive them home, as by that stage he was a couple of hours out of the city and the car had broken down. Beloved, Oliver knew only too well, did not necessarily equal reliable.
After what he considered were harsh words, but what the twins considered friendly remarks, Oliver had offered them a choice. If he could fix the car – and given this happened regularly he was reasonably confident he could – he wouldn’t leave them there, by the side of the road in the proverbial middle of nowhere. He could instead ring their parents, take them to his lunch – a barbecue, where there would be other children and where they would behave – and then take them home, since it turned out they lived only two doors down from him. Or he could deliver them to the nearest police station.
After a brief whispered discussion, while Oliver opened the bonnet and diagnosed the problem, the twins had agreed to plan A, and a truce.
When Kate answered the phone, she had admitted rather too candidly that she hadn’t realised the twins were missing, though she had noticed an unusual calm. She liked the sound of a few more hours of that calm. As to safety, the boys sounded impressed with Oliver’s mechanical skills, and they liked his car, so she’d felt he’d probably survive.
It was the car that had caused the problem in the first place. The boys’ father, known to Kate’s friends as ‘that cheating, lying, selfish, mean bastard’, believed that cars were made to get people from A to B and back, and that to do so they didn’t need to be anything other than functional. Oliver subscribed to the first half of this belief, the A to B and back bit, but the basic bit he disagreed with, believing that, like everything else in life, a more-than-satisfactory appearance had to be a vital part of any equation. The boys unconsciously agreed with Oliver, and on seeing his car in the driveway they’d felt it necessary to investigate. It was unlocked, so they were meantto climb in. It was, they’d decided, fate. When told this later, neither Kate nor Oliver agreed with their analysis, but the incident had led them to become friends, so perhaps it wasn’t entirely wrong.
While congratulating himself
‘No, no … no, don’t.’ Kate’s brain stirred into motion. The doll was lying on the kitchen table and while she was sure it wasn’t a joke, she couldn’t bear the possibility that he might think someone was making fun of her. ‘But you win. Wait in the sitting room – trust me, you don’t want to go anywhere near the kitchen, and I don’t want you anywhere near the kitchen. I’ll be back down in a minute and we can go out.’ This was the doll’s fault. It had been in the house less than ten minutes and … She stopped, she was being silly. It was a doll.
‘Excellent idea, just what I was going to suggest. There’s a new bar I’ve been meaning to check out – we’ll head over there.’
To Kate’s relief, Oliver obediently changed direction and made his way to the sitting room.
Barely used, her sitting room was always tidy, if dusty. Along with dust, the room harboured two ceiling-high overflowing bookshelves, which Oliver automatically gravitated towards.
Involvement in other people’s lives was normally something he avoided, but Kate was perpetually on the verge of a nervous collapse, even when things were going well, so the subtraction of both husband and job meant he felt compelled to keep an eye on her. Plus, he knew what it was like, having watched his own mother struggle to bring him up on her own. And Kate had the twins, whose purpose in life so far seemed to be to induce mental instability in any adult they encountered. Oliver himself had had a narrow escape.
The first time he’d met the boys, they’d been hiding in the back of his beloved, if ancient, Figaro, stowaways in a space designed for tennis racquets and golf clubs, not children.Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell them to go home, or indeed drive them home, as by that stage he was a couple of hours out of the city and the car had broken down. Beloved, Oliver knew only too well, did not necessarily equal reliable.
After what he considered were harsh words, but what the twins considered friendly remarks, Oliver had offered them a choice. If he could fix the car – and given this happened regularly he was reasonably confident he could – he wouldn’t leave them there, by the side of the road in the proverbial middle of nowhere. He could instead ring their parents, take them to his lunch – a barbecue, where there would be other children and where they would behave – and then take them home, since it turned out they lived only two doors down from him. Or he could deliver them to the nearest police station.
After a brief whispered discussion, while Oliver opened the bonnet and diagnosed the problem, the twins had agreed to plan A, and a truce.
When Kate answered the phone, she had admitted rather too candidly that she hadn’t realised the twins were missing, though she had noticed an unusual calm. She liked the sound of a few more hours of that calm. As to safety, the boys sounded impressed with Oliver’s mechanical skills, and they liked his car, so she’d felt he’d probably survive.
It was the car that had caused the problem in the first place. The boys’ father, known to Kate’s friends as ‘that cheating, lying, selfish, mean bastard’, believed that cars were made to get people from A to B and back, and that to do so they didn’t need to be anything other than functional. Oliver subscribed to the first half of this belief, the A to B and back bit, but the basic bit he disagreed with, believing that, like everything else in life, a more-than-satisfactory appearance had to be a vital part of any equation. The boys unconsciously agreed with Oliver, and on seeing his car in the driveway they’d felt it necessary to investigate. It was unlocked, so they were meantto climb in. It was, they’d decided, fate. When told this later, neither Kate nor Oliver agreed with their analysis, but the incident had led them to become friends, so perhaps it wasn’t entirely wrong.
While congratulating himself
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