Read Online Her by Harriet Lane - Free Book Online

we’re going through this tight spot (though of course Ben would never solicit or accept a handout, even as the shed door lists on its hinges, the brown stain on the ceiling of Christopher’s bedroom grows larger, and the mortgage repayments and credit-card bills stalk our dreams).
    ‘They seem very well,’ I murmur, finding a clean babygro and putting it next to the wipes and nappies, ready for the morning. ‘Your mother’s really into this gym thing.’
    Ben, climbing into bed, grunts. The slippery blue bedspread whispers as he pushes it down towards the foot, and then it slides off altogether, pooling on the carpet, a lake of static. ‘I expect she spends a lot of time in the salad bar,’ he says, ‘gassing with Angela Sinclair.’
    I look down at Cecily, whose dark eyelashes are fanned out on her round cheeks, her fists curled on either side of her head. Her chest rises and falls in her moon-patterned sleeping bag: in, out, in. I visualise Peggy on the treadmill in pink velour joggers and a light sweat glaze, eyes locked onto Cash in the Attic or Homes Under the Hammer .
    I rub moisturiser into my face, my neck. When I pull back the duvet, there’s a dark smear of chocolate and a flattened foil wrapper on the pillow: one of Peggy’s thoughtful touches. I must have melted my guest orange cream unwittingly, when I was feeding the baby this afternoon.
    The visit unfurls as these visits always do. We gather for chilli con carne and baked gammon and rissoles made with leftover turkey. We attend the Sinclairs’ New Year drinks where Ben becomes rather animated because one of the other guests was once a formative crush. We go for wet walks along the bridleway, Cecily in the backpack, Christopher managing to get water in his beetle wellingtons, necessitating an early return. In the evenings, with the children in bed, we watch period dramas and play competitive games of Scrabble and listen to Dirk talking about a new ride-on mower he’s thinking of buying, to Peggy havering over where to go in February (Cape Verde islands? Madeira?).
    At regular intervals during the day, Peggy does a ground-floor sweep after which bossy little cairns of our possessions – jumpers, Blue Bunny, bibs, wipes, the tube of Christopher’s eczema cream – are left for our attention at the bottom of the stairs. It’s a silent scream of protest. And, as things are never where I left them, it makes my life just that little bit harder.
    We spend a lot of time saying, ‘Put that down, Christopher,’ or ‘That’s Grandma’s special china bell, it’s not for playing with,’ or ‘The curtains aren’t a toy.’
    ‘He’s a livewire, isn’t he?’ says Dirk admonishingly as we return the Scrabble tiles to their rightful place. The chess set is missing a queen and two pawns but no one has yet commented; with luck, we’ll find them before we leave. ‘Bright as a button, I expect?’ There’s an edge of doubt in his voice. It’s just before lunch, a time for peanuts and sherry. I never have sherry anywhere else. Here, it’s a bit of a highlight.
    ‘That reminds me, Dirk,’ says Peggy, over the scream of the electric carving knife, ‘Jemima’s been put in the top sets for maths and literacy, did Tom mention that?’
    Dirk did know. ‘And of course the standard at The Chase is terribly high,’ he adds, for our benefit.
    Jemima is their other granddaughter, precious firstborn of Ben’s brother Tom. Tom was going great guns in corporate finance – Dirk was always keen to tell us that he was nailing targets, collecting scalps, being showered with bonuses – until about three years ago when it emerged, in a roundabout fashion, that he had been made redundant. Since then, Tom has been ‘regrouping’, ‘working on something very hush-hush’, although he and his matchy-matchy wife Carolyn, who does something in ‘comms’, don’t seem to have pulled in their horns: they’re still a two-car household, they’re still going to