Read Online Other People's Husbands by Judy Astley - Free Book Online

for a party with an instant new love of her life and tell you it was OK, she was over it, but ta very much for the chocolate.
    â€˜It’ll just be a couple of days a week till the end of the uni year – so it’s only till June, really . . . though I suppose then I’ll need some kind of job.’
    Cassandra looked so much happier this morning than she had the evening before, when she’d seemed defeated by the pressures of boyfriend, babycare and life. It was a strange meal, the girls being so careful about what they said, and Conrad with all this new mad stuff about not wanting to travel any more, and looking as if he had a secret that he was desperate for someone to ask about. Sometimes, Sara thought, it was a toss-up which, out of Charlie and Conrad, was actually the baby. Maybe this attention-seeking was what people meant by second childhood.
    â€˜Gotta dash – said I’d pick up Miranda on the way. Bye-bye my lovely baby.’
    Cassandra dropped a kiss on Charlie’s fuzzy head, grabbed her bag of books and car keys and opened the back door. For a moment, she hesitated in the doorway, the sunlight shining through breeze-blown blonde hair. She looked back at her mother and Charlie, eyes glittery.
    â€˜Thanks so much, Mum. I really couldn’t . . .’
    â€˜Cass – just go!’ Sara was close to getting up and shooing the girl out of the door. She would be late for her lecture if she didn’t leave now, but it seemed important not to return to chivvying her as if she was still a schoolgirl putting off the dread moment of a maths test. ‘It’s all right, honestly. He’ll be fine with me. Now quick, Cass, slide out before he notices.’
    And Cassandra was gone.
    â€˜So. Looks like it’s just you and me for the day, Charlie,’ Sara said to him as she carried him to the sink and ran cool water over his sticky hands. He grabbed for the stream of water, trying to catch it. She clasped him firmly as she tried at the same time to reach for a towel to dry him. He seemed to have got water all over him, even in his hair. There was quite a lot down her, too.
    â€˜Here – let me.’ Conrad came in through the back door and took Charlie from her. Charlie wriggled and swiped at Conrad’s face with his wet hands.
    â€˜Thanks, darling. I’d forgotten how squirmy babies can be. Here, let me dry him.’
    Conrad held Charlie up in front of him and looked into his face. Charlie stared back, mesmerized, then broke into a broad toothless smile, his blue eyes wide and sparkling.
    â€˜He’s beautiful, isn’t he?’ Conrad said quietly. ‘Remember Cass at that age? She was still about half the size of the other babies.’
    â€˜I know.’ Sara slid her arm round Conrad, remembering. ‘So tiny. I thought she’d never grow. When she was born, all the other babies in the hospital were so huge by comparison. I know the midwife said the tiny ones catch up fast but it was hard to believe she ever would.’
    It had been a terrifying time; Cassandra had been born six weeks early, labour having got under way for Sara during a private view in a Cork Street gallery full of what were described as ‘political landscapes’. Conrad had been deep into conversation with Peter Blake about the Everly Brothers, and she had tuned out from their chat and into the depths of excruciating backache, assuming she needed no more than a glass of water and a comfortable chair. An hour later, Cassandra had whizzed into the world in an ambulance on the King’s Road as if she simply couldn’t wait to get her life started. She’d weighed four pounds – well within an easy-survival range, but her lungs weren’t ready to function, she was sleepy and jaundiced and seemed to have used up all her energy getting herself born. Conrad had said, as he watched her breathing unevenly in her incubator, ‘It’s as if she’s