Read Online Polls Apart by Clare Stephen-Johnston - Free Book Online

quarter-past eight in the morning and I’m already bloody exhausted,” she laughed.
    Anna smiled. She felt relaxed for the first time in as long as she could remember. Sitting there in Libby’s large but well-worn kitchen – which summed up the rest of the house – she felt hugely proud of her big sister. “You do such a great job, Libby. I was sitting here watching you and wondering how such a good mother could come from such a bad one.”
    “Mum was mentally ill. There was never any chance of her being a good mother.”
    “You always did defend her. You’re much more forgiving than I am.”
    “That’s because I’ve less to forgive,” Libby gave her sister a long and knowing look and as Anna returned her gaze, safe in the kindness and love of someone who knew her like no one else, she knew she had come to the right place. Libby had protected her through some of the darkest days of their childhood. Anna often wondered if she’d have ever made it this far without her sister. Surely the burden of her youth would have been too much to carry alone.
    “I’ve been wondering these last few days why we never got counselling?” Anna asked.
    “Well,” Libby shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “When we left Wellinghurst we agreed we’d put it behind us – separate ourselves from our past and start again. I think that’s the only way, don’t you?”
    “I don’t know,” Anna shook her head. “I thought I had put it behind me, but it’s back again.”
    “Put it out of your mind,” Libby said abruptly. “I’m going to make myself another coffee. Do you want one?”
    “Okay,” Anna replied, struggling to hide her disappointment that her sister had shut the conversation down.
    Libby had only just got to her feet when the doorbell rang. The sisters looked at each other with wide eyes as their minds quickly sifted through the possibilities of who it could be.
    “I’ll take a look through the peek hole,” Libby said before tiptoeing out into the hallway, only to return a few seconds later. “There’s a chubby red-headed woman with black-rimmed glasses on the doorstep who looks very familiar.”
    “Oh.” Anna leapt up and headed for the hallway. “That’s Joy, my PR agent.”
    Anna quickly opened the front door, checking behind Joy to see if any press had found where she was staying.
    “Don’t worry,” said Joy, kissing Anna on the cheek. “No one knows you’re here, although I’m sure they’ll work it out soon enough.”
    Anna ushered Joy in and showed her through to the kitchen where Libby was busy making the coffee. “I’d better make it three cups then,” she said smiling, then reached out to shake Joy’s hand. “I’m sure we’ve met before though I can’t remember where.”
    “Yes,” Joy replied, eyes squinting while she tried to figure it out. “I think it might have been a couple of Christmases ago at one of Anna and Richard’s drinks bashes.”
    “That’ll be it,” Libby agreed. “That was probably the last one they invited me to after I slipped in their kitchen and ended up with my skirt over my head.” Libby laughed unselfconsciously at her own joke as she handed out the cups of coffee and guided the women over to the kitchen table.
    Joy laid her huge Mulberry holdall on the floor and proceeded to pull out that morning’s papers. “Here is the news,” she said, in classic newsreader tone, slapping the papers down on the table.
    Anna immediately seized a copy of a tabloid, which she held close to her face, studying its front page. “The man has no shame,” she said, throwing the paper over towards her sister.
    Libby looked at the main image and headline and realised immediately why Anna was so upset. There, in full colour and taking up a quarter of the front page, was a picture of Richard, head thrown back and laughing raucously with his colleagues in a restaurant.
    “Look at him living it up with Bob and Ray while I’m hidden away like some kind of scarlet