Read Online Puppies Are For Life by Linda Phillips - Free Book Online
Authors: Linda Phillips
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coped.’
‘I really don’t see why not. On the contrary, I would have liked it very much.’
‘Well, of all the bloody nerve!’ Susannah threw down the pencil.
‘What?’
‘How can you say that? You know perfectly well you wouldn’t have been able to hack it for one moment. What would you have done when your career clashed with your wife’s? When you needed to take up a post in – in Timbuktu, say, and she had to be in London?’
‘We’d have worked out something.’
‘Cloud cuckoo land,’ Susannah muttered.
‘You ought to have gone to college, Sue. You still could, you know, if you wanted. I wouldn’t stand in your way.’
‘I see.’ She nodded grimly. ‘So you really do think you’d have preferred a professional wife. You no longer think I’m good enough. You can’t go bragging to your pals at work about your wife who’s doing such-and-such a clever course at so-and-so college and who’s going to walk off in a few years’ time with some spiffing sort of degree. All you can talk about is my wife who’s only a pay clerk and mucks about making these god-awful coffee tables.’
‘Susannah,’ he said wearily, ‘this is not what I’m saying at all. Nothing could be further from my mind. What’s actually bothering me at the moment,if you really want to know, is that I feel you slipping away from me, and I don’t know why. You’re remote. You’re preoccupied. We don’t do things together any more. I’m beginning to wonder whether you stayed with me because of the children all these years and now you’d like to go.’ He stared out through the window at the night. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening to us.’
Susannah melted towards him. It must have taken a lot to admit his insecurity – Paul, who normally exuded nothing but inner strength; a core of solid rock running through him that could never be shaken.
‘Paul, I –’ But the phone began to ring. Tutting with exasperation, she snatched the receiver off the wall.
The voice on the line was not immediately recognisable; it was thin, high, and tearful.
‘H-hello?’ it said haltingly, then there was a long, drawn-out sniff. ‘It’s me. I’m at the station. Can you come and get me?’ Then the caller cut off.
‘Don’t tell me,’ Paul said as Susannah looked blankly surprised. ‘That was one of the children … Simon?’
‘No.’ Susannah’s thoughts had gone winging in a different direction: sickness, death, disaster! But she managed a grim little smile. ‘When did Simon ever phone us?’
‘Not since he discovered it cost money. So it was Katy, then, was it?’
‘Well, how many children have we got? Yes, itwas our dear Katy. She wants me to pick her up at the station.’ Susannah frowned as she moved towards the door. ‘She sounded very upset. I wish, now, that I’d had time to pay her a visit after the funeral. I was a bit rushed, though, in the end. What do you think’s the matter?’
‘No idea. Boyfriend trouble, I shouldn’t wonder. But I’ll go.’ He’d already reached for an old gardening jacket behind the door, eager to have something to do. ‘You’d better make up the bed, hadn’t you? I doubt whether she’ll be going back to London tonight.’
‘The bed … yes, of course. I suppose you’re right.’
The guest room had been the last one they’d decorated in the eight months since moving in, and there had been little point in making up the bed before it was needed. Actually, Susannah thought, it seemed a shame to take the new, co-ordinated sheets out of their packets. But Katy might need them so she would have to.
She sighed. She had so wanted to get on with her new project; this additional interruption was most annoying. But she instantly admonished herself for her selfishness. What kind of mother was she, to put new sheets and her own needs before a daughter who sounded as if she was in trouble?
After leaving school Katy had spent a year at secretarial college and had lived at
‘I really don’t see why not. On the contrary, I would have liked it very much.’
‘Well, of all the bloody nerve!’ Susannah threw down the pencil.
‘What?’
‘How can you say that? You know perfectly well you wouldn’t have been able to hack it for one moment. What would you have done when your career clashed with your wife’s? When you needed to take up a post in – in Timbuktu, say, and she had to be in London?’
‘We’d have worked out something.’
‘Cloud cuckoo land,’ Susannah muttered.
‘You ought to have gone to college, Sue. You still could, you know, if you wanted. I wouldn’t stand in your way.’
‘I see.’ She nodded grimly. ‘So you really do think you’d have preferred a professional wife. You no longer think I’m good enough. You can’t go bragging to your pals at work about your wife who’s doing such-and-such a clever course at so-and-so college and who’s going to walk off in a few years’ time with some spiffing sort of degree. All you can talk about is my wife who’s only a pay clerk and mucks about making these god-awful coffee tables.’
‘Susannah,’ he said wearily, ‘this is not what I’m saying at all. Nothing could be further from my mind. What’s actually bothering me at the moment,if you really want to know, is that I feel you slipping away from me, and I don’t know why. You’re remote. You’re preoccupied. We don’t do things together any more. I’m beginning to wonder whether you stayed with me because of the children all these years and now you’d like to go.’ He stared out through the window at the night. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening to us.’
Susannah melted towards him. It must have taken a lot to admit his insecurity – Paul, who normally exuded nothing but inner strength; a core of solid rock running through him that could never be shaken.
‘Paul, I –’ But the phone began to ring. Tutting with exasperation, she snatched the receiver off the wall.
The voice on the line was not immediately recognisable; it was thin, high, and tearful.
‘H-hello?’ it said haltingly, then there was a long, drawn-out sniff. ‘It’s me. I’m at the station. Can you come and get me?’ Then the caller cut off.
‘Don’t tell me,’ Paul said as Susannah looked blankly surprised. ‘That was one of the children … Simon?’
‘No.’ Susannah’s thoughts had gone winging in a different direction: sickness, death, disaster! But she managed a grim little smile. ‘When did Simon ever phone us?’
‘Not since he discovered it cost money. So it was Katy, then, was it?’
‘Well, how many children have we got? Yes, itwas our dear Katy. She wants me to pick her up at the station.’ Susannah frowned as she moved towards the door. ‘She sounded very upset. I wish, now, that I’d had time to pay her a visit after the funeral. I was a bit rushed, though, in the end. What do you think’s the matter?’
‘No idea. Boyfriend trouble, I shouldn’t wonder. But I’ll go.’ He’d already reached for an old gardening jacket behind the door, eager to have something to do. ‘You’d better make up the bed, hadn’t you? I doubt whether she’ll be going back to London tonight.’
‘The bed … yes, of course. I suppose you’re right.’
The guest room had been the last one they’d decorated in the eight months since moving in, and there had been little point in making up the bed before it was needed. Actually, Susannah thought, it seemed a shame to take the new, co-ordinated sheets out of their packets. But Katy might need them so she would have to.
She sighed. She had so wanted to get on with her new project; this additional interruption was most annoying. But she instantly admonished herself for her selfishness. What kind of mother was she, to put new sheets and her own needs before a daughter who sounded as if she was in trouble?
After leaving school Katy had spent a year at secretarial college and had lived at
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