Read Online The Foster Husband by Pippa Wright - Free Book Online Page A

there’s no shortage of cafes offering WiFi, but everyone expects you to have your own laptop these days. Even here. I finally admit defeat in a chintzy tea house, and order a cup
of tea to mollify the sullen teenaged waitress who has so grudgingly answered my questions. There isn’t a single other customer in here, so it’s hard to see from what urgent tasks I
could have distracted her.
    I’ve taken a seat by the window, even though it’s steamed up so much I can hardly see outside. I pull my coat sleeve over my hand and use it to rub a little porthole on the glass,
just enough to give me a view of the street. I’ve no sooner taken my hand away than two narrowed eyes appear, squinting in. There’s a sharp knock on the window and then the eyes are
gone.
    Seconds later the door of the cafe swings open and Mrs Curtis appears, waving brightly.
    ‘Yoo hoo,’ she calls, approaching me determinedly. ‘I said let’s have tea, and here you are! What a
coincidence
.’
    I stand up and pull out a chair for her, but she brusquely pulls it aside and settles herself in, fussing with a flotilla of plastic bags that must be arranged just so on the floor. She throws
her coat off with the exuberant gesture of someone disrobing in front of an admirer, but keeps her pink knitted hat on.
    ‘Left my wig at home,’ she whispers.
    She points to the pot on the table.
    ‘Now then. What kind of tea are you having?’
    ‘Earl Grey,’ I say, stunned into monosyllables by this unexpected whirlwind of activity.
    She grimaces. ‘Can’t stand the stuff. Emily! Emily!’
    The teenage waitress ambles over, drawing her order pad out of a pocket in her apron. Although Mrs Curtis clearly knows her, Emily’s red-cheeked face doesn’t offer a flicker of
recognition.
    ‘Hello, Emily. One pot of Darjeeling please, dear. Three bags – not two, three. A jug of full-fat milk, none of that nasty skimmed. And I think a piece of the Victoria sponge,
don’t you? Wait, there’s a fly in this sugar bowl, so let’s have a new one, please.’
    The waitress writes this down unhurriedly, and tucks the pad back into her pocket, before picking up the sugar bowl with a heavy sigh.
    ‘Chop chop, Emily!’ trills Mrs Curtis, drumming her red nails on the tabletop. ‘I haven’t got all day.’
    As Emily leaves, casting dark looks behind her, Mrs Curtis leans towards me and confides, ‘Of course I
do
have all day, don’t I? But Emily’s mother tells me she is a
terrible
dawdler, so I like to come in here every now and again and give her a bit of a
push
.’
    The mutinous set of Emily’s shoulders tells me she’d like to give Mrs Curtis a push right off the top of a cliff, but she does seem to have picked up speed, so perhaps there’s
a method in the old lady’s madness.
    ‘Now, Kate,’ says Mrs Curtis, patting at her bags to check they haven’t rearranged themselves while she wasn’t looking. ‘Why do I have the feeling you’ve been
avoiding
me? Hmm?’
    ‘Oh! I haven’t,’ I say. ‘That is, I’m sorry if it seems like that. I just haven’t felt very sociable since I moved in. I didn’t mean it to seem rude,
Mrs Curtis.’
    I should have known that, in a small town like Lyme, hiding away only serves to draw attention to yourself. But if I had run all over the place telling everyone my problems I’d only have
been criticized for making a song and dance of it. I can’t win.
    Mrs Curtis ducks down for a moment to pick up her handbag, and takes out a plastic packet of tissues, which she places on the table between us. ‘I suppose this is because of
that
man
?’
    She nods pointedly at the tissues, as if even the mention of my husband will make me start wailing.
    ‘I suppose,’ I say weakly.
    ‘Needless to say I’ve heard all about it, dear. People are
terrible
gossips, you know. But why should you be hiding yourself away when it was that man that caused all the
problems?’
    I remove a tissue from the plastic packaging, to