Read Online The Hook by Raffaella Barker - Free Book Online Page A

slid into the driver’s seat muttering about traffic wardens.
    Mick shoved the ticket in his pocket.
    â€˜Calm you down, Danny boy. I parked here earlier and left the car while I went around town a bit, that’s all.’
    In the back seat Christy lolled her head on Mick’s shoulder, warm and happy with his arm around her. She looked up at him.
    â€˜Well, how did you see Dad then?’ Her voice was lazy as she twisted herself until she was comfortable resting against his side.
    Mick’s arm tensed and his frame was as unyielding as metal beside her. He sighed, pressing his fingers knuckle white on the back of the driver’s seat.
    â€˜I never said I saw your dad, girl, I called him up. Is that OK with you? Now stop policing me. Turn right here, Danny.
Right
, I said. Jesus, will we be living after this journey is the question now.’ He hugged both arms around Christy, and the car spat dust on to the twilight road.

Chapter 5
    Christy did not enhance her mother’s beauty like Maisie and Danny. Their colouring, their tall grace set off Jessica’s moon cool to perfection. Christy tagged along behind her mother, anxious to please her. It was like chasing a shadow: no matter how hard Christy tried, she could not make her mother turn to her with the easy affection of childhood.
    Christy was fifteen when she began to understand how her mother hated getting old and blamed her for it. There was a shopping trip Christy remembered. It began badly. Danny was away camping with a friend, so everything he needed for school had to be selected by his sisters. Maisie headed with unerring eye for the most expensive version of school trainers, sweatshirts and tracksuits, sneering and mocking her mother as she searched through the sale racks. Christy darted back and forth between them, trying to divert Maisie’s lashing scorn, glancing anxiously at her mother whose brow creaseddeep and then deeper when she saw Christy watching her.
    Jessica’s mood changed when they left the department store, Danny’s uniform parcelled and awaiting collection later. She linked arms with her daughters, and smiled, pulling them forward to giggle at a window where a youth blushed in his struggle to pull tights over the stiff legs of a naked mannequin. Their heads together laughing, embracing in the street, the reflection in the shop window was of three girls. Jessica saw this when she threw back her head and her veins raced with triumph. Her daughters hovered on the brink of womanhood and she was forty and still as slight and graceful as they were.
    She hugged them both closer and said, ‘I’m going to do it. I want to buy you each a grown-up party dress. It’s my own money, left by my aunt, and it’s time you each had something special.’
    Maisie hardly waited for her to finish speaking.
    â€˜God, thanks, Mum. I know what I want. Come in here, quick.’ She dragged her mother and sister into a small shop where music throbbed from the open door.
    Jessica was disconcerted. She had imagined they would go and drink coffee first, and talk about where they might go, what they might buy. A cloud of femininity and fashion talk would roll over them and the occasion would be marked with celebration. But that was not Maisie’s way. She smiled as her elder daughter came out of the changing room pirouetting, a skinof gold hardly covering her. It wasn’t possible for Maisie to wait and talk, she was too impulsive.
    â€˜What do you think, Mum?’ Maisie snaked her spine high and tiptoed in front of the mirror, holding her hair up with both hands, twisting so she could see her back. The colour flowed down from her hair into her dress, shifting like scales in the light.
    Jessica blinked.
    â€˜You look lovely, darling, but isn’t it a bit short?’
    Christy nudged her.
    â€˜Don’t say that, Mum, she’ll just try and find a shorter one.’
    Maisie stalked back into the