Read Online Want to Know a Secret? by Sue Moorcroft - Free Book Online

callbox. ‘Let’s talk,’ he suggested. That night she lied to her parents about her movements and met him at a restaurant. ‘It was a bit of a sodding shock,’ he said, grimly, ‘that shit your parents handed out. I thought that if I kept my nose clean and worked hard it would be enough in this so-called classless society. I didn’t think it mattered where me mum brought me up. I thought what mattered was what I made of myself.’
    Diane was forlorn. ‘I thought they’d be OK when they met you.’
    Gareth sliced through his steak with suppressed violence. ‘Some bloody hope! I suppose that there’s no point in asking you to marry me, now.’
    Her mouth dropped open.
    ‘No, I shouldn’t have asked.’ He took a slug of his beer. Diane drank wine in restaurants but Gareth hadn’t taken to it. ‘Blood’s thicker than water. You have to please your parents.’
    Anger set her face on fire. ‘I’m not twelve, you know.’
    He went back to his steak, shrugging her off, dismissing her point of view, just like her parents had. ‘But you’re a bit of a hothouse flower. Not exactly hardy. No, you’d do better to wait for the right bank manager to come along. Or doctor, or accountant. Do right by your mum and dad.’
    And, somehow, she’d found herself flinging his bitter resignation back in his face. ‘Rubbish! And don’t tell me I’m a hothouse flower; I’m perfectly resilient. I’m not like my parents, valuing people for superficial reasons.’
    He let his eyes lock with hers, took her hand and raised it to his lips. ‘So you’ll marry me, then?’
    ‘Yes!’ The word had spurted from her in triumph. How victorious she’d been as she stalked in to demonstrate to her parents and, perhaps, to Gareth, that she wasn’t to be dictated to. ‘We’ve something to tell you. Gareth proposed tonight and I accepted.’
    She’d felt the first stirrings of uncertainty as her father’s face went puce and the newspaper slipped from his lap.
    Gareth even went forward to offer his hand. ‘I know I’m not what you want for your daughter, you’ve made it quite clear. But we’ll stick together and have a bunch of kids and give them a grand life. Not like me, who never knew his father.’
    ‘Oh, my God,’ breathed Karen, through fingers spread across a horrified mouth.
    And there were no congratulations or sherry or questions about the future. There was just that horrified, disappointed hush. And a squirming in Diane’s belly that wasn’t completely joy at her betrothal.
    That very night, they planned a wedding for six months ahead, at the register office, of course, because Gareth had never been christened and never went to church. It all felt quite unreal but, fuelled by her parents’ anger – ‘We’re waiting for you to come to your senses!’ – Diane took to the marriage a determination to make it work, a savings account just big enough for the deposit on an ex-council house in Purtenon St. Paul, and a green Mini.
    From time to time she’d actually been impressed at the unremitting, freezing bitterness with which her parents treated her husband and, to a large extent, herself.
    ‘I’ve been brought up to take a few knocks. I can cope,’ Gareth said, often. ‘Don’t fall out with your parents over me.’ He’d been good about years of stilted Christmases with his parents-in-law, the only time they ever shared with Diane and Gareth, and later Bryony, their cushioned existence in their big house with cleaners and gardeners, new cars and all the status symbols. He’d been there for Diane when her mother had died, the rift between them unhealed.
    When the time came, at her father’s graveside Gareth had stood beside her, although he’d later told her that it was just to be certain that he saw the mardy bugger safe underground.
    Anticipation had been shining from his eyes when she arrived home a few days later after talking to Freddy about the estate. ‘Straightforward, is it, the will?’
    Diane