A Perfect Home Read Online Free Page A

chocolate all over the armchair. How did it get there?’ William shouted from the living room. Claire looked up at the ceiling and tried to count to ten. She gave up at five. ‘And there are crumbs. Has someone being eating biscuits in here?’
    â€˜Come on,’ said Emily to her brother. ‘Let’s go.’
    â€˜I think I’ve trodden on a cake,’ said Oliver, as he moved towards the door and flicked damp sponge off his bare foot in a spray of soggy cake crumbs. William stood in the doorway. The children squeezed past him.
    â€˜Is there no end to the mess you all create?’ he called after them.
    â€˜They’re children,’ said Claire as she fetched the dustpan and brush. ‘It’s a family home, not a show house, can’t you just try and lighten up a little?’
    â€˜Lighten up?’ William looked incredulous. ‘All I’m asking is that everyone sticks to the house rules. Do you think my mother would have let me eat a chocolate biscuit in the living room when I was a boy?’
    â€˜No, I’m sure she wouldn’t.’ Claire squatted on the floor sweeping up the cake crumbs. She resisted the urge to say that William’s mother probably didn’t let William or his father eat anything unless they were sitting at the dining table with damask napkins and wearing full evening dress.
    William turned to go back in the living room then stopped.
    â€˜Those cushions on the chesterfield?’
    â€˜The new ones with the houses on them?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    Claire sighed. ‘Don’t worry William, they’re not staying there, they’re going to the gallery for Sally’s window.’
    â€˜That’s a shame.’
    Claire looked up from her sweeping, surprised. ‘Is it?’
    â€˜Yes. I like them. They’re very good.’ He smiled at her. ‘Well done.’

Chapter Two
    â€˜Quirky vintage finds complement the classic furnishings around this stylishly refurbished home.’
    William was late. Claire desperately scanned the playground to see if she could see him coming. A crowd of parents gathered around the school gates waiting for the children to come out of the classrooms and the fête to start.
    â€˜What a splendid display, Mrs Elliott,’ Mrs Wenham stood in front of Claire’s stall, her jowly face heavily made-up, her steely grey hair perfectly coiffed, hairspray glinting in the afternoon sun.
    Claire smiled back at Oliver and Emily’s headmistress and tried to stop Ben from climbing up the table and lying across her display.
    â€˜Thank you for giving me the opportunity to have a stall,’ Claire said.
    â€˜Here at Oakwood Primary, we like to support our parents’ endeavours, however small.’ She picked up a leaflet that Claire had hastily printed on the computer in the early hours of the morning. ‘I see you have a website. More professional than I thought.’ Sally winked at Claire from her position on the cake stall next door. ‘Maybe you’d like to come into school one day and do a little bit of sewing with the children?’ Mrs Wenham gazed at the colourful array of cushions, aprons, shopping bags, and tea-cosies. Heart-shaped gingham lavender bags hung from a collection of twigs in a jar and strings of pretty pastel bunting fluttered against the wire fence behind the stall. In the middle of the fence Claire had strung a long calico banner spelling out Emily Love in spotty letters.
    â€˜Emily Love,’ Mrs Wenham read out. ‘How quaint.’ She moved on to the cake stall where Sally was trying to disguise the fact that her mouth was full of chocolate brownie. Mrs Wenham peered at Sally’s face,
    â€˜I think I’d better go and open the gates before you eat all the stock, Mrs Smith.’ Mrs Wenham gave a little braying laugh and hurried away, her high heels clicking on the tarmac.
    â€˜Condescending old goat,’ Sally glared at the