Her Read Online Free Page B

chipped china jug stuffed with sweet williams on the sill, the finger paintings moored to the fridge with magnets (crowns, beach balls, tiny tins of Italian beer). The way these small choices reflect upon her.
    Christopher is removed from his highchair and makes his way out into the sunshine while I pour the boiling water into mugs.
    ‘Sorry about the mess,’ she says. ‘I never seem to be able to get things straight.’
    I say something about knowing how hard it is.
    ‘I never realised how much mess is involved in just living,’ she says, trying to laugh. Incredulously, as if she can’t quite believe it, as if it’s nearly a joke, she describes all the small tedious steps involved in preparing a meal for her child and serving it to him and cleaning up afterwards: ‘One stone, all these bloody ripples.’
    She goes on for a little longer, the housewife’s lament, and then abruptly stops, pressing her lips together as if to keep the words back. Her cheeks are bright with the novelty, the excitement of telling someone how she really feels. Or maybe it’s shame. I watch her as she rinses the cloth in the sink, hangs it over the tap. There’s something else in her expression that I can’t quite read; it frightens me. Maybe she has caught the edge of some ancient memory. But then her face clears and I realise I’m safe. She won’t remember. It meant nothing to her, after all.
    ‘Sit down,’ I say, ‘Drink your tea.’
    So she sits, and we talk a little about safer things, her Italian summer, Sophie, my painting. I can see how exotic the private view sounds to her, and I say she should come, if she fancies it. The look on her face makes me realise I mustn’t follow through. Hold back for now. See how it goes.
    Perhaps sensing I’ve retreated a little, she mentions – she can’t help herself – that she used to work in TV. I’m more than all this , she’s signalling. Look, I really am. Then, with a little moue at the effort, she rises to her feet and goes outside to remonstrate with Christopher, who is whacking the hedge with a stick; and while this is going on I rinse out my mug in the sink and halt in front of the fridge, picking off the little plastic letters, rearranging them to make a phrase, a private joke, just for my own amusement. When she comes back, I surrender the wallet and say goodbye, promising to drop off an invite when I’m passing, and as I walk off into the scented evening, I wonder whether she will notice it, or if Ben will: the orange and blue and yellow letters spelling out b-a-d-p-e-n-n-y.

Emma
    Nina forgets the invitation. She must have other things on her mind, and in any case I find I’m slightly relieved she hasn’t remembered: Christopher’s a nightmare with babysitters; and once I’ve got him settled in his cot I can’t really face the Northern Line. Easier to go downstairs and have a glass of wine while listening to people on the radio discussing movies and plays I’ll never see.
    Ben comes home and finds me chopping vegetables like a person in a sitcom. I hear his key in the lock, the sound of my release. But he doesn’t know that’s how I feel, and I can’t put it into words. He comes home with his tales of incompetent floor managers and outside broadcasts gone haywire, and I feel nothing but envy.
    ‘So, how was your day?’ he might ask, sitting down at the table to eat the meal I have prepared for him.
    I have to think hard to remember what we did. Did we see the GP today? Did I take Christopher to Monkey Music? Was this the day we went to the supermarket, or to Regent’s Park to meet Amy and Dulcie? Sometimes I make it up, so I have something to say, and I find he can’t tell the difference. ‘Sounds nice,’ he says, putting his knife and fork together, not really listening.
    The business of getting out of bed and low chairs is now accompanied by sighs and grunts. I wait on the stairs to catch my breath and grip the banister in the dark. In the evenings I’m