Love-40 Read Online Free Page B

behind, crossed North Street and headed for the house she loosely called home. Liam said Suzi would never leave Pridehaven, but sometimes Estelle wondered if it was Liam who was attached by some invisible umbilical cord, to the town of his childhood. For here he was, now teaching in the very school he had attended himself, the school his father too had once taught in, running the youth club where he had once played table tennis, taking Sunday afternoon hikes in the woods to the west of the river Pride, where all three of them had once played, and where she and Liam had first … she closed her eyes. First touched one another’s naked bodies.
    Oh yes, she thought, as she slotted her key in the lock of the huge Victorian building that housed three flats, including the one right at the top that Liam had first fallen in love with as a student, there were a hell of a lot of memories in those woods.
    She took the stairs in twos; the first carpeted flight gave way to bare floorboard by the time she reached the garret, as Liam affectionately referred to it. He had rented it as soon as he left college and returned to Pridehaven to live, bought it as soon as his salary allowed him to. Estelle – who had stayed in Pridehaven while he did his teacher training, toyed with various career opportunities, ended up working as a clerical officer with the local water authority, where she’d progressed (though she sometimes wondered if that was the right word) into the customer complaints department – had moved in very soon after.
    She used her second key to let herself in.
    But it had remained Liam’s garret, she reminded herself as she dumped her rucksack in the hall and went through to the galley kitchen. It had always been his choice.
    There was some white wine in the fridge, a half-decent Bordeaux, so she poured herself a generous glass, wandered into the living room and surveyed its contents as if seeing it for the first time. If she left, she wanted it inscribed on her memory, just as it was at this moment.
    To one side was a chair in front of a pine table, whose surface was hidden by the papers, books, exercise jotters and pens of Liam Nichols, teacher and amateur poet. And if you swung the chair to the right, you would be facing a computer screen and keyboard; pencils, rubbers, elastic bands and Tippex spilling out of desk tidies – or un-tidies in Liam’s case. Above were bookshelves stacked with poetry, books on education, Socialist essays, child psychology, you name it …
    But Liam’s influence didn’t stop there. Estelle’s critical gaze roved on, committing it to memory. On the floor by an armchair was a tray containing the remains of his breakfast, the dregs of a strong Italian coffee in a brown mug, the flaky crumbs of a croissant and a dollop of strawberry jam. His videos were piled haphazardly by the TV, his cassettes and CDs dominated the shelf space above the hi-fi, a pair of his jeans sprawled across the sofa, waiting to be ironed. And most disturbing of all, a Fauve print on the far wall seemed to watch Estelle’s every move.
    This wasn’t home, Estelle thought to herself. This was Liam’s home. Why, she wondered, had she brought so little of herself to this place in so many years? Had she known, all the time, that she wouldn’t stay?
    Out of the window she could see the car park at the back, her own racing-green Mini Mayfair snug in the far corner. Liam had taken them to CG’s in his car. Estelle didn’t care – she had relished the walk home, needed the thinking time.
    CG’s … She took a few paces further into the room and sipped the Bordeaux. It wasn’t Amanda Lake she minded – the flirting, the deep intensity which Liam could so effortlessly turn on for anyone, from a child who’d written a beautiful poem to a socialite at the tennis club whom he really should despise. No, it was the childishness of it, Estelle