Puppies Are For Life Read Online Free Page B

simply didn’t have time. She would try as soon as she had a spare moment, of course – but her most immediate priority had to be her Uncle Bert’s funeral.
    Her father had phoned her late one evening with news of the death, his voice revealing shock, for all its bluster, because his brother had been two years his junior.
    ‘Bert’s next-door neighbour,’ Frank May had thundered down the line, ‘a Mrs Wardle – ever met her? Well, she thought you might like to go to the funeral. Apparently you always sent Bert a card at Christmas. Can’t think why,’ he’d added with a sniff of contempt, because he’d never had much regard for Bert himself.
    ‘He taught me to play Canasta,’ Susannah had tried to explain, remembering how her uncle had sat opposite her at his little card table for hours at a time, sucking placidly on his pipe while the more boisterous members of the family cavorted around them. That was how she had always thought of him, if she’d thought of him at all: as something of a loner; a bit of an odd-ball whom nobody understood, except maybe herself. Perhaps she took after him, she mused, lifting a black satin party dress from the wardrobe rail.
    Of course, black satin was entirely unsuitable for a funeral, even supposing she could still get into the dress, which was doubtful, but it had long been one of her favourites and she couldn’t help holding it against herself, recalling happier days. Days when she had been content with her lot and this madness about wanting fulfilment hadn’t seized her. What had happened to change things? Was Paul right? Should she really see a doctor?
    She turned her head from the mirror to listen to a sound outside. As if conjured up by her thoughts, Paul’s car had squeaked to a halt on the drive. And that was him coming into the cottage. Now he’d stopped on his way through the kitchen – no doubt to look at the day’s mail – and silence fell once more.
    Susannah pretended absorption in her task, dreading the coming confrontation. Another battle, she thought wearily, because she no longer felt inclined to apologise. And the likelihood of Paul suddenly seeing the light and showing understanding towards her was very remote indeed.
    Eventually – after what seemed like decades – Paul creaked up the steep little staircase to their room in search of her. She didn’t have to look round to know that he had come into the room and was standing at the foot of the bed, his jaw tense and truculent as he slowly pulled off his tie.
    But suddenly he was behind her, much closer than she had imagined, his hand coming up to knead the back of her neck.
    ‘Susie,’ he sighed into her hair, ‘I’d forgotten all about your old Uncle Bert. And I’m sorry. No wonder you’ve been so uptight. It must have been a bit much, coming on top of the kids flying the nest and us selling up the old family home.’ He turned her round to face him, his hand still massaging imagined knots at the top of her spine. ‘There’ve been too many changes in a short space of time,’ he told her, smiling down at herindulgently. ‘I think perhaps I should have been surprised if you
hadn’t
blown your top. Don’t you?’
    She swallowed her amazement and gazed back at him; he had actually managed to come up with a solution that let them both off the hook without either of them having to admit they were in the wrong.
    Did he really believe his own reasoning, though? His expression revealed nothing, it seldom did, but she thought not. The problem was still obvious to them both, and they really ought to discuss it. But when it came to relationships it was typical of Paul to sweep difficult issues under the carpet.
    He couldn’t help being that way: he had been brought up by a single aunt, his parents having been killed in a London air-raid towards the end of the war, and he had had only narrow experience of relationships. His views on parenthood and families were consequently based on ideals, and he