Quarter Past Two on a Wednesday Afternoon Read Online Free Page B

to say.’
    No. No one ever did say. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement that Rose’s name must never be mentioned. Anna had come closer than usual to breaking the rule.
    Bethan looked at her sidelong, tilting her head. ‘You seem a bit …’
    ‘What?’
    ‘I don’t know. Unsettled.’
    Anna made herself smile, trying to regain the celebratory tone they’d started with. ‘Sorry. I don’t know why. Except it’s not because I want a baby, and definitely not because I think Martin’s sleeping with Ruth. Let’s not get sidetracked. Honestly, Beth, I’m thrilled you asked me to be godparent. Will you give me a crash course?’
    ‘We’ll talk more, sometime soon.’ Bethan glanced up at the clock. ‘I’d better get back. Publicity meeting at two-thirty.’
    Anna downed her coffee and summoned a waiter to settle the bill. Outside on the pavement she and Bethan stood for a moment, buttoning their coats, pulling on gloves.
    ‘I’ll text you. Take care,’ said Bethan, as they hugged.
    ‘And you! Great to see you. Look after yourself.’
    Bethan walked away quickly in the direction of Bloomsbury, a jaunty figure in her purple tights, boots and butcher-boy cap. Anna watched her go, wishing she had Bethan’s gift for happiness. It looked so easy, for those who had the knack.

    Years ago, when they were children, Rose showed Anna the Seven Sisters.
    Standing by the back door, Anna was shivering so much that her teeth hurt; she could have made herself stop, but it added to the excitement of being out in the dark. Night-time transformed the garden into a strange, unknown place, even though indoors was only a few steps away, with Mum and Dad watching TV. As long as she could reach back and touch the house wall, she’d be safe.
    They had come out to look for a hedgehog that sometimes scuttled across the lawn, nosing its way to the dish of cat-food Rose put out for it. Anna hugged herself, peering into the stalky, spidery place beside the shed. Her eyes sought the thicker patch of darkness that might, if she willed it hard enough, clump itself into a hedgehog and trundle over the grass as if on wheels. It gave her a shivery thrill to think of other lives so close to her own, of creatures huddled in darkness, waiting for nightfall, their time for creeping out. Then Rose, distracted from hedgehogs, called, ‘Look, look at the stars! There’s the Plough, and the Pole Star. And the Seven Sisters – how many can you see?’
    ‘Where?’ Anna’s head jerked up, her eyes adjusting to a different scale. The stars giddied her; how could she not have noticed them?
    Rose pointed. ‘See? It’s like a blurry bit. Look at the very top of the tree, then go up a bit, like two o’clock. Have you got them?’
    Anna gazed, anxious not to make Rose impatient. There were bears and lions and hunters if you knew how to see them; Anna imagined them chasing each other across the night sky, trailing stardust like glitter. She knew there was meant to be a swan and a lion and a pair of twins, and now sisters too. Her eyes searched for faces, flowing robes and hair, like those pictures made of joined-up dots. Star-sisters. But all she could see, following Rose’s pointing finger, was haze, a smudged thumbprint of light. She was disappointed.
    ‘Did you make that up?’ she asked Rose. ‘About sisters?’
    ‘No! It’s true. They’ve got names – Dad showed me. We looked them up in a book.’
    He didn’t show me , Anna thought. Resentment prickled her. She thought of Rose and Dad in the garden looking at stars, finding the pictures, joining the dots; herself left out, sent up to bed on her own. The Seven Sisters belonged to Rose and Dad. She was only being let in on something that was already theirs.
    ‘I can’t see them,’ she said, huffily.
    ‘You’re not looking properly,’ Rose told her. ‘That blurry place is made of stars. How many can you see?’
    Anna stared. She narrowed her eyes, trying to make out the individual