The Memory of Midnight Read Online Free Page A

friend!’
    ‘You will have other friends. Maids like yourself. You’ll soon forget Tom when you don’t see him every day.’
    Nell’s face darkened. ‘I won’t!’
    ‘We all have to do things we don’t want to do,’ snapped Anne, impatient with her stepdaughter’s show of temper. ‘Even you, Eleanor.’
    ‘I’ll never forget Tom.’ Nell set her chin and shook her head stubbornly. ‘Never, never, never!’ She looked at her stepmother and her green eyes were bright with
defiance. ‘Never,’ she said.

Chapter Two
    York, present day
    ‘I can’t believe you’re going to live here!’ Vanessa stood in the doorway of the kitchen and looked around her with distaste. ‘It’s a
horrible flat. Dark and poky and dingy. Ugh.’
    ‘It’s characterful,’ said Tess, determinedly unpacking pasta and milk and not looking at the stained sink or grubby tiles.
    ‘It’s dirty!’
    ‘Then I’ll clean it.’ Tess kept her voice even, the way she had learnt to do when she was talking to Martin. The thought of him snagged in her mind, caught on the barbed wire
of memory, and she shook it free. She didn’t need to be careful now. She could say what she thought. The realization still caught her unawares sometimes, making her giddy with a strange
combination of relief and apprehension. It was so long since she had been able to open her mouth without thinking that she wasn’t quite sure what to do with her newly found freedom.
    No more gauging a mood before she spoke. No more quick readjustment of her opinions in response to a drawing together of Martin’s brows. The slightest tightening of his lips could set her
mind scrambling for a way out of the conversation without provoking him further.
    ‘I like it,’ she told Vanessa for the thrill of disagreeing, although the truth was that she had been dismayed when she unlocked the door at the top of the narrow stairs and let
herself in. The flat felt different without Richard’s cheerfully chaotic presence. Before, it had seemed cosy and comfortable, the perfect refuge, but now the air smelt stale, sour, and the
warm tranquillity she had liked so much when Richard showed her round had evaporated into an uneasy silence.
    It wouldn’t be silent when Oscar was here, she reminded herself. All it needed was a good airing. It would be fine. She
would
like it.
    Vanessa pulled the scrunchie from her hair, bent over, shook her head and then tied the glossy mass back in a ponytail, all in one practised move. She had the intimidating glow of an exercise
addict and was as slim and sparklingly pretty as she had been when they were at school. Next to her, Tess always felt drab and limp, and although she was glad to have a friend again, it was
impossible not to feel suffocated sometimes by Vanessa’s insistence on helping her do everything.
    Tess wanted to manage by herself. Nobody seemed to think that she would be able to, and how could she prove them wrong when Vanessa kept sweeping in and taking over?
    ‘Seriously, Tess, I think you’re making a mistake,’ Vanessa said now as she smoothed the last strands back from her face. ‘Stonegate is no place to live with a child. It
might be picturesque, but it’s noisy and there are tourists everywhere and you won’t have proper neighbours and there’s nowhere to park.’
    ‘I don’t have a car.’ Frustration feathered Tess’s voice, but Vanessa didn’t notice.
    ‘Yes, and look what a hassle it’s been just bringing some shopping in,’ she said. ‘I’d never live on a pedestrianized street like this. You’ve got to wait
until cars are allowed in, sit for hours behind delivery vans, park on the pavement . . .’
    A sense of despair, all too familiar, began to wash over Tess but she brushed it aside. She was grateful to her friend, of course she was, but she could have got a taxi from her mother’s
as planned. It was Vanessa who had insisted on helping her move in, and in the end, it had been easier just to give