A Desirable Residence by Sophie Kinsella, Madeleine Wickham Read Free Book Online

comics were utterly natural reading matter for boys of that age. At prep school, he’d been a keen subscriber to about five comics himself, he remembered. But he’d been over that particular argument enough times with Anthea to know that he was defeated. And, as a matter of principle, he backed up all her decrees to the children, whatever he thought of them.
    Andrew was displaying not a morsel of guilt, he noticed. In fact, his eyes had dropped to the page again, as though to take in as much cartoonery as possible before it was confiscated and, as Marcus watched, he gave a little chortle. Daniel was also looking down, but miserably, clearly waiting for his father’s wrath to fall. A flash of irritation crossed Marcus’s mind. He really needn’t cower on the floor like that, as if Marcus were about to hit him.
    Then, almost immediately, the irritation vanished. He took in Daniel’s bowed head, his resigned eyes, his ink-stained fingers. He’d probably had a hell of a day, what with all of this scholarship nonsense. A bit of comic reading was probably just what he needed.
    ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘Just this once, as you’ve done so well, Daniel, you can finish the comic you’re on before you go to bed. But that’s all. And tomorrow you give them back to whoever gave them to you.’
    ‘OK.’ Daniel gave his father a sheepish smile. ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Thank you, Daddy,’ said Andrew cheerily. ‘Would you like to read them after us?’
    ‘Er . . . no, thank you,’ said Marcus, catching Hannah’s eye. She grinned back at him.
    ‘I’m taking the boys to school tomorrow. I’ll make sure they’re given back. Or thrown in the bin,’ she added threateningly to Andrew.
    ‘Thanks, Hannah,’ said Marcus. ‘Now, I came in for some milk . . .’
    ‘Here you are.’ Hannah reached over to the fridge. She handed him a carton.
    ‘Thanks,’ said Marcus. ‘Actually . . .’
    She sighed. ‘I know. Put it in a jug.’
    ‘Mummy hates cartons,’ said Andrew conversationally.
    ‘Yes,’ said Marcus firmly. ‘And so do I.’ He ignored Hannah’s quizzical look, and took the porcelain jug of milk into the drawing-room.
    The floor-length curtains were cosily drawn, and the lamps around the room gave out a warm light. Anthea was sitting on a yellow brocade sofa, frowning at a book entitled Improve your child’s IQ . Her chin was cupped in one hand, and as she read, she unconsciously tapped her teeth with a palely manicured nail. As Marcus poured the milk into her coffee, he glanced over her shoulder. At the top of the page was a cartoon of a child and parent, grinning at each other over an open book. The caption read, These reasoning exercises will help both parent and child develop their powers of argument .
    Marcus gave a little shudder. As far as he was concerned, Anthea’s powers of argument were already quite developed enough. She’d always had a pincer-like mind, able to seize deftly on the flaws in her opponents’ theories and demolish them with disconcerting ease. It had been one of the things that most excited him about her, back in the days when she was a rangy, long-legged, serious-minded undergraduate at Oxford. He’d taken her home gleefully to family parties, sat back, and waited for the heady thrill as he watched her throw back her long red hair, coolly look at whoever was speaking, and completely destroy their argument. Particularly when it was his cousin, Miles. Miles had been astounded by Anthea from the beginning. ‘She’s a bloody teenager!’ he had exclaimed, the first time Marcus brought Anthea home to show off.
    ‘Nearly twenty,’ Marcus had replied, with a grin. ‘She’s young for her year. But very bright. Extremely bright, in fact.’
    And that, of course, had been the attraction. Living in Silchester, settling down to his life as an estate agent in the family firm, doing everything that was expected of him, by his late twenties Marcus had begun to experience a