A Hidden Life by Adèle Geras Read Free Book Online

the room and Lou had stopped crying in the end. Grandad never did come upstairs to see her that night. Next day, he’d advised Lou to apologize to her grandmother.
    â€˜She’s good at bearing grudges, Lou,’ he’d told her. ‘Better all round to do what’s needed to keep the peace. Go on, tell her you’re sorry.’
    Lou went. She never told Grandad what Constance had said the previous night. When she’d said it, Lou hadn’t quite understood it, but she thought about it afterwards and realized that it was her grandmother’s version of
and I hate you too, so there,
but put in a more grown-up way. I don’t expect she really meant it, Lou told herself as she went to find Constance. No one hates their grandchild, do they?
    She’d had to ask Miss Hardy, the housekeeper, where her grandmother was and she could tell by the way Miss Hardy’s words came out of her mouth that she’d already been told all about last night. The housekeeper had pink cheeks and looked a little like a rabbit with sticky-out teeth and white hair. Even though she smiled a lot, her smile never reached her eyes, which were like small chips of ice: very pale blue and chilly.
    â€˜She’s in the garden,’ Miss Hardy said and this time her smile was absent.
    *
    Lou had gone out of the French windows and saw her grandmother sitting on a white wrought-iron chair, at a white wrought-iron table, wearing a big sunhat. She took a deep breath to give herself courage and walked towards her. The sunhat threw a shadow over Constance’s face.
    â€˜I’m sorry for what I said,’ Lou told her.
    â€˜Indeed,’ Constance said, and Lou stared at the curly pattern of the table, like a vine or a plant of some kind. ‘Well, I have to accept your apology, I suppose.’
    â€˜Then we’re friends again?’ Lou asked.
    â€˜We’ll see,’ Constance replied. ‘It depends very much on you, I’d have thought.’
    And that was that. Life went on, Lou reflected now, but she never did really accept my apology then and she’s still punishing me now. She could see that I’d meant what I said, and that I didn’t really take it back.
    And did I hate her? Probably not, till now, maybe. I was scared of her, I didn’t like her much. I thought she was bossy and domineering. I thought it was disgraceful that she loved Ellie better than her own son and took her side when she walked out on Dad. If anyone had asked her, Lou would have said she didn’t get on with her grandmother. Nothing serious. Every family had strained relationships here and there – you couldn’t love everyone equally – but hatred? She’d never felt that before. She wasn’t even sure if what she was feeling now could be called
hatred.
How would she recognize such an emotion? It wasn’t one she’d felt very often. She avoided anyone she didn’t get on with and that was that. Hatred was close to love. You had to be a little obsessional to indulge in it. She hated and feared Ray, but that was only because she’d loved him so much to begin with. As she’d never loved Constance properly, she wasn’t up to hating her exactly, even now.
    What she felt was saddened, depressed, and also a little ashamed that her whole family would now understand something she’d tried to hide. Would Nessa and Justin feel sorry for her? Think she’d brought it on herself? Offer to help her? No, that wouldn’t happen. Justin didn’t care enough and Nessa would be so pissed off that her brother had got the house and land that she wouldn’t have the energy to think about Lou’s problems too much. There was ten years between them, and Nessa had always been a little – what was the right word? Distant? Uninvolved? In any case, not interested. Dad was furious. She’d have to stop him trying to do anything about it. She couldn’t think how