Catch Me When I Fall by Nicci French Read Free Book Online

can shut himself up in his study for hours and when I go in he looks at me as if I'm a stranger. I know it all happened quickly. I mean our marriage. I wasn't exactly the type to settle down anyway, but I know we were right. Well, I was right. Maybe Charlie wasn't, maybe I'm a bad bet. But you shouldn't stop to think too much about things like marriage, you should just do it. Hold on to what you want. Hold on to love.'

    I sat back in my seat, exhausted. I didn't know if I believed what I'd just said, or at least somewhere inside myself believed it, but couldn't reach that part of me so had to mouth the words, mimic the feelings and wait for them to come true again. That's the way to do it: pretend to be yourself and maybe you will be again.
'Do you feel awful?'
     "I could do with an early night. But I'll be fine. That's not what you meant, is it?"
     She looked at me curiously and put one finger on the side of her mouth, which is something she does when she's thinking. 'You should be more careful, my friend,' she said.
    I phoned Charlie at home. 'Day going all right?' I asked.
"Yes," he said.
'Have you started on the illustration yet?'
"Not yet. I need time.'
     "I know, but it would be a shame to lose the commission and you know how much we need the '
     'I've said I'll do it. I'm sorry. We can't all get ten things done before breakfast.'
     I felt a hot jet of rage in my chest, followed immediately by a liquid jolt of shame. Who was I to get angry with anybody, let alone Charlie? "You're right,' 1 said. I told him I'd be home by
six. I'd buy something to eat or we could get a takeaway. "Great,' he said.
"Love you,' I said, but he'd already put the phone down.
     I did leave work at the proper time. I had planned to go to the supermarket and behave like a proper wife, loading the trolley with food for the week, planning ahead rather than living from moment to moment. I could cook a real meal, a chicken; even I could cook a chicken, surely. The thought of food made me want to gag, although at the same time I was hungry.

    On my way to the Underground I passed a row of shops. One, a little food store, had a smashed window, covered with a plastic sheet flapping in the wind. An Asian woman in a grey nylon work coat was bent down on the pavement. A queasy memory wormed its way into my consciousness. This was where I had been last night. This was my fault. She looked up at me as I )ed beside her. 'How awful for you,' I said.
     She just shrugged. She looked tired and almost accepting, as if it was a part of life to be dealt with, like the wind and the rain. 'It's not the first time.'
     I picked up a basket from outside the shop. "I need to get some stuff, anyway,' I said. "I can't think why I've never come in here before. It's on my way home."
     It wouldn't be chicken now. I bought a packet of ground coffee and some tea-bags, a couple of pints of milk, which, when
     I got home, I discovered had been mechanically treated in some way so that it didn't go sour and was impossible to drink. I also chose two shrivelled yellow apples in a Cellophane pack, eight extra-soft pink toilet rolls and some washing-up liquid, four packets of cigarettes, half a bottle of overpriced gin, lime juice, orange-juice concentrate, which I hate and Charlie hates even more. I had to collect a second basket for muesli, sesame-seed bread, a jar of marmalade, a tub of
spreadable butter, several
packets of chewing-gum, digestive biscuits and beer. When I'd paid, I heaved up the bags, the handles cutting into my fingers, and turned to go.
     In the next street I passed a branch of my bank. I stopped at the machine outside and checked my balance. A hundred and forty-two pounds and forty-three pence. I withdrew a hundred and forty in clean, bright, factory-fresh notes. I rummaged in my bag and found an old envelope. I put the money inside and scrawled on it, in what I thought might look like the handwriting of a moronic hooligan, "FOR THE WINDOW'. I took a deep