Close Relations by Deborah Moggach Read Free Book Online Page B

stronger aroma on Monday mornings.
    â€˜I didn’t dare go out in case you rang,’ he whispered. ‘I sat there for an hour. Then they came home, all smelling of chlorine.’ He drew back and touched her hair. ‘My love, I wanted you so badly.’
    â€˜Did you really?’ She hadn’t smoked a cigarette yet; she wanted to keep her breath fresh for him.
    â€˜Shall I tell you which bits?’
    Prudence froze. A face had appeared at the window. It was the gardener, from the van. Prudence jumped back and busied herself, riffling through her mail. The woman didn’tseem to have noticed them. She was replanting the window-box. She pulled out the summer bedding – white geraniums – and flung them out of sight.
    â€˜I can’t bear it,’ said Prudence.
    â€˜I want to run my finger down the inside of your thigh,’ Stephen murmured, standing on the other side of the desk.
    â€˜I want to suck your fingers, one by one . . .’ she said.
    â€˜I want to take your breast in my mouth . . . I want to be inside you, now . . .’
    Prudence picked up a letter. Her hand trembled. ‘I want to lie with my arms around you all through the night . . .’ She stopped. Trish came in. Prudence said: ‘See you at four then, in Alan’s office.’
    â€˜And could you run me up a budget for the bulimia book?’ he asked.
    He left. Prudence sat down heavily in the swivel chair.
    Stephen Miller was a charming, weak man of forty-six. He had always been susceptible to women. He liked talking to them; he liked the sort of things they talked about. He sought out their company. In this respect he was unusual for an English man of his class – upper-middle, public school. They responded by finding him endearing, though he was far from handsome. He was a soft man, chubby in fact, with sandy hair and freckled hands. He had a dry, amused way of talking, as if nothing much mattered in the end, life was a baffling business. He wore bow ties and scruffy corduroy jackets which devoted girlfriends, in the past, had repaired for him. He had been to Oxford. He was well-read, there was something of the absent-minded schoolteacher about him which had lulled women into thinking they were safe in his company. He was a romantic. If he forgot someone’s birthday, because he was forgetful, he made up for it by an extravagant present the next day, because he was extravagent. In his publishing career he had frequently been bailed out by a devoted series of assistants – underpaid, over-educated women whocovered up for him and took the blame. They didn’t resent him for this because he thanked them profusely and took them out to lunch.
    Stephen liked lunch. During it he invariably drank too much, charging it to the firm of course, and all afternoon his secretary had to make excuses for him and tell callers he was in a meeting. There are many such men as Stephen, supported by invisible women. This is because, even in the the last years of the nineties, there are still women who willingly do so.
    Prudence was an intelligent woman. Love had not blinded her to Stephen’s weaknesses. He had been her boss for three years now; on occasion she, too, had bailed him out. He was the editorial director, responsible for the trade lists at B&B – fiction, children’s and – Prudence’s section – general nonfiction. He had slid into the job through a combination of flair and charm; he was particularly good at wooing authors from other publishers. He was also close friends with the Bunyan family, having been at All Souls with one of the sons where they had performed together in amateur dramatics.
    Under the ruthless new ownership, however, Prudence feared for him. Their new MD, Alan, had a more hands-on approach than his predecessor. He liked to know what everybody was up to. He involved himself in every detail down to the consumption of petrol in his