Daughters-in-Law by Joanna Trollope Read Free Book Online Page B

kind of architectural Fair Isle jersey, and in the center,on a mound flanked by flights of steps and planted with enormous plane trees, was a folksy little bandstand under a pointed roof where Charlotte had, on her very first visit, seen a pair of thin boys picking at guitars and singing raggedly to an audience of mothers with babies in buggies, and neat old men in kurtas and embroidered caps. It had seemed to her wonderfully vivid and wonderfully exotic. She’d bought take-away falafel and a sun-dried-tomato salad from an engaging little place on Calvert Avenue so that they could have a picnic in the empty, dusty flat that Luke had just signed a lease on, and felt the future unrolling before her like a fairground ride, sparkling with lights.
    The flat had two rooms, with a kitchen under the eaves and a bathroom with a huge window from which you could see, giddily, far, far below, the decayed strip of low buildings, which now housed a series of artisan workshops, including Luke and Jed’s studio. You could even, Charlotte discovered, pick out the very skylight of the studio, and she imagined how, in the winter dark, she could look down there and see, with lovely wifely exasperation, that the lights were on in the studio, which meant that Luke was still down there working, when he should have been up in the flat eating the kind of delicious nourishing supper she was going to practice cooking until she was as good a cook as Luke’s mother was. She thought that, what with the number of commissions Luke was now getting from the music industry, as well as the new sidelines he was developing in film, and lighting design for concerts and things, there might be quite a lot of evenings when she would be looking down at that skylight, and seeing the lights still on. She vowed she would not nag. She vowed she would stay as pleased and excited at his growing career as he was, as she was at the moment. She vowed that she would never give him cause to feel that she had to be protected from hard times, likePetra. She had no idea what Ralph’s business was, except that it was some kind of online financial thing, investment advice or something, and she had no inclination to ask further since the whole situation around Ralph and Petra and the little boys and Anthony and Rachel made her feel strangely unsettled, however many times Luke told her that no one mattered to him like she did. She wished she hadn’t told Luke she felt jealous. She wished she’d just navigated the whole topic with the kind of grown-up poise that indicated that she was naturally concerned by Ralph’s news, but not in the least personally ruffled by it. And so, to make amends to herself for an adolescent moment of vulnerability, she said to Luke, when they returned to the flat from Venice, “Do ask Ralph up here, if you want to talk or anything. He can christen the sofa bed.”
    And she’d been rewarded by Luke putting his arms round her and saying, his mouth against her ear, “You are a complete doll.”
    So here she was, getting wedding-present sheets out of their complicated packaging of cellophane and cardboard, and pulling a new duvet out of its box, in order to have them ready, later that day, to make the sofa up for Ralph to sleep on. It was seven in the morning, the sun was out, Luke was showering in the bathroom, and Charlotte, in a denim miniskirt, tight striped vest, and shrunken military jacket with huge brass buttons, was all ready to leave for her job in a local radio station located on Marylebone High Street. In the fridge sat salad ingredients and pieces of salmon to grill, and she would pick up bread during the day, and cheese and strawberries, and Luke would get wine and beer, and she would light candles later and not tell Ralph that he was their first guest ever. He might also turn out to be rather an appreciative guest. Luke said he’d leapt at the chance of coming to London for the night.
    “Actually,” Luke said, “he asked if it was