Love Is a Four Letter Word by Claire Calman Read Free Book Online Page A

tight.’
    Daddy comes in behind her.
    â€˜Just come to say night-night.’
    He treads softly, although she is still awake, and sits down on the bed. He scoops his arms under her and squeezes her tight. She can feel the smooth, soft stuff of his tie against her cheek, the rough cloth of his jacket against her nose.
    â€˜Will you check, Daddy? Please?’
    He gets down on his hands and knees to look under the bed.
    â€˜All clear,’ he says, getting up and blowing her a kiss from the door. ‘See you later, alligator.’
    â€˜In a while, crocodile,’ she replies.
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5
    â€˜No rush to get up,’ Gerald said, as he poked his head round the door with a cup of tea. ‘Your mother’s had to go into town to have her hair done, so you’re a free woman.’
    â€˜Nice of her to put out flags and form a welcoming committee.’
    â€˜Fancy some breakfast?’
    On her customary stroll around the village, she bought a couple of postcards of endearingly awful watercolour views of the high street and the church, and wandered along to The Whistling Kettle to write her cards and have a coffee.
    â€˜Mum’s back,’ said Gerald, on her return. ‘Don’t forget to mention her hair, eh?’
    Bella tugged at a pucker in her shirt and knocked on her parents’ bedroom door.
    â€˜Mmm?’
    She opened the door a little way and craned her head around it.
    â€˜It’s only me. Just come to say hello.’
    â€˜Oh, hello, Bella-darling.’ Alessandra glanced up at her from the dressing table. ‘Why are you hovering there? Come in, come in. Lovely to see you.’ Belladipped to kiss her mother’s proffered cheek.
    â€˜The hair’s great. Very elegant. Colour’s nice, too.’
    Alessandra scanned Bella’s face as if to check her expression, then turned her head this way and that in the mirror.
    â€˜I think I’d have made a better job of it myself. Anyway, how are you, darling?’ Alessandra covered her eyes with one hand to shield them from a cloud of hairspray. She smoothed down a wisp escaping from her French pleat. The salon-smell filled Bella’s nose, sending her back to long hours spent waiting at the hairdresser’s as a child, swinging her legs, reading her book or drawing pictures in her special grown-up sketch pad that Daddy had given her.
    â€˜Fine. Yup. I’m fine.’
    Alessandra’s threefold reflection peered up at her expectantly from the triple mirror.
    â€˜We haven’t seen you for ages,’ said the full face from the central frame. ‘You really must come more often.’
    â€˜I’d love to, but –’ Bella shrugged. ‘There was the move. There’s still loads to do, and you know how busy it gets with work and all.’
    â€˜Well, of course, we can’t compete with the excitement of the rat race,’ said the right profile, briskly dusting its cheek with translucent powder.
    â€˜The house is looking lovely. As always. Is that a new vase in the hall?’ The reflection nodded and glanced at her sidelong.
    â€˜Your father misses you terribly,’ said the left profile. ‘You should really try and think of him sometimes.’
    â€˜I do.’ Bella hooked her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans and focused on the toe of her left boot. How nice the worn leather looked against the soft green pile of the carpet, like a piece of fallen bark on a floor of springy moss. Perhaps she should go painting in the woods? Sneak out, as if meeting a secret lover. An image of dark trees came to her, the shadows beneathsliced by shafts of sunlight. Ah, Bella-dear, dabbling with your paints again? I am glad. So nice for a woman to have an enjoyable hobby …
    Alessandra’s mouth formed a rictus-smile as she applied her lipstick.
    â€˜What do you think, hmm? It’s new. Amber Spice.’
    â€˜Lovely.’ Bella nodded at the