Love Nest by Julia Llewellyn Read Free Book Online Page B

face crushed with fear. ‘None of this means anything.’
    Karen reminded herself that illness affected men differently from women. As a mother she had already experienced huge changes in the body, was more familiar with hospitals and embarrassing procedures. Knew how it felt to give up your body to strangers. But of course her pregnancies had had joyful outcomes. She couldn’t know how it must feel to think you were dying. Inasmuch as she’d ever envisaged it, she’d always imagined herself brave, long-suffering, cheery, but Phil had been reduced to a snivelling, self-pitying, aggressive wreck. It wasn’t pretty to watch and it was virtually impossible to live with.
    But then who could blame him? Over the next eleven months he went through two rounds of chemo, two of radiotherapy. Rapid weight loss. His hair falling out in handfuls. Puking in an orange plastic washing-up bowl at the side of the bed. But there was a happy ending. Karen would never forget the consultant breaking the news that Phil’s latest tests had come out clear. Cue weeping and rejoicing, though inside Karen simply felt numb. And of course it wasn’t so simple – was anything in life? – because he was only in remission, which meant another four years or so of blood tests before he would officially be cancer free.
    During those eleven months, Phil had had plenty of time to think. He’d decided that his life needed a complete makeover, that he was going to offload the last of his businesses and use the cash to start afresh. He would have made much more if he’d sold three or four years earlier, but they still ended up with a ridiculous lump sum in the bank.
    ‘Neither of us need ever work again,’ Phil boasted.
    Now, looking at the seven-figure price of Chadlicote Manor, Karen doubted this. Even if they negotiated a big discount, it would still eat hugely into their capital. And the restoration would cost millions more.
    Phil hated it when Karen raised such objections. ‘Money is for spending,’ he’d say airily. ‘Haven’t you realized, even now, how short life is?’ He had a point. But then he’d never grown up wanting anything. Karen, still remembering how they’d had no central heating eleven months of the year because Dad was too skint to turn it on, found such comments terrifying. Money wasn’t for spending. Not all of it, anyway. It was for putting aside for a rainy day.
    Sophie peered over her shoulder. ‘Ooh. Is this house on the radar now? You’re not going to move there, are you? What would you do for your daily sushi fix? Catch a trout in the lake and skin it?’
    ‘Not if I can help it,’ Karen shrugged.
    ‘The grass is always greener, isn’t it? I’d kill for a garden and here’s you turning your nose up at a million acres of land.’ Sophie’s tone was philosophical rather than bitter; she was a contented soul.
    Karen’s phone rang again. ‘Hello?’ she said, guiltily aware that she really should be calling Issie, their cookery writer, to beg her to next week please try to do recipes that didn’t feature Jerusalem artichokes, as readers kept writing in complaining of the terrible wind they gave them.
    ‘It’s me. Great news. They can do a viewing tomorrow. The estate agent’s going to a wedding but the owner’s happy to show us round herself. So we can have a day out – drive down early, see the house, then maybe go and have lunch somewhere. What do you think?’
    ‘I think that’s lovely. But we’ll still have to cancel Bea’s party. Do you want to ring Isobel’s mum? Her name’ll be on the form list pinned to the fridge.’
    ‘Oh. Can’t you?’
    Karen gritted her teeth. Now Phil wasn’t working he was far more involved with the girls’ day-to-day lives, but he was still reluctant to participate in the nitty-gritty of organizing playdates, making headdresses for the school play, liaising with teachers.
    ‘I’m quite busy here, darling.’
    ‘But, but… she’s a mum . You know her. I’d