Love You Better by Natalie K Martin Read Free Book Online Page A

camping outside, and it wasn’t a shared house with backpackers and hippies.
    ‘I love this house,’ she said, more to herself than her mum.
    ‘I never would have thought you’d want something so conventional .’
    Effie gripped the knife in her hand as she cut up the lettuce. Conventional wasn’t even worthy of a dignified definition in her mum’s world, and Effie had been brought up without a shred of it. Sure, there were times when it had been great. There’d be parties and late-night music sessions, and none of her school friends came back from the summer holidays with stories of listening to a live folk band playing under the stars in Tuscany, or cooking a fish they’d caught that day over an open fire in Greece, like she did. But then again, they didn’t come back with stories of having their phone stolen by a shifty traveller or waking up to see a different man emerging from their mum’s bedroom on a frighteningly regular basis either.
    Penny ran her finger across the worktop. ‘I suppose it’s pretty in its own way, but it’s not really yours, is it?’
    Effie frowned. ‘Of course it is. I live here.’
    ‘You might live here, but it’s not yours .’
    True, it was Oliver’s name on the mortgage and not hers, but she was the one who had made it a home. If it had been left up to him, there would be barely any furniture, no pictures on the walls and only the absolute basics in the fridge.
    ‘Are you paying for the mortgage too?’
    ‘Of course,’ Effie replied.
    ‘Can you even afford it? Being a receptionist doesn’t pay enough to live in a house like this. Or at least it didn’t in my day.’
    ‘Well, that was, like, a hundred years ago.’ Effie flicked her eyes up to the ceiling. What was it about her mum that made her revert to a petulant teenager? ‘And I’m not a receptionist.’
    ‘Admin, receptionist – same, same.’ Penny waved her hand. ‘What did you say Oliver does again?’
    ‘He’s a barrister – high profile too. He earns well. We can manage .’
    ‘I don’t doubt that you can. You’ve always been resourceful.’
    ‘That’s because I’ve had to be.’
    Penny looked away and flicked through the copy of Grazia that Effie had left out, with her lips pursed. Effie tutted. She was the one who’d been left on her own. Her mum had no right to sulk, but somehow she’d made Effie feel like the bad one.
    ‘What’s for dinner?’
    ‘Beef.’
    Penny wrinkled her nose, and Effie put the knife down.
    ‘What’s wrong with beef? Have you gone veggie?’
    ‘No, but I don’t think my stomach is quite up to it. Did you know that cows are considered holy in India?’
    ‘Yes, I do, but newsflash: you’re not there anymore.’
    ‘Try telling my stomach that,’ Penny replied and looked around at the kitchen.
    Effie grabbed a perfectly ripened tomato and sliced it in half on the wooden chopping board. She’d already been told about her mum’s pierced nipple – she definitely didn’t need to hear about her Delhi belly too, especially not when preparing dinner.
    ‘So,’ she said, slicing the tomato halves into quarters, ‘tell me about India.’

    With her chin in the palm of her hand, Effie looked at her mum. She wanted to be objective, but all she could see was a wafer-thin, bra-less hippy with green feathers braided into her wiry, greying hair. Why couldn’t her mum just be normal? Still, Oliver was charm personified and didn’t seem to mind, or even notice, her mum’s wacky appearance at all.
    ‘It was a great day, wasn’t it?’ Oliver grinned, squeezing Effie’s hand as Penny flicked through the wedding photos on his iPad.
    ‘Yeah.’ Effie smiled. ‘It was.’ Or at least it had been until Smith had shown up.
    ‘It’s a shame you missed it,’ he continued, topping up Penny’s glass with a full-bodied Rioja.
    ‘You didn’t leave much time. Only my daughter could marry someone she’s only known for two minutes.’
    It wasn’t two minutes; it was a