Marrying Up by Wendy Holden Read Free Book Online Page A

plate. ‘I’m not sure Tesco’s quite me,’ she said, dropping her voice to a frail whisper and looking appealingly
     at her mother. ‘I’m university-educated,’ she added, choosing her words carefully.
    Her father’s face reddened. ‘That’s not what I’ve heard,’ he said shortly, forking in another lump of pie and chewing violently.
     ‘That university of yours rang us just now. Small matter of unsettled fees.’ His eyes glinted into hers from beneath his gathered
     brows.
    Alexa quickly dropped her gaze.
    ‘What
did
you spend your money on, eh?’ Dad slammed the ketchup bottle down vehemently. ‘Not your course, by the sound of it. You haven’t
     even passed, they said.’
    Alexa stared at the jelly – its clear amber colour so ironically reminiscent of a yellow diamond – between the pork pie crust
     and the lumpy pink meat. Tired, frustrated and, rarely for her, slightly frightened, she was tempted to throw herself on her
     parents’ mercy. But was honesty really the best policy? Telling her father the truth – that the money had gone on cases of
     champagne for cocktail parties and bespoke tweed suits for shooting weekends – was unlikely to calm him down.
    She therefore took the only other course open to her. Shoving aside the plate of pie, she buried her head in her arms and
     wept hysterically. After a few seconds, after which she calculated her eyes would be piteously red and bloodshot, she looked
     up and directed her anguished gaze at her mother. ‘I didn’t want to tell you about the breakdown,’ she heaved between sobs.
    Her mother responded magnificently. ‘Breakdown! Oh,
love
!’ she said, reaching clumsily for her daughter’s hand, her voice so warm with sympathy and concern that Alexa almost felt
     guilty.
    ‘Breakdown?’ Dad echoed suspiciously. Although the heat, Alexa noted with relief, seemed to have gone from his fury.
    Alexa propped herself on her elbows, pushed back her hair dramatically and placed her hands over her face. ‘I just couldn’t
     cope,’ she sobbed into her palms. ‘I needed the money for the medicine. The therapy sessions. The, um, doctors.’
    Neither of her parents said anything, although their silence took different forms. Alexa, an expert in social temperature,
     felt the loving and concerned warmth from her mother’s side of the table meeting, over the ketchup bottle, the chill blast
     of suspicion and disbelief from her father’s. There was clearly more work to do.
    She stood up, still sobbing, and threw Dad an impassioned and accusing glance. ‘It was hell!’ she cried dramatically. ‘You’ve
     got no idea. You can’t even begin to imagine what I’ve been through!’
    As she fled through the sliding door of the kitchen, she reflected that her parting shot had the advantage of being true,
     at least. The rest, of course, could be disproved by one single phone call to her tutor.
    In her bedroom, Alexa buried her ears in her nylon pillows, expecting a storm of fury to break downstairs. Yet the house remained
     calm. After some minutes had passed, there was a knock at the door and her mother came in.
    ‘Hello, love,’ Mum said gently.
    Alexa, edging away at this dangerous display of maternal closeness, winced inwardly at Mum’s brown nylon trousers, lemon cotton
     blouse and the worn grey towelling slippers that completed the outfit. How
could
this woman be her mother? It was many years since she had finally, regretfully, abandoned her childhood fantasies about being
     a princess who’d been swapped at birth. But occasions like this brought it all back.
    Her mother, as usual, was clutching the local freesheet. Was itbloody welded to her or something? It was even open at one of the coach tour ads.
    ‘What do you think of this, Allison, love?’ Mum asked brightly, holding the page closer for Alexa to see.
    Alexa, wincing at the use of her real name, stared at the newsprint a few inches from her face. What was she supposed to be