Name & Address Withheld by Jane Sigaloff Read Free Book Online Page A

wouldn’t be Matt. It was far too soon.
    ‘Annie. Hi. Yes, thanks…’
    Her mother. Again.
    ‘I’ll just get her for you… Don’t keep her too long…’ Clare smiled mischievously ‘…only she’s waiting for an important call. I know… I know…’
    What did she know?
    OK. Yes, I’ll tell her. Fine. Thanks. Hope to see you soon. Right. Bye for now.’
    Whose mother was she anyway?
    ‘She says you can call her later. Apparently you arranged to have a chat?’
    Lizzie rolled her eyes. ‘Hardly. I just said we’d speak later. You know—Some Time Later, not Within Three Hours.’ Her mother still didn’t understand that some adult children didn’t speak to their parents several times a week, a day or an afternoon. But Lizzie knew she got lonely on her own, especially at weekends.
    Clare had barely put the phone down on the sofa next to her before it rang again.
    ‘Oh, well, maybe she’s forgotten something…’ Clare chucked the receiver, still ringing, at her flatmate. ‘She’s your mother…and I’ve got to get ready.’
    ‘Yup?’
    ‘Lizzie?’
    Damn… She should have known. The one time today she hadn’t answered the phone with her ‘heylo’ hair-flick and it was him. Bloody typical.
    ‘Matt! Hi! Thanks so much for my food parcel. It’s wonderful.’
    Too effusive? But Lizzie had never really been able to do ‘aloof’, and she wasn’t about to start now. She leapt to her feet, instinctively wandering out of earshot to her bedroom.
    Clare turned the radio down and occupied herself with silent chores, listening out for any nuggets of information that might waft down the stairs. She knew she shouldn’t be eavesdropping, but she and Lizzie didn’t do the secrets thing and hearing it first hand would only save time later. As Clare strained to hear she was only managing to pick up the odd word, so she crept a bit closer to the stairwell which brought her instant rewards.
    ‘…oh, right… Are you feeling better…? Great… I know…I know. There seems to be a lot of it about.’
    A lot of what? Clare wondered to herself. Syphilis? Flu? Office-party-related shagging? Now Lizzie was laughing. Now more talking. Clare paid closer attention.
    ‘Work in the morning…on a Sunday? Poor you. Mmm…yes…I see what you mean. Mind you, I’ve only got a hot date with my post bag…wild, crazy thing that I am.’
    Clare balked. Sympathy with a hint of empathy. Lizzie was spiralling into the romantic quagmire as usual. She never was quite as hard to get as you would think from reading her column.
    ‘Lunch tomorrow? OK… Yup… Better than OK—great.Where shall we meet? …don’t mind…I eat everything…usually all at the same time…’ Lizzie laughed out loud again.
    Clare smiled at Lizzie’s ‘joke’. Matt might think she was being witty and spontaneous, but if he stuck around for long enough he would discover that it was one of Lizzie’s standard lines.
    ‘OK. Perfect. See you at 1:00 p.m. Bye.’
    Clare returned to the kitchen as quickly as she could without actually running, and faded the radio up while clattering pans together in the sink. She busied herself with scrubbing the Bolognese pan and waited for Lizzie to report back.
    Lizzie rang off and would have flick-flacked to her study had she ever got higher than the shoulder-stand BAGA level of gymnastics. Instead she whistled her way there, and happily immersed herself in work.
    Clare was happy for her. Just as long as Matt wasn’t going to let her down. The trouble was, despite the hundreds of letters she received each week alerting her to the contrary, Lizzie did have a tendency to look for the best in people. With a failed marriage behind her, Clare was more cynical. When your perfect husband is unfaithful six months after he says ‘I do’ it affects your perspective. Her rose-coloured spectacles definitely had a darker tint than most.

chapter 4
    T hump… Thump… Thump…
    Her pulse was currently reverberating around the