Other People’s Diaries by Kathy Webb Read Free Book Online

to see it. Rebecca believed, with every fibre of her body, in a good spirit that would restore her house to order when she wasn’t there. But the doona cover was still crumpled at the foot of the bed. The sheets which should have been changed a week ago were still dirty and lying in uneven hillocks across the mattress.
    Rebecca had met Jeremy through a friend who worked with him at a stockbroking firm. She had been actively avoiding romance since her last boyfriend had disappeared after a run-in with her daughter Bianca. Rebecca had walked into the kitchen one Sunday morning to hear a then ten year old Bianca commenting that the best thing about having Charlie sleep over was wondering which revolting shade of pastel his polo shirt would be the next morning. Things had declined rapidly after that.
    Jeremy had been living in Hong Kong before he and Rebecca met. Friends had muttered dire predictions. Apparently anyunattached man in Hong Kong was single for a very good reason, which might or might not be immediately obvious. Unable to commit, used to a smorgasbord of women, preferring the company of mates to a demanding partner.
    If Jeremy’s reason existed, Rebecca was yet to find it. He was unremarkable looking. As you might expect a spy to be. Average height, average build, brown eyes and hair … Nothing about him that would particularly stick in your mind. Except if you got him into bed that was …
    Several days after they’d met, Jeremy had called Rebecca at work and they’d met for a drink. The next week, dinner, and the week after that, dinner and a movie … Rebecca had tried to prepare him for Bianca and the two had met briefly on a couple of occasions. She had put it off as long as possible, but after several months he spent the night at home with her.
    Jeremy had showered and dressed before her on the Saturday morning. Watching him walk out toward the kitchen, Rebecca had felt rather like a Roman sending a Christian out to a pack of ravenous lions.
    Rebecca had taken her time getting ready, preparing herself for the worst. But she’d found both Jeremy and Bianca sitting at the kitchen table, each calmly reading part of the Saturday paper. Neither of them had ever disclosed what had occurred that morning, but Jeremy’s calm and easy relationship with Bianca had continued.
    If the joking complaints of Rebecca’s friends’ husbands were halfway correct, regular marital sex was a pretty rare commodity. Admittedly she and Jeremy had only been together for five years, but their time behind the tight-fitting bedroom door was something special and fundamental to their marriage. That had continued through her pregnancy and Sam’s baby days.
    Rebecca’s eye caught on the paperback angled across the bedside table. Reading had been one of her pleasures once. But her old favourites – writers like Vikram Seth and Ian McEwan – had been unable to withstand the exhausted ten-minute read Rebecca would throw at them each night before she could no longer keep her eyes open. Now it was back to airport thrillers – where itdidn’t matter if you read something twice, or missed a couple of chapters.
    Just for a moment, she pictured kicking off her shoes and lying down on the unmade bed. She would pick up the book, read for half an hour and then fall asleep with it sitting on her chest. But that would mean ignoring dinner for Jeremy and Bianca and the two hours of work she needed to have done before she sat down at her desk tomorrow.
    Did everyone’s idea of nirvana sink so low, she wondered.
    She unbuttoned her blouse slowly, dropping it in the wash basket. The skirt went into the dry-cleaning pile and Rebecca pulled on a pair of threadbare jeans and a deep musk T-shirt.
    With one last look at the novel, whose plot she couldn’t even bring to mind, she left the room and headed back to the kitchen.
    Despite the fact that Rebecca knew exactly what was, or more to the