Other People's Husbands by Judy Astley Read Free Book Online

finding her driving licence, to show him she was actually heading for twenty-one.
    â€˜None of his business. Don’t take it personally – the world’s full of pillocks,’ Conrad had calmly murmured to her, leading her to a seat outside in the sun. That was by the river too, swans, ducks, geese again.
    What on earth am I doing here? Sara asked herself as she watched this stranger take the steps to the bar two at a time. It was five o’clock on a spring afternoon, and one way of interpreting this was that she was being picked up. Did the presence of the baby render the situation one of unarguable innocence, or was she being dull and suburban for giving a thought to whether she was being reckless or not?
    â€˜So . . .’ he said, putting her drink on the table.
    â€˜So . . .’ she echoed.
    There was laughter and a pause in which they looked at each other with mutually surprised intensity.
    â€˜I don’t usually do this, you know,’ he said. ‘Only . . . well I had one of those moments of thinking, hell why not? I don’t just mean about asking you if you fancied a drink, I mean the whole coming down to the pub on a whim thing. I moved in round the corner back there a few weeks ago. The cottage with the pink bench outside it; do you know it?’
    â€˜Ah . . . Alma’s old place. I did wonder who’d moved in. It’s a very pretty house, though I haven’t been inside it for a while.’ Did that sound as if she expected him to invite her there? Not that it mattered, but she did seem to have all the family caution genes, unlike her sister; if she was anything like Lizzie, she’d not only go and check out his home’s decor but would almost certainly be in his bed within the hour, airily dismissing any scruples as bourgeois.
    â€˜And I don’t usually do this either, by the way,’ Sara continued, before he could interpret her comment on his cottage one way or another. ‘When you were getting the drinks I thought, is this sensible? Or would I have even had that thought if you’d been a woman?’ She laughed, feeling that she was gabbling nervously. ‘Not that women tend to sit around in pub gardens by themselves in the afternoons drinking on their own and inviting strangers to join them.’
    â€˜I don’t see why not,’ he said. ‘They sit around in coffee shops with overpriced lattes having a sneaky look at the tabloids, so why not a pub?’
    â€˜Hmm . . . why not a pub . . . ?’ She laughed. ‘A woman drinking alone brings to mind someone mildly mad, wearing a hat covered in wilting wild flowers.. .’
    â€˜A crazy hat and scarlet shoes,’ he added. ‘That whole bunch of old prejudices, as if a woman out drinking alone must be either an alcoholic or furiously drowning personal trauma.’
    â€˜One of life’s big unfairnesses, and I’ll remember that next time I wear my own red shoes and I notice people looking at me sideways,’ Sara said, watching Charlie chewing his cloth rabbit. ‘Of course, way down the list would be that she could be simply enjoying wine in the sunshine,’ she added.
    â€˜As we are,’ he said. ‘No hidden agenda, perfectly simple.’
    â€˜Perfectly simple,’ she agreed. Their glasses clinked together and a sparkle of sunlight set a prism of coloured lights dancing on the table. Charlie waved his baby fists and smiled.
    â€˜Will she be paying rent?’
    Pandora stalked round the kitchen table, slamming cutlery down on it almost at random, not caring that it ended up pointing in all directions as if arranged by a five-year-old trying to be helpful. Sara took a deep, calming breath and stopped herself from commenting. These items were only knives and forks and spoons. This was not earth-shattering stuff and not worth getting cross about. Several years ago, when Pandora had been a fourteen-year-old pick-and-mix of erratic, furious