Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy Read Free Book Online Page B

this one. Enough to crucify anyone at what was meant to be a party, a celebration.’
    ‘You didn’t over-indulge yourself?’ He had a faint hope that she might also have a hangover, which might tolerate the thought of a Bloody Mary at breakfast.
    ‘Someone had to keep an eye on things,’ she sniffed.
    ‘Well, didn’t Cathy do that very well. I heard a lot of praise for—’
    ‘What do men know of what needs to be done?’
    ‘She left the place like a new pin.’ He tried to defend his daughter-in-law.
    ‘Well, at least some of the training I gave her poor mother must have paid off eventually.’
    Hannah would say nothing good about Cathy. Jock gave up. Some things weren’t worth fighting over, especially with this hammering in his head.
    ‘True,’ he said, feeling he had somehow let that hard-working girl down. But Cathy of all people would know how it was easier to take the line of least resistance with Hannah.
    ‘And then running off at the end because she got some phone call in the middle of the night about premises for this crackpot idea of hers.’
    ‘I know, ridiculous,’ said Jock Mitchell, getting up to get a painkiller and feeling like Judas.

    Geraldine had been up since seven o’clock. She had been alone in the Glenstar swimming pool: usually she would have had the company of half a dozen other Glenstar residents, who loved the amenity of their swimming pool. But New Year’s Eve had taken its toll. Geraldine did her twelve lengths, washed her hair and went through the arrangements again for today’s big charity lunch. She had advised a group to have their function on January the first, since it was often a flat day when people were eager to recover in company. And indeed, the response to the invitation list had been overwhelming. She had been wise to leave that photographer’s party early last night. There had been nobody that interested her to talk to, a lot of them much younger than she was. She had slipped away quietly before midnight. She had seen Tom Feather and his dizzy girlfriend there but couldn’t get to meet them across the room. Cathy and Neil would have been there, but of course Cathy had been catering the Mitchells’ party last night; Geraldine hoped that it had gone well and that there had been a chance to make some useful contacts. Cathy hated that woman so much it was really important that the night had been some kind of success for her in terms of business. Geraldine wished they could find premises soon. She had agreed to back them for the loan when the time came, as had Joe Feather, Tom’s rather elusive elder brother. All they had to do was find the place. And then brave, gutsy Cathy wouldn’t have to nail a smile on her face and work in the kitchen of her mother-in-law’s house, something she hated with a passion. One of the advantages of being single was that there were no mothers-in-law to cope with, Geraldine thought as she poured more coffee.

    In a different part of the Glenstar apartments, Shona Burke woke up and thought about the year ahead. Many other women of twenty-six would wake today with a comforting body on the other side of the bed. In fact, she was sick of people asking her when she was going to settle down. It was so intrusive. Shona would not ask people why they didn’t have a baby, or when they were going to have their facial hair seen to. She never queried why people drove a car that was falling to pieces, or stayed with a spouse so obviously less than satisfactory. How dare they speculate openly and to her face about why she hadn’t married?
    ‘It could be because you look too cool, too successful. Fellows wouldn’t dare chat you up and go home with you,’ a colleague had suggested helpfully.
    Last night’s party at Ricky’s would have provided plenty of people who might have chatted her up and come back to the Glenstar apartments with her; in fact, she had had one very definite offer and two suggestions. But these would not have been people