Something to Hide by Deborah Moggach Read Free Book Online Page A

they walked out the door. Cars shimmered in the heat of the little shopping mall. As her husband opened the trunk, Lorrie crossed over to the Hallmark store to get Angie a card. She felt dizzy with a mad sort of exhilaration. Later, she wondered if that was why she had the crazy idea.
    For there, browsing through the cards, was her friend Kelda. She was another army wife who lived across the street from them, a vast, cheerful woman who habitually dressed in a pink sweatsuit. Todd called her The Marshmallow.
    â€˜Look at these darling cards.’ She was holding two. ‘Which should I choose? They’re for my sister in St Louis, who’s having a baby.’
    One card showed a painting of a pregnant woman:
Expecting a Miracle
. The other was printed with big gold letters:
I’m Only the Oven
.
    â€˜Oven?’ said Lorrie.
    â€˜Don’t you remember, you goof? She’s a surrogate mom.’

Pimlico, London
    IT WAS JEREMY on the phone – Jeremy, Bev’s husband. He said he’d just flown in from West Africa and was here for a week on business.
    â€˜Bev’s sent you a present,’ he said. ‘Shall I swing by and drop it off?’
    So I said sure thing and I’d give him some supper. What time would suit? Jeremy said how about tonight? He was totally free because he knew nobody in London nowadays, he’d lived abroad for too long, and besides it would be great to see me. So now here he is on the doorstep, a big fleshy man with that booming laugh I remember so well.
    â€˜God you look gorgeous,’ he says. ‘Flushed and disordered, like an Irishwoman lost on the Tube.’
    â€˜I’ve been cooking. I’m hot.’
    He embraces me warmly. He’s always been a great hugger. I’ve even seen him hug the waitress when leaving a restaurant.
    It’s been five years since I’ve seen Jeremy. He’s put on weight but he’s still an attractive man, weathered by laughter and sunshine and fizzing with energy. Big nose, big mouth, big appetites; I remember how he used to knock back the booze and he’s already sniffing dinner with relish. His hair is now almost white, masses of it, but it suits him. So, ridiculously, does his shirt. It’s printed with flamingoes, the sort of thing you’d wear on the beach. He looks like a dodgy arms dealer but there’s always been something dodgy about Jeremy. He’s one of those restless, flamboyant men who gets easily bored and who likes to entertain himself by shocking people.
Why are lesbians always so fat and ugly
? Some people would find him offensive but I don’t care. He makes me laugh and I’ve had precious little of that recently. How can he bear to be married to someone as boring as Bev?
    â€˜She bought you this,’ he says, giving me a package. ‘She got it at the Baboon Sanctuary.’
    We sit down at the kitchen table and I open the parcel. It’s tied with flimsy, third-world string. Inside are two wooden napkin rings painted with monkey faces.
    â€˜You know how crazy she is about animals.’ He points to the monkeys. ‘These chaps are eaten as bushmeat, actually. Very tasty, apparently. A bit like grouse.’
    â€˜Eat a lot of grouse, do they, in West Africa?’
    He raises his eyebrows: ‘Only in season,’ and pulls a Champagne bottle out of a bag.
    â€˜Anyway, it’s very kind of her,’ I say. ‘How is Bev?’
    â€˜Busy busy busy. The energy of the woman! Feeding half the population of rabid dogs and haranguing people about their emaciated donkeys. You can imagine how well that goes down.’ He pops open the Champagne. ‘And then there’s her aromatherapy, she’s converted one of the bedrooms into a salon, it’s a roaring success with all the NGO staff, she’s raking it in. I expect she told you in her emails.’
    Indeed she has, at length. Bev used to be a nurse but she got into alternative therapies