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

long after everyone else. Aromatherapy is hardly alternative nowadays, is it? In fact it’s pretty suburban. Like round-robins.
    â€˜She’s always had a good head for business,’ says Jeremy. ‘Thank God somebody has.’
    â€˜But you’re a lawyer—’
    â€˜I’ve always been hopeless with money.’
    â€˜â€”with that vast drug company—’
    â€˜Not any more.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜I’ll tell you later.’ He fills our glasses. ‘First I want to hear about you. How have you been? What have you done to your hair? It looks all—’
    â€˜Irish.’
    â€˜It suits you.’ He clinks my glass. ‘Christ it’s good to be back, blossoms and greenery and yallery. I can’t tell you how much I miss the spring.’ He gives me a broad smile. ‘And it’s more than good to see you, darling Petra. You and your house, the mother ship. Never sell this place, will you? Promise?’
    It’s full of memories for him, that’s why. Bev and I used to share the basement flat, years ago. That was when Jeremy met her and they fell in love. He and this house go back a long way and he holds it in some affection. He’s visited many times since then, of course, when he and Bev have been in London. They have even stayed a couple of times in my daughter’s old room.
    But Jeremy’s never visited on his own. It doesn’t feel awkward, however. He’s not one of those constipated Brits who’re at an emotional loss without their wives. Quite the opposite. He’s chatty and curious and likes nothing better than talking about relationships, preferably whilst getting drunk. My kind of guy.
Every
woman’s kind of guy. Surely nobody likes the strong silent type except gay bodybuilders.
    â€˜How’s the internet lark going?’ he asks. ‘Met anybody you fancy?’
    I tell him about my latest disaster and we agree that men called Barry are not to be trusted.
    â€˜Look at you,’ he says, ‘a scrumptious woman in her prime—’
    â€˜You mean I’m old.’
    â€˜Don’t be ridiculous. Half the men in London have been in love with you.’
    â€˜Have! There, you see!’
    â€˜Stop being so touchy.’ He settles himself comfortably. ‘Now, tell me about the others. I want to hear stories from the wilder shores of love.’
    â€˜It’s a jungle out there.’
    â€˜Literally, in my case.’
    â€˜Plenty of grouse, though.’
    He laughs, and lights a cigarette. He’s the only man I know who still smokes. Living abroad does that; it fixes people in a former era. The same with their perceptions of home. To Jeremy, London is still a city with bobbies on the beat.
    So he pours out more Champagne and I entertain him with my romantic disasters. From the safety of the marital bed, couples like to hear about the hurly-burly of the chaise longue. Not that there’s been much hurly-burly but I beef it up to get that booming laugh. I tell him about spotting Alan on the TV news, about the internet man who took out his false teeth before he ate; about the
sensitive, tactile
pensioner who asked if I liked to play – presumably some sort of sport, until he told me. I tell Jeremy about the Cadbury’s area manager who showed me photos of his dead wife and the man who talked me through the wiring on his Vauxhall Astra.
    I omit, of course, the reality of my life – the great voids of echoing loneliness, the bitter envy of couples I see walking hand-in-hand on Hampstead Heath, greeting their grandchildren at Victoria station, consulting cinema listings in Patisserie Valerie, strolling through the Saatchi Gallery sneering at the artwork, getting their prescriptions for glucosomin and statins together, catching each other’s eye at parties, going on weekend breaks to Lisbon, putting me in the back seat of their cars, doing every fucking thing together,
we