Strangers in Company by Jane Aiken Hodge Read Free Book Online Page A

wail, from a girl who looked young enough to be still at school herself.
    â€œNo, of course not.” Marian made it sound morecertain than she felt, horrified visions of getting them all back to Athens dancing in her mind. “Oh, look!” They were out of the gate now, and there was no need to pretend relief as she pointed down to a second car park on their left. “It must have moved down there.”
    The found Mr. Cairnthorpe trying anxiously to make sure that they were, in fact, the last. Since he had neglected to count them before they separated, this was no easy matter, but finally they were reasonably certain that no one’s neighbour from the ride out was missing. Marian closed her eyes as the bus moved out into the road, grateful that Stella was not there with one of her devastating comments.
    She had congratulated herself too soon. Mrs. Hilton, who had dozed peacefully enough across the aisle on the way up, now rose and came swaying across to join her. “Room for little me?” It was all to obviously a rhetorical question. “I don’t know about you, but I get sick of being on my own. George has gone back to look for those espadrilles,” she explained. “The shop was actually shut when he went this morning. It’s lucky we can charge the taxis up to Mercury Tours.” She giggled. “Funny about it meaning death, wasn’t it? You could have heard a pin drop in that dining room.”
    â€œIt doesn’t really.” Marian repeated Cairnthorpe’s explanation, grateful that they were far enough back in the bus so that there was no chance of his hearing. She had already noticed that sound tended to travel backwards on the bus. You heard mainly the conversation of the couple directly in front of you, and even that spasmodically.
    She was more grateful still for this when Mrs. Hilton plunged into a ruthless cross-examination. Was she enjoying herself? Was Miss Marten an old friend? And then, inevitably, “No children of your own, love?”
    Once again, the wound opened and bled. “Oh, yes.” Marian, who had fended off the previous questions, kept her voice steady. “Twins, in fact But they’re grown up now.”
    â€œGrown up!” Amazed. “You don’t look nearly old enough!”
    â€œThank you.” Had there really been a time when she had laughed about that mad seventeen-year-old marriage, convinced that the twins would make up for everything?
    â€œYou must have married out of the cradle. I don’t know what your mum was thinking of. But come on, love, how old are they really?”
    â€œEighteen. It’s grown up these days. After all, they can vote.” And make up their own minds to live with their father in America.
    â€œCrazy, I think. But weren’t you lucky to have twins first off? Two for the price of one, I always say. What are they? Girls or boys? Or one of each?”
    â€œOne of each.” If she kept to monosyllables, perhaps the remorseless probing would stop.
    Forlorn hope. “Aren’t you worried, leaving them on their own? Or are they safe with their dad?” It was a remarkable compendium of questions rolled into one.
    But at least it was capable of as comprehensive an answer. “Yes,” said Marian, “that’s just where they are.” Thank God the name “Frenche” was a fairly common one, and the publicity about Mark and the twins eighteen years old, like the twins themselves. She shut her eyes, hoping to fend off further questions, and the headlines danced in front of her, as they had through many a sleepless night in the past. “All for love! Pop idol abandons twins. ‘I must follow my star,’ says Mark Frenche.” But it was a new star. Marian’s thoughts went the old dreary round. Mark and his manager had been clever, no doubt about it, and she had been incredibly stupid. Coming back from the pre-natal clinic, she had actually