The Four of Us by Margaret Pemberton Read Free Book Online

with her.
    A slight snore was the only response.
    She stared at her friend in disbelief. How Primmie could sleep so soundly, never waking until their alarm rang, was beyond her. ‘She sleeps the sleep of the righteous,’ her father would say about Primmie, always with fond amusement in his voice.
    Kiki swung her legs out of bed, marvelling, not the for the first time, at how much nicer things had been at home since Primmie had begun staying at Petts Wood from Monday to Friday.
    â€˜Of course she can stay here during the week,’ her father had said when she had explained to him Primmie’s problem – that not only was the journey from Rotherhithe to Bickley High a long one, but leaving and returning home every day in her distinctive school uniform was causing difficulties for her with her former friends in Rotherhithe.
    And so for the past four years she and Primmie had lived almost as sisters.
    She padded barefoot across deep carpet to the window, reflecting that her father did do his best to keep her happy. Recently she’d begun calling him by his Christian name, explaining that now she was fifteen she found ‘Daddy’too babyish, ‘Dad’too common and ‘Father’too stuffy. She’d expected there to be a battle about it and, truth to tell, had been looking forward to one, but he’d merely laughed and said that if she wanted to call him Simon it was all right by him.
    Pulling back the curtains she pushed the already opened window even further open and leaned as far out as possible.
    It was a glorious morning and the scent from the Albertine rose that grew up the wall to the left of her window and the honeysuckle that scrambled up the wall to the right of it was as heady as a drug. Beyond the long rolling vista of the immaculately kept lawn, a heat haze hovered over the woods and the far distant view of the Weald. It was a view she was too familiar with to rhapsodize over, as Primmie always did, but even she, who longed only for central London and Tin Pan Alley and clubs and coffee bars, had to admit that it was pretty breathtaking.
    Her father, of course, loved the fact that Primmie thought their garden – and the view from it – so magical. ‘Where’s Primmie? In the garden? It’s nice to have someone so appreciative of it,’ he’d say, coming in from evening surgery and dropping his doctor’s bag in the hall. Five minutes later, after checking whether her mother was slightly tipsy, very tipsy or just plain sozzled, he would be changing out of his suit and into an old sweater and pair of shabby corduroys, all set for a therapeutic hour of gardening.
    â€˜Isn’t it a bit embarrassing at times, having Primmie living with you when your mother’s on a bender?’ Geraldine had once asked her in her forthright fashion.
    It hadn’t been a question she’d taken offence at. Between Geraldine, Primmie, Artemis and herself there were no secrets where their respective home lives were concerned. All three of her friends knew that her mother drank too much.
    â€˜It’s OK. It isn’t a problem,’ she had said to Geraldine. ‘Things are much better at home when Primmie is with us. There aren’t the arguments there used to be. If Mummy’s tipsy when Simon comes home, he doesn’t get upset the way he used to. And Primmie is great. Nothing ever embarrasses her. There was a phone call not long since from the local supermarket manager saying Mummy was “distressed” and in need of being escorted home. What he meant, of course, was that she’d been drinking and was causing a scene. If I’d gone to haul her off home the scene would have become twice as horrendous – we’d have been shrieking at each other like fishwives. Primmie, though, behaves as if Mummy being drunk is nothing to get excited about, and Mummy’s never abusive or aggressive towards her – which she might be if it