Touched by Joanna Briscoe Read Free Book Online

had this influenced their decision to send her to her goddaughter? It had been a mistake. She held her head in her hands and stood there in the passage.
    â€˜Mummmmmmyyyyyy,’ called Bob from his bed, so she had to go into his room. She sped through the pool of ill ease, and kissed Bobby’s warm little cheek.
    â€˜I ’ear dem again!’ he said.
    â€˜Hear what, my darling?’ she said, stroking his hair.
    â€˜Foots. Cats.’
    â€˜What was it you heard?’ she murmured.
    â€˜Um, dunno! Robots! Cats!’
    â€˜Oh, darling,’ said Rowena, smiling. ‘And what were the cats doing?’ she said in a colluding tease.
    â€˜Kit sounds. I like ’em.’
    â€˜What sound does a cat make?’
    â€˜Miaow.’
    She kissed him again, then remembered the cat’s urine smell. ‘Is that what you hear?’
    â€˜Quack quack! Bow wow. Moo moo,’ he said, and she smiled in relief.
    â€˜My silly Bobby. My Bobbit! Come down for your orange juice now.’
    Downstairs, Pollard was smoothing a section of plaster. Clutching Bob’s hand, Rowena gazed around the room, her mind trying out her pallet of colours, although if Douglas said they could afford it, she would use a basket-weave wallpaper. Their house would soon be smarter, lighter, cleaner, and they could begin to live as a civilised family. Bob walked away, and she was aware of him behind her as she discussed decorations with Pollard, but she turned and he wasn’t there. He was playing in the corner with Pollard’s bucket.

5
    â€˜ HAVE YOU SEEN that astonishing-looking child next door?’ said Lana Dangerfield to her husband.
    â€˜That nineteenth-century ghost girl, you mean? I rather admire her spirit. She has the villagers in jitters.’
    â€˜No no. I think she looks a fright. The poor mother should be firmer. I meant, the fair-haired one. The beauty.’
    â€˜I find her creepy. She looks like one of those dolls in a horror film.’
    â€˜Oh, Greg, you always
must
be perverse.’
    He winked. ‘You think so?’
    Smiling to himself, he went off to the shrubbery at the end of the garden, and there was Rowena Crale.
    â€˜Good afternoon,’ he said.
    She jumped.
    â€˜I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. How were those silly wives the other evening?’
    â€˜Who? Oh. Yes. They were welcoming. Lana is – how nice to have her as a neighbour.’
    She pulled in her stomach as she spoke, despairing over her baby flab. She had been told by the Wives’ Association about the slimmers’ club that met in the church hall, but in the meantime, she had seen an advertisement she was hiding in her underwear drawer for a remarkable girdle that sent electric impulses to the fat cells. The idea terrified her even as it offered hope.
    â€˜Get away from all that,’ said Gregory. ‘I’ll show you round the power station. We can drive over there.’
    â€˜Can we?’ said Rowena, tilting her face to the ground to hide her colour. To her consternation, she felt light-headed, out there in the sun.
    â€˜We’ll nip over there in the MG. She runs like a tiger, you know, all purr and power. You should see the airfield as well. Monday? I can show you the very core – the reactor. One day our whole country will run on a few of them.’
    â€˜Yes,’ said Rowena. ‘I will ask Douglas,’ she said, because she was flustered.
    Gregory paused a beat. ‘For permission to visit a chap’s workplace?’ he said in jocular tones. ‘You don’t need a licence for that. When it comes to flying, it’s a different matter.’
    â€˜Oh,’ she said. ‘I—’
    â€˜Think about it,’ he said, and he grinned at her through the laurel, so that she thought in that moment he resembled Clark Gable as Rhett Butler, though he didn’t. She watched his back as he walked across his lawn, the arrangement