Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty Read Free Book Online

just be fun and maybe even … helpful, but it was probably a bit lame, sorry.’
    Holly climbed off Sam’s lap and went and pulled the sheet over her head. Ruby climbed under with her and they whispered to each other.
    ‘It wasn’t lame,’ said Clementine. She thought of her ex-boyfriend Dean, a double bass player, who was now playing with the New York Philharmonic. She remembered practising for him and how he’d cry ‘ Ne-ext! ’ and point to the door, to indicate her playing wasn’t up to scratch, and how she’d burst into tears. ‘Fuck, this self-doubt of yours is a bore,’ Dean would yawn. Fuck, you were a pretentious twat, Dean, and you weren’t even that good, buddy.
    ‘I’ll take the girls out for the morning so you can practise,’ said Sam.
    ‘Thank you,’ said Clementine.
    ‘You don’t need to thank me,’ said Sam. ‘You don’t need to feel grateful. Seriously. Get that grateful look off your face.’
    She made her face exaggeratedly blank, and Sam laughed, but she did feel grateful and that was the problem because she knew it was the first step in a convoluted journey that ended in resentment, irrational but heartfelt resentment, and maybe Sam intuited this and that’s why he was pre-empting her gratitude. He’d been here before. He knew how the audition was going to affect their lives for the next ten weeks as she slowly lost her mind from nerves and the strain of trying to scrounge precious practice time from an already jam-packed life. No matter how much time poor Sam gave her it would never be quite enough because what she actually needed was for him and the kids to just temporarily not exist. She needed to slip into another dimension where she was a single, childless person. Just between now and the audition. She needed to go to a mountain chalet (somewhere with good acoustics) and live and breathe nothing but music. Go for walks. Meditate. Eat well. Do all those positive visualisation exercises young musicians did these days. She had an awful suspicion that if she were to do this in reality, she might not even miss Sam and the children that much, or if she did miss them, it would be quite bearable.
    ‘I know I’m not much fun when I’ve got an audition coming up,’ said Clementine.
    ‘What are you talking about? You’re adorablewhen you’ve got an audition coming up,’ said Sam.
    She pretended to punch him in the stomach. ‘Shut up.’
    He caught her wrist and pulled her to him in a big bear hug. ‘We’ll work it out,’ he said. She breathed in his scent. He’d washed himself with the girls’ No More Tears baby shampoo again. His chest hair was as soft and fluffy as a baby chick. ‘We’ll get there.’
    She loved the fact that he said ‘we’. He always did this. Even when he was working on some renovation project around the house, a project where she was contributing absolutely nothing except staying out of the way, he’d survey his work, wipe his dusty, sweaty face and say, ‘We’re getting there.’
    Unselfishness came naturally to him. She kind of had to fake it.
    ‘You’re a good man, Samuel,’ said Clementine. It was a line from some TV show they’d watched years ago and it had become her way of saying, Thank you and I love you.
    ‘I am a very good man,’ agreed Sam, releasing her. ‘A fine man. Possibly a great man.’ He watched the little Holly and Ruby shapes move about under the sheet. ‘Have you seen Holly and Ruby?’ he said loudly. ‘Because I thought they were right here but now they seem to have disappeared.’
    ‘I don’t know. Where could they be?’ said Clementine.
    ‘We’re here!’ trilled Ruby.
    ‘Shh!’ Holly took games like this very seriously.
    ‘Hey, what time is this afternoon tea at Erika’s place?’ said Sam. ‘Maybe we should cancel.’ He looked hopeful. ‘Give you a full day of practice?’
    ‘We can’t cancel,’ said Clementine. ‘Erika and Oliver want to, how did she put it? She wants to discuss something