Hush Hush by Mullarkey Gabrielle

Author:Mullarkey, Gabrielle [Mullarkey, Gabrielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: lovers, chick-lit, love story, romantic fiction, Friends, Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Corazon Books
Published: 2014-11-17T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Her mobile phone went off as the Tube emerged from subterranean gloom and travelled above ground en route to the airport.

Angela took a while to register that her Ode to Joy ringtone (which had seemed like a safe bet from the list of available options) was emanating from the front pocket on her holdall, where she’d packed her pants.

She’d shoved everything in the holdall, even her slimline shoulder bag, consigning ticket and loose change to her coat pocket. The tap-dancing frogs bag, so very ‘her’, according to Conor, had been left at home. As a coming-of-age gift, it now struck her as suitably silly and girlish on its day, because she’d been a silly, girlish twenty-one-year-old. She hoped that girl wasn’t the ‘very you’ pinpointed by Conor.

‘Botheration!’ she muttered now, hastily unzipping the holdall’s front pocket before she missed the call. Overstuffed with grey-gussetted smalls, her one and only thong leapt out on a rising crescendo of Joyfulness and onto the shoe of an Outraged of Tunbridge Wells type, who lowered his Daily Telegraph and blinked in alarm at what appeared to be a dead, exotic jellyfish tentacled to his toe-cap.

‘Sorry!’ Angela pounced on the strip of shocking-pink satin that now matched her complexion.

Ye gods! The thong had been a ‘joke’ anniversary present from Rachel seven years ago. Languishing ever since under balled socks and scattered hairgrips in a bedroom drawer, it had taken advantage of its only outing to make its debut in the Friday evening rush-hour.

She had managed to unsnag the phone – complete with warbling choir invisible – from some knicker elastic, bend down to scoop up her thong and press ‘answer’ on the Nokia’s fascia, when the ringing abruptly stopped.

Typical! She flicked to ‘recent calls’. Sadie!

Why was Sadie ringing her?

Instantly and predictably, she was gripped by panic.

In the end, Sadie had acquiesced to the idea of a mobile phone. ‘Your mum’s well able to handle a bit of newfangled technology,’ Rachel had reasoned. ‘And you can enter all the essential numbers into “Contacts”, then just tell her where to find the list. Simples.’

Well, yes and no.

She highlighted Sadie’s own number and returned the call.

It was answered on the fourth ring. ‘Hello, this is Sadie Carbery speaking,’ Sadie enunciated crisply.

Relief swept through Angela. ‘Mum, you all right?’

‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Well, you tell me, seeing as you called me.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yeah, just now.’

‘Oh – must have been when I put the washing bowl down on the thing. Must have set it off.’ Sadie made her phone sound like a temperamental burglar alarm.

‘Well, you know, be careful with it, Mum. And keep it with you at all times. Bring it to bed with you.’

‘I dread to think what it must be costing you, Ange.’

‘It’s OK, I told you, it’s pay as you go. You only pay for what you use,’ she added, knowing Sadie would grasp that concept more easily. ‘A tenner every so often is hardly going to break my bank, and means you don’t have to rely on the landline ‒ hang on.

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