Nothing Simple by Lia Mills

Author:Lia Mills [Mills, Lia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Lia Mills, Fallen, In Your Face, Another Alice
Publisher: eBookPartnership.com
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

I didn’t know why Diane turned up at my house from time to time, or why she invited me round to hers. We had nothing in common. When I look back on it now, we mostly talked about the children and about BBC programmes that were recycled on public television, including, to my embarrassment, The Irish RM. Diane thought it was hilarious. Dermot and I quite liked it too, but in a queasy kind of way. I certainly didn’t want the likes of Diane and her rich-bitch mafia chortling over Irish stupidity as represented by the BBC, thank you very much.

Not that I disliked her, exactly. We’d nothing in common. If we’d met under any other circumstances, I don’t know that we’d have spent more than five minutes in each other’s company, and that went for her as much as it did for me. She was obsessively neat, liked to dress in matching colours: navy Bermuda shorts, with a navy polo shirt and sometimes even a little navy-and-white striped cardigan around her shoulders. Or beige. Diane was very fond of beige. It drained all the colour from her skin, so that her small bright-red mouth managed to seem both prim and indecent at the same time.

But Hannah loved the twins, and so did Jack, so I went over there if only to give them a change of scene, to give us all a break from the sweat and disorder of our daily lives.

The second time we went over there, I noticed a police car cruising slowly around her block. I could have sworn it was the same one I saw before, so I mentioned it to her when I went in. ‘I wouldn’t have thought this was the kind of place where you’d get much trouble.’

‘We don’t.’

‘But . . . the police are here a lot.’

‘Oh, that.’ She laughed in her neat little way. ‘That’s our patrol. You know, if they see any vehicle that’s out of place, or any unlikely characters hanging around . . .’ I looked back at the Volvo. Dermot had finally got his own car and I had it every day now. Diane saw my look and smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I gave them your registration number,’ she said.

I wondered had she given them a description of me as well. Overweight; unruly hair; bare legs in baggy shorts and sandals; T-shirts usually stained on the left shoulder from baby drool; children loud and generally dressed in faded garage-sale couture.

We sat in her orderly kitchen. It was late afternoon, later than usual. Hannah and the twins were bossing Jack around somewhere in the depths of the house. Diane opened a bottle of good white wine and poured us each a generous glass over ice. The idea was that you drank the wine fast, before the ice could melt. This was a new one on me, but I was willing to try it, even though I’d have preferred a beer. We clinked our glasses together and drank.

Diane crunched her ice between perfect teeth.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.