The Foster Husband by Pippa Wright

Author:Pippa Wright
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781447219941
Publisher: Pan
Published: 2013-05-08T23:00:00+00:00

24

I know what people in Lyme think about the sort of person who wears sunglasses on a grey morning in November. Chanel sunglasses. Inside the bakery. But the choice is to either be considered a pretentious urban idiot or have everyone witness the fact that my eyes have swollen up into puffy slits from crying, like the freshly risen dough on the racks behind me, and I know which one I’d prefer. I expect they already think the former, so let them think it. I don’t need to be the subject of more gossip.

‘Are you all right there, my love?’ asks Cathy, kindly, as she brings over my coffee.

‘Fine, thanks,’ I say, turning my covered eyes in her direction and offering her my brightest smile. ‘How are you?’

‘Oh I’m fine, my love,’ she says, staying nearby while she adjusts the position of a sugar bowl and moves the butter dish by a few unnecessary centimetres. ‘Got a bit of a hangover this morning, have you?’

I seize on the excuse instantly. ‘Yes, gosh, half a bottle of wine with Mum last night and I’m a proper state today.’

‘Thought so,’ she says, nodding her head in satisfaction. ‘Your Mum stopped in this morning for a Danish pastry and I’m not betraying any confidences if I tell you she only ever does that if she’s got a sore head. She said she’d been visiting you last night, so I put two and two together.’

‘I suppose the sunglasses gave it away a bit,’ I admit.

‘Oh, my love, I don’t judge. Whatever gets you through. A coffee will sort you right out. Go and get yourself some toast, that’ll help.’

A family comes into the bakery, parents and children, all anoraks and walking boots and glowering teenage resentment, so Cathy leaves me to show them to the far end of the trestle table. I go to the counter and cut myself two thick slices of heavy sourdough bread, and drop them into the toaster, watching the filaments glow hotly as the toast browns.

When I go back to the table, one of the teenagers is crouched down by my seat, her sulkiness forgotten, stroking Minnie’s eager little face. The girl blushes as I approach, and stands up, flustered.

‘S-sorry, I should’ve asked,’ she says, stepping backwards.

‘It’s okay,’ I reply, smiling. ‘She loves a bit of attention. Her name’s Minnie.’

The girl hesitates, looking back at her parents. ‘They said I shouldn’t disturb you,’ she says, and I’m not sure if she has come over here to see Minnie because she wanted to or because she wanted to defy them. They smile at me apologetically. I expect I do look quite forbidding in my harsh sunglasses.

‘Oh it’s fine,’ I say, and sit down on the bench next to her. ‘You’re not disturbing me at all. Are you on holiday?’

The girl crouches down again, and starts scratching Minnie’s chest in a way that makes her puppy eyes glaze with contentment.

‘Yeah.’ She sighs. ‘Lyme fucking Regis with my parents. Seriously. I’m too old for this.

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