Lies, Lies, Lies by Adele Parks

Author:Adele Parks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2020-04-15T14:35:38+00:00

THIRTY-ONE

DAISY

Often, on our walk home from school, Millie and I will stop at a coffee shop for a drink or an ice cream. It’s one of my favorite times of the day. That’s when she’s most likely to tell me about her trials and triumphs at school. Once we are back in the house she switches on the TV and the chances of a cozy mother-daughter chat are reduced. This afternoon I practically frogmarch her home. I feel sick, terrified. When she says she’s hot and would like to stop, I tell her there are Popsicles in the freezer. “But I don’t want a Popsicle. I want a milkshake. I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”

“We can’t always be paying café prices,” I mutter, by way of an excuse.

“I’ll buy my own drink, I have my birthday money,” she replies indignantly. Then with more charm, she adds, “I’ll buy you a coffee too, Mum.” I want to relent, she’s hard to resist, and while I’d never let her use her birthday money to buy me a drink, it’s a very sweet thought. I look back over my shoulder. “Who are you looking for? You keep looking behind you,” she asks.

Would he follow us home? No, that’s madness. And yet turning up at our school isn’t exactly sane. “No one,” I reply. “Come on. I just want to get home. I have a lot of work to do tonight.”

Our new home is a two-bedroomed end-of-terrace house, just ten minutes away from our old one but also light years away. In London, wide, affluent streets are cheek and jowl with tight, poorer ones. Rose and Connie feel sorry that I had to downsize but I’m okay with it. Yes, it’s small, but our old home with its four bedrooms and long, thin garden just offered Simon more hiding holes for empty bottles and empty promises. It was full of the echoes of arguments and ghosts of secrets and disappointments. Our new home isn’t full of anything yet. We’ve been here almost two years, but I haven’t got around to unpacking all our boxes. The ones full of Simon’s things are untouched, but most of our things that have a sentimental value are gathering dust: books, photo albums and old toys. I figure that if a thing hasn’t been missed by now, we don’t really need it. I do plan to hang more pictures on the walls, throw more cushions about, and I will, it’s just I’m not sure when. When will I have the energy to turn this house into a home? Before we bought this place, it had been a rental property for many years. As a result, the walls are a non-offensive magnolia color, the carpets are a neutral beige. It’s been well scrubbed by people who were keen to get their deposits returned. When I bought it, Luke talked enthusiastically about it being a canvas upon which I could stamp my personality. Other than Millie’s bedroom, which is a riot of primary colors and chaos, the rooms are still practical, functional, bland.

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