The Bad Mother: The addictive, gripping thriller that will make you question everything. Amanda Brooke
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СКАЧАТЬ her oil colours. She squeezed out a generous amount of titanium white, a dab of Prussian blue and, as an afterthought, some French ultramarine. There would be no black on the canvas until she was happy with the curve of the dog’s snout and the ripples of fur on his silken ears.

      Picking up an unlabelled glass bottle, Lucy twisted the cap and squeezed the dropper to draw up the clear liquid that would thin the paints. She dribbled a few drops across her palette before selecting a wide flat brush and, as she mixed her colours, she couldn’t help but notice the smell of her paints had changed. She wondered if it might be the steam rising from her tea, or perhaps the metallic scent of the storm in the air – or was it simply that her perceptions were changing along with her body?

      Adam had a point about her becoming a newer version of herself but, in the software industry, that implied an improvement to the old. In some ways, Lucy was changing for the better. She had clung on to her student days a little too long and it was time to accept that she was a proper grown-up with a husband and a baby on the way.

      Taking a deep breath, Lucy began to add paint to the stretched canvas. She used curved brushstrokes to add texture, but the oils worked against her and after half an hour of trying and failing to add some depth to her painting, she put down her palette. With her brow furrowed, she picked up the bottle she had used to thin the paint and raised it to eye level. She made up her own thinner mixture from equal parts of linseed oil and turpentine but one sniff confirmed her suspicions. If there was any oil present at all, it was the remnants from a previous mix.

      The rain was beating down on the roof hard enough to make the tiles quake and as the noise intensified, so did Lucy’s frustration. She poured the contents of the bottle on to a rag and used it to wipe clean her palette. She could have rescued the paints she had been using, but she would feel better starting over. She was almost tempted to cast aside the canvas too, but it was salvageable, assuming she did everything right next time.

      Lucy took extra care as she half-filled the offending bottle with turpentine before adding the linseed oil. Such a simple task would normally be undertaken while she was planning her work, or thinking about what to have for lunch. It shouldn’t need her undivided attention and Lucy’s ineptitude annoyed her. And then it worried her. What if she made similar mistakes when the baby was born? Mixing incorrect ratios of thinner and oil was one thing, but what if she were making up formula milk? What if something went terribly wrong because of her carelessness?

      The thought of being a mother terrified Lucy more than she had ever anticipated. She hoped her daughter would be blessed with health and happiness – nothing short of a perfect life – but for that, she would need the perfect mother. How could life be so perverse that part of preparing a woman’s body for motherhood should involve giving her an overdose of hormones to screw up her mind?

      Shaking the bottle, Lucy attempted to release some of her tension. She was being overdramatic. It was a simple slip-up.

      ‘Bloody hormones,’ Lucy muttered.

      Picking up her peppermint tea, Lucy studied the canvas. It wasn’t that bad and she wondered if she had been too quick to jump to conclusions about the thinner mix. With renewed determination, she picked up her paintbrush and this time used gentle strokes to transform her previous dabs of paint into a smooth wash that gave some sense of light and shadow to Ralph’s features. She felt calmer, and Adam chose the perfect time to call.

      ‘Hello,’ she said with a soft smile.

      ‘I can hardly hear you,’ Adam shouted. ‘Are you in your studio? Am I disturbing you?’

      Lucy took another look at the canvas. ‘No, I’ll go downstairs,’ she yelled back as she dropped her brush in a jar of thinner so it wouldn’t dry out.

      With her phone cradled against her shoulder, Lucy held her mug in one hand and used the other to grasp the handrail as she made her way down the staircase to the door on the first-floor landing. The entrance to her studio fitted seamlessly in with the rest of the house and Lucy reminded herself that she had reason to be proud of her accomplishments.

      It had been hard graft, project-managing the building work and the wedding at the same time, but she had done it without so much as a mishap. Of the two, the wedding had been the simplest because she and Adam had chosen to marry on a beach in Santorini with only their mums in attendance. Adam’s boss had insisted on hosting a party for them on their return but it had been deliberately low-key because their budget had been tight. Adam had already invested all his money in the house, and most of Lucy’s savings – or at least the money her mum had saved up through the years on her behalf – had been earmarked for the loft conversion. They hadn’t wanted a big fuss anyway. They had each other and that was what marriage was all about as far as they were concerned.

      Reaching the ground floor where the staircase split the house in two, Lucy said, ‘Can you hear me now?’

      ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘Do you need to make a drink?’

      ‘No, I’ve got one, but I might grab a biscuit unless you’re going to tell me I’m fat again,’ she said, turning right. Her bare feet slapped against the ice-cold porcelain tiles as she crossed the kitchen diner in search of sustenance. If she had been around when Adam had refitted the kitchen, she would have insisted on installing underfloor heating but at least the room itself was warm. In fact, it grew distinctly toasty as she passed the gas hob.

      ‘I would never call you fat and you know it,’ Adam said. ‘A bit bumpy around the middle maybe …’ He was expecting a retort but was met with silence. ‘Lucy?’

      She was staring at a flickering blue circle. One of the burners had been left on its lowest setting. ‘Sorry, what?’ she asked as she quickly extinguished the flame.

      ‘Are you OK?’

      Lucy considered whether or not to tell Adam. She certainly wasn’t going to mention the mix-up with the thinner because, the more she thought about it, the more likely it was that she had simply been doubting herself. Leaving the gas on, however, was irrefutably her fault. She had made breakfast hours ago and although she had eaten her porridge slouched in front of the TV, she had returned to the kitchen to wash up, and once more to make her peppermint tea. She had been distracted by the storm and her reluctance to set to work, but it was no excuse. Taking a sip of her tepid tea, she said. ‘I left a burner on.’

      ‘On the hob?’

      ‘It must have been when I made breakfast. Unless …’ she added as a thought occurred. ‘You didn’t use the hob this morning, did you?’

      ‘Did you see the gas lit when you made your porridge?’

      ‘There’s no need to snap. I only left it on for ten minutes.’

      In the silence that followed, Lucy sensed Adam judging her and her anger began to build. She knew it wasn’t his fault but if he dared suggest she could have burnt the house down, or that the flame could have flickered out and sparked an explosion, there was a good chance she was going to scream.

      ‘Lucy,’ he said at last. ‘You have to be more careful.’

      ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’

      ‘OK, sorry, forget about it,’ he said as kindly as he could, but Lucy took offence anyway.

      ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she scoffed. ‘Forgetting is the one thing you can count on with me.’

      No longer feeling СКАЧАТЬ