.

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ her bed, only half registering that the car parked outside belonged to her friend, Nell. Edward would have to talk to her. Nell wouldn’t mind: she and Edward were great pals and Nell knew that when a migraine hit, Anneliese could only think of lying down.

      And then she stepped into the kitchen to see Edward and Nell sitting together at the table, his dark head bent towards her fair one and their hands clasped.

      There was no soft music or gentle lights, no state of undress. But the intimacy of their togetherness cut into Anneliese like a knife sliding into the underbelly of a chicken fillet.

      ‘Anneliese!’ gasped Nell, seeing her.

      They moved apart sharply, quickly. In another universe, Anneliese might have joked about what the speedy movement might do to Edward’s sciatica or Nell’s dodgy neck. But she knew, with absolute certainty, that there was nothing innocent about their closeness. The migraine pummelled louder in her head, fighting with the sense of nausea that rose instantaneously.

      ‘We were just…’ began Nell awkwardly, and then stopped as if she had no idea what to say next.

      Nell was never short of words. In contrast to Anneliese, who preferred silence often, Nell had a word for everyone and a comment for anything.

      Like the rain: ‘It’d be a great little country if only we could get someone to put an umbrella over it.’

      People loved that.

      Or thoughts on money: ‘Spend it now: there are no pockets in a shroud.’

      Now, Nell had nothing to say.

      ‘Anneliese, you don’t want to get the wrong idea,’ began Edward, his face a mask of anxiety as he moved towards Anneliese and tried to take her hands in his. His hair was wet from the shower. It was only twenty-five minutes since she’d left the house. He must have leapt out of bed as soon as she’d gone.

      ‘Explain the wrong idea to me, so I can understand the difference between it and the right one,’ Anneliese said, gently detaching her hands. Her head still felt cloudy but the powerful instinctive message in her brain told her not to let her husband touch her.

      ‘Lord, Anneliese, please don’t think we’d ever do anything to hurt you,’ began Nell.

      She looked anxiously at Edward, pleading with him to sort it out.

      You could tell what people thought by their eyes more easily than by anything else, Anneliese knew.

      Over the years, she and Edward had exchanged many telling looks. And she and Nell had exchanged them too – they’d been friends for nearly twenty years, a lifetime.

      Only she’d never been aware of these two important people in her life looking at each other in this way. Until now.

      Anneliese felt as if she was watching the last reel of a movie where all the plot loopholes are tied up.

      Nell and Edward were the ones sharing the telling looks now because they were the couple in this scene: not Anneliese and Edward, but Nell and Edward.

      ‘Please, Anneliese, sit down.’

      Edward was still beside her, his expression anxious and his hands out in supplication.

      ‘I wish we didn’t have to do this but I suppose we have to. Now or never, right?’ he said, looking defeated but determined, determined to have this awful conversation.

      And that was when Anneliese knew absolutely that Edward was leaving her for Nell.

      Edward hated confrontation of any kind. He’d been useless on those occasions when Beth was in floods of tears, distraught over something or other.

      His facing a conversation that could easily end in shouting told her all she needed to know.

      ‘You’re going, aren’t you? You’re going with Nell.’

      Edward nodded mutely and held his hands out imploringly, as if to say, What else can I do?

      Anneliese sat down then and placed her hands on the table. ‘I came home early because I’ve got a migraine,’ she said to no one in particular.

      ‘Shall I fetch your pills?’ Edward said.

      She nodded.

      He rushed from the room, eager to be gone.

      ‘Tea might help,’ Nell added and turned to open cupboards, finding cups and teabags easily. She’d spent so many hours here, sharing tea and life with Anneliese, that she knew where everything was as well as Edward and Anneliese did.

      ‘Tea wouldn’t help, actually,’ Anneliese said harshly. ‘Nothing is going to help.’

      Defeated, Nell sat down at the far end of the table opposite Anneliese.

      Her hair was different, Anneliese realised. Normally, Nell’s dark blonde curly hair was windswept even when there wasn’t wind. She rarely wore much in the way of make-up and for a woman of her age – Anneliese’s exact age, actually, fifty-six – she had remarkably clear, unlined skin with just a few freckles and the inevitable little creases that spun out from her laughing blue eyes. Today, her hair was brushed carefully into shape and she wore lipstick and mascara. She looked done, ready for some event.

      And that event was running off with Anneliese’s husband.

      ‘Why, Nell, why?’

      ‘Oh Anneliese, don’t sit there and look so surprised,’ snapped Nell, who’d never snapped at Anneliese before in her life. ‘You must have known. Edward said you didn’t, but I knew you did. Women know. You’re turned a blind eye, that’s all. Which says a lot about your relationship, that you didn’t care enough –’

      ‘I didn’t know,’ interrupted Anneliese, shocked at this new version of Nell whom, mere moments ago, was saying she’d never meant to hurt Anneliese. ‘If I’d known, do you think I’d have gone on wanting to be your friend, going for lunch with you, asking you here for dinner?’ She stopped because she felt too numb to think up other examples of how she hadn’t known.

      ‘How long has it been going on?’ she whispered.

      Anneliese knew she should summon up rage and fury, but all she felt at this moment was a terrible weakness in her legs, and the sense that she’d been totally wrong about the people in her life.

      If either Edward or Nell had betrayed her individually, the other would have been there to remind her that they still loved her. But they’d both betrayed her. Together.

      ‘Don’t let on you didn’t know. You must have known,’ Nell hissed.

      Again, Anneliese felt herself recoil at the bitterness in her friend’s voice.

      ‘Don’t lie to me, Anneliese. You might lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me. If you two were crazily in love with each other, would Edward have come to me? Answer me that, then? No, he wouldn’t. He came to me because you didn’t need him, you cut him off. You had so much and you didn’t care, didn’t realise it. Well, I did and I’m not going to apologise to you for it.’

      Anneliese СКАЧАТЬ