A Question of Love Read Online Free PDF

thought?’
    ‘It is rather. So you’re using the cloth ones then are you?’
    ‘God you must be joking—too much hassle, not to mention the pong. No, I’ve started using these Eco-Bots gel-free disposables—I get them from Fresh and Wild. They’re very environmentally friendly if a teensy bit expensive.’
    ‘How much?’
    ‘Forty-five pence each.’
    ‘Forty-five pence? Blimey.’ I did a quick mental calculation. Babies need six changes a day on average don’t they, which is £2.70, multiplied by seven equals £18.90 a week, times fifty-two weeks equals…£980 give or take, multiplied by two and a half years’ average time in nappies equals almost £2,500. ‘Poor Hugh,’ I said.
    ‘Well, he didn’t have to give up his job, did he?’ she countered crossly.
    ‘Mm, I suppose that’s true.’
    I like Hugh—Felicity’s husband. He’s a nice, rather attractive, easy-going man—but I feel a bit sorry for him. He used to work, very successfully, for Orange, which enabled them to buy their house in Moorhouse Road. But on the day Felicity ecstatically showed him the second blue line on her pregnancy test, he announced that he’d just resigned. For years he’d wanted to pursue an entirely different career. So far his pipe dream is not going well.
    ‘How is the father of invention?’ I asked as the car turned in at the gates of the studio car park. ‘Anything patentable on the horizon?’
    There was an exasperated sigh. ‘Of course not—what do you think? Why he can’t just get himself a proper job again I don’t know, or at least invent something useful , like the wheel!’
    ‘Anyway, I must go Fliss, I’ve just arrived—we’re recording today.’
    ‘Well, best of luck. And I’ll be watching tonight—as long as Olivia’s gone to sleep, that is.’ And then she started telling me about how she’s trying sleep training on Olivia to stop her waking at 4am and what she has to do to get her to drop off again and I was thinking, Why don’t you just shut up? Why don’t you just shut up about the baby? Yes, she’s a very sweet baby and I love her very much, but I don’t actually want to know any more about her today thank you, Fliss, because let’s face it, she’s your baby isn’t she, she’s your baby she’s not my baby—when Felicity suddenly said, in that impulsive way of hers that never fails to catch my heart, ‘You know, Laura, I’m so proud of you.’
    ‘What?’
    My frustration melted like the dew and I felt tears prick the backs of my eyes.
    ‘Well, I just think you’ve been so wonderful. I mean, here I am going on about Olivia, boring you to bits most probably…’
    ‘Oh…no,’ I said weakly. ‘Really…I—’
    ‘But just look at what you’ve achieved! The way you’ve coped with everything—the sheer bloody awfulness of it all and of what he did. The not-so-dearly departed,’ she added sardonically, because that’s how she always refers, rather blackly, to Nick. ‘But you’ve pulled yourself up again in the face of all the hideous difficulties he left behind, and—my God—look at you now! Your life’s going to be fabulous and brilliant and, from today, you’re going to be a famous television presenter.’ At that, I felt my heart sink. ‘ And, ‘ she added with an air of triumphant finality, ‘you’re going to meet someone else !’
    ‘And live happily ever after,’ I murmured cynically as I opened the car door. ‘In a whitewashed cottage with pink roses round the door and a Cath Kidston apron and two… Labradors, no doubt.’
    ‘Well, actually, I’m quite sure you are. If you’d only let yourself,’ Felicity added with her usual benign vehemence. ‘Anyway, drop by after work tomorrow and we can chat—I haven’t seen you for ages—and you can have a cuddle with Olivia. She’d love that—wouldn’toomylittledarling?’ she added in a soprano ripple. ‘Oo’dlovetohaveanicecuddle-withyourAuntieLauramylittlebabykins? ‘ I could hear Olivia