Before She Met Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

you were going to some film with Alice’s school in.’
    ‘We were. Except that I doubt if such a film really exists. It was … well, I suppose it was one of Barbara’s jokes.’
    Fucking Barbara. ‘Fucking Barbara.’
    ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, love.’
    ‘No, really—fucking Barbara. You get three hours a week with that kid and that’s all, and
she
uses it to get back at me.’
    ‘I shouldn’t think that was her motive.’ He didn’t mean it.
    ‘What else could it have been? She just wanted you to see me acting badly, and get you embarrassed in front of Alice. You know how suggestible kids are. Now Alice’ll just think of me as a screen whore.’
    ‘She’s much too sensible for that.’
    ‘No one is at her age. That’s what I look like in the film; that’s what she’ll think. “Daddy’s gone and married a scrubber,” she’ll say to her friends at school tomorrow. Your daddies are all married to your mummies, but
my
Daddy’s gone off and left Mummy and married a scrubber. I saw her on Sunday. A real
scrubber
.” ’ Ann mimicked girlish horror.
    ‘No she won’t. Shouldn’t think she knows the word anyway,’ Graham replied, without convincing himself.
    ‘Well, it’s bound to make an impact, isn’t it? Fucking Barbara,’ she repeated, this time as a summing-up.
    Graham still got a mild shock when he heard Ann swear. He always remembered the first time it had happened. They’d been walking along the Strand on a rainy evening, when all of a sudden she’d let go of his arm, stopped, looked down at the backs of her legs and said, ‘Fuck’. She (or, for all he knew, he) had splashed some dirty water on to hercalf. Only one calf; that was all. It would wash out of her tights; it didn’t hurt; it was dark, so no one would notice; and they were at the end, not the beginning, of the evening. But even so, she had said ‘Fuck’. It had been a nice evening; they’d had a good dinner together, got on well, hadn’t run short of things to say; but even so, a couple of drops of water and it brought out a ‘Fuck’. What on earth would she say if something serious happened? If she broke a leg or the Russians landed?
    Barbara had never sworn. Graham had never sworn when he was with Barbara. Nothing beyond ‘Damn’, anyway; except to himself. That evening, as he and Ann continued along the Strand, he enquired mildly,
    ‘What would you say if the Russians landed?’
    ‘Eh? Is that a threat or a promise?’
    ‘No, I mean, you just swore when you splashed your tights. I wondered what you’d say if you broke your leg or the Russians landed or something.’
    ‘Graham,’ she replied carefully, ‘I think I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.’
    They had walked on in silence for a bit.
    ‘I suppose you think I’m being priggish. I only wanted to know.’
    ‘Let’s say, perhaps you’ve led a rather sheltered life.’
    They had left it at that for the time being; and Graham couldn’t help noticing how, as he got closer to Ann, he began to swear more himself. At first hesitantly, then with relief, then with expansive relish. Now he swore automatically, as mere punctuation, like everyone else. He assumed that if and when the Russians came, then the right words would come too.
    ‘What was it like, making
Over the Moon
?’ he asked Ann as they were washing up together that evening.
    ‘Oh, a bit less fun than some. Lots of studio work. Low budget, so we all had to wear the same clothes a lot. I remember they chopped around the script and made severalscenes happen on the same day, just so that we wouldn’t have too many changes.’
    ‘And how was your Italian inamorato?’
    ‘Dick Devlin? He was as English as the East End. Hasn’t exactly made it into lights so far, has he? In fact, I
think
I saw him doing a shaving commercial a few weeks ago. He was nice; not much talent, but nice. Couldn’t act, just used what he called his “glower power”. Took me bowling one afternoon when they