Guilty Feet Read Online Free PDF Page A

haven’t spoken to her for ages.’
    Dan felt his face colour, as if he was a boy again and just about to be caught out in a lie. He was glad his mother couldn’t see him or she’d have sussed him in a moment.
    ‘She’s fine. Down at the gym, as usual. She’s become addicted.’
    Thank God he’d invented that bloody gym. It was the only plausible explanation for Jo’s constant absences from the flat. Why he hadn’t told his mother the truth yet he didn’t know. To begin with he’d hoped it might still work out, that she’d come back, so rather than go into all sorts of unnecessary explanations he’d come up with the gym story. Of course if his mother had only known Jo as well as he did she’d have realised it wasn’t a very likely tale. Joanna Hurst loathed all forms of physical exercise and she never stuck to anything for longer than a couple of weeks.
    ‘She must be very fit by now, and toned as well.’
    ‘Yeah, I suppose she is,’ he mumbled.
    ‘It might not be a bad idea if you joined her. All that sitting around every day—you could do with some exercise.’
    ‘Maybe,’ he said uncomfortably, wishing she’d get off the subject. Thankfully, she did.
    ‘Talking of which, how’s the work going? Earning enough to pay the rent?’
    He hadn’t told her about the book for the same reason he hadn’t told anyone else.
    ‘I’m doing fine, Mum.’
    ‘Good. Well bring Jo down to see us whenever you can. I know what busy lives you lead, so if I don’t see you before it’s definitely still on for Christmas, I hope?’
    ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
    ‘Wonderful. Well, that’s it, then, I think. Give my love to Jo and get her to ring me some time. I miss our little chats about you.’
    ‘Will do, Mum. Take care.’
    He felt guilty as he replaced the receiver. He was going to have to tell her the truth about Jo soon, especially now that she was with someone else and Christmas was only a few weeks away.
    He sighed and looked back to his screen. He opened the untitled e-mail and after frowning at the contents for a minute or two knocked off another quick reply.

 
    Chapter Three
     
    I didn’t know what to make of Dan’s reply to Sarah, which was waiting for me the following morning. As it turned out I’d been too tired to do all the reading I’d planned, and had decided to leave it till I knew how Sarah had performed. Which wasn’t very well by the look of the response that she’d got from Dan.
    It wasn’t at all what I’d expected. It didn’t sound like Dan at all, in fact, and for a brief moment I even entertained the absurd possibility that I’d accidentally e-mailed someone who was trying to double-bluff me, who was posing as Dan.
    Sarah , it began. Not ‘Dear’ Sarah, and somehow I quite liked that. The fact that he didn’t bandy his ‘Dears’ around all that freely. It was the only bit I did like, though.
    Just be grateful your parents have good musical taste (my mother had an unhealthy fixation on George Michael when I was growing up) , although I’ll admit they do seem to be stuck in a time warp . But why shatter their harmless illusions ? I recommend you buy them something for their garden , if they’ve got one , that is .
    Dan
    It sounded so... cynical and condescending. (Had Aisling done this to him?) As if he thought Sarah a fool and wasn’t about to suffer her gladly. And, yes, all right, I know I thought she’d sounded a bit silly and naïve myself, but I felt quite defensive about her now. She’d only asked him for a bit of advice, after all! She didn’t deserve a snotty reply. I also felt protective towards Jean, Dan’s mother—so what if she had been a George Michael fan? I really like Jean. She was just so easy to get along with, so genuine. Not like my mother, whose first question whenever she met anyone new was not ‘How do you do?’ but ‘ What do you do?’ She judged everyone on their job title, and if it didn’t come up to scratch in her eyes