Love Is a Secret Read Online Free PDF Page B

she said quietly.
    ‘Try online.’ Diana tossed her hair dismissively. ‘Find some self-help group. All kinds of idiots want to be in print. I don’t need to tell you that. Pay them a hundred each. Two if you have to. There’s got to be someone out there who’ll talk.’
    Caroline glanced at Zelda, whose face shone with unspoken sympathy. Poor you. She didn’t know or she wouldn’t have suggested it. Are you all right?
    ‘Sorry.’ Caroline stood up. ‘I’ve just got to go to the loo. Back in a second.’
    Diana frowned. Cloakroom rights were a no-no during conference. Quickly, before she made a complete fool of herself, Caroline left the room. Through the open door, she could hear Zelda saying something about her not being well. All she needed was a few moments to compose herself and then she’d go back to acting – as she’d been doing for the past two years.
    Caroline rinsed her face in the basin and quickly re-did her makeup. Better. But the problem remained. Even if she found someone stupid enough to be named, talking to her would bring back the pain. She’d like to confide in Zelda. In the early days, when she had barely been able to function in the office, she’d had to tell her that Roger had had an affair. But something had always held her back from revealing all the details. There was only one person who knew what had really happened.
    ‘Jeff? It’s me. Sorry, the reception’s awful.’
    She moved to the other side of the basin to improve the signal. A secretary came in from Cookery and Caroline tried to talk quietly.
    ‘Look, sorry to bother you but I wondered if you were free for lunch this week? . . . No, of course I understand. Next week? . . . That would be lovely.’
     

 
     
     
    6
     
Dating agencies: can single mums trust them?
     
    The question was still pounding round Susan’s head. Why was it that everyone, including What Mums Know , presumed single mothers wanted another moron to stand in for the previous one? There were other things in life to think about. Such as why the Greenfields Centre bus was late.
    As Tabitha howled with fury and stretched her face away, Susan wiped her daughter’s mouth. Tabitha hated it and no bloody sock puppet, as What Mums Know had suggested, would make her feel better about it.
    ‘Moremoremoremore.’ Now her face was puckered with fury as she tried to reach for the remaining slice of cold toast on the table.
    ‘No, darling, you can’t have any more. You’ve already had four pieces and you know the bus sometimes makes you sick. It’ll be here any minute. Do you want to look out for it?’
    To her relief, the hot, bitter expression in Tabitha’s eyes melted away and Susan wheeled her to the window. The changes in her nature, from fierce anger to childish delight, had become more marked in the last year. Dr Hill had said it was hormonal. At twelve, Tabitha was becoming a woman, with beautifully shaped breasts that were at odds with the rest of her crooked body, slumped in the chair. It wouldn’t be long, Dr Hill had warned, before she’d have periods. One more thing to mop up.
    ‘Can you see it yet?’
    ‘Nnnnnnn.’
    It was remarkable, the consultant had said, that Tabitha could speak in her own unique way. Many children with her problems were unable to. But Susan knew it was due to sheer determination, not luck. Since Tabitha was eighteen months old, when the diagnosis had been confirmed, she had battled crazily to teach her the skills that a ‘normal’ child would automatically learn. She’d spent hours, days, weeks and months repeating words to make them go in.
    The crying shame of it was that Tabitha was naturally intelligent. She could point to words in magazines when Susan said them; she could type them on a keyboard, although it took an age. She was pretty, too, with her straight fair hair, and the sweet little snub nose that had made Susan think of the name Tabitha when she’d been born. Now the name suited her more than ever: