Monday to Friday Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

goodnight.
    Minutes later I join Nancy in the kitchen, the table immaculately laid with pressed linen napkins and white bone china. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I ask, before adding that something smells delicious.
    ‘No no, you sit down.’ Nancy opens the fridge door, covered with photographs of the children and their artwork, and takes out a bottle of white wine. She pours us both a glass, telling me that the supper will be burnt if that brother of mine isn’t home soon. Nick is a lawyer. He specializes in divorce. ‘Is he always this late, Nancy?’ I ask with concern.
    ‘Always,’ she replies. ‘He lives in his bloody office.’
    As Nancy fills me in on the dramas with Hannah’s music teacher (Hannah is seven, Matilda four) my mind wanders to Megan, my own sister, and how I wish she were with me tonight. I often think about her. Would she have been like Nick and my father, a career-driven successful lawyer, or would she have been more like me? When I hear a key unlock, Nancy stiffens, glancing at her watch. Nick rushes in, shaking off his jacket, loosening his tie and dumping his briefcase on the kitchen table, apologizing to me for being late. Nancy picks up his case and orders him to hang up his jacket. ‘You did get the milk, didn’t you?’
    His face says he forgot. ‘Oh, Nicholas! We don’t have enough for the children’s breakfast now!’
    Once he’s apologized she allows him to kiss her on the cheek.
    ‘It’s just a Delia recipe,’ Nancy smiles, as she serves perfect miniature onion tartlets for our starter. She then asks me how my love life is, as she always does. I try to deflect the question by praising the pastry, but Nancy doesn’t let me get away with it. You see, she loved Ed and misses his presence round the dinner table. Ed got the measure of Nancy instantly; he was perceptive about people, which is why he’s a good businessman. ‘She’s high maintenance,’ he’d said. ‘Insecure. Deep down that woman craves approval and recognition.’
    Stop. Thinking. About. Him.
    I tell Nancy that there’s no one special on the scene at the moment. I add that I think attractive single men must hide underground. Though I do wonder who that young man was in the hat, walking his dog this morning. There was something interesting about him.
    ‘Anyway,’ Nick says, helping me change the subject, ‘what else is going on?’
    I am always shocked when I see my twin. Like me, he’s tall with dark-brown hair, but he’s aged in the last few years, and his pale skin reveals that he spends too much time at his computer.
    ‘Well, I’m advertising for a Monday to Friday man,’ I tell them.
    ‘A what man?’ Nancy asks.
    I tell them both about the Monday to Friday scheme.
    ‘I think that’s very brave of the wife to let her husband loose in the week,’ Nancy comments. ‘I wouldn’t let you do it, Nicholas.’
    Nick smiles at me.
    ‘Actually you live in the office, so it wouldn’t make any difference,’ she reflects.
    When Nancy leaves the room to check up on the children, Nick leans towards me. ‘I think it’s a great idea,’ he advises with a wry smile. ‘At the rate she spends, we could do with letting out our spare room too.’
    ‘Wow, this looks amazing!’ I exclaim as Nancy places an exquisite slice of apricot flan in front of me with a neat scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side of the plate.
    ‘Just a Nigella,’ she says. ‘Now, Gilly, you need to start thinking about your birthday.’
    ‘November’s months away,’ I dismiss.
    ‘Nancy needs a project,’ Nick mutters quietly as she counts the months on her fingers. ‘It’s only three months,’ she calculates, ‘and if we’re going to hire a marquee . . .’
    ‘We’re not,’ I say, horrified by the thought. ‘Nick, what are you going to do?’
    ‘Nothing,’ he says.
    ‘Nothing?’ I say, surprised. He usually enjoys a party.
    ‘Maybe draw the curtains and hide under my duvet?’ he suggests.
    ‘Well that’s