Never Close Your Eyes Read Online Free PDF Page A

right position. Damn. It was playing up again. What if this time it had properly broken and she couldn’t get in? At least the children were home but she didn’t want to ring the bell and wake them.
    Finally, after more twisting and turning, the key slid into its appointed grooves and the door creaked open. Evie found herself thinking for the umpteenth time that she really must get someone to fix the mechanism.
    The overhead lamp in the hall cast a dingy glow. It was a lovely, wide hall with a high ceiling and elaborate cornicing, but the unflattering light seemed to emphasise all the bad bits. The wooden floor had long since lost its polished sheen and was now scuffed and worn, and there were dirty marks on the walls.
    Evie’s eyes fell on the thin crack, running almost from ceiling to floor, on the left-hand wall by the mirror. She couldn’t help herself. There was a new sheet of plain paper over the crack in a nondescript, off-white. You could tell it was new because the paint was brighter and cleaner than the rest. It was obvious that it had been slapped on to try to hide what was behind. Only it hadn’t worked. The crack had come through again.
    It depressed Evie. She remembered how worried she’d been when the crack had first appeared, fearing subsidence or some other major problem. She’d begged Neil to investigate, or at least to let her pay someone to do so, but he’d refused, insisting he’d do it himself – when he had time.
    Eventually, fed up with her nagging, he’d gone out one Saturday morning and bought a roll of wallpaper and some glue from a DIY shop. It had taken him about half an hour to plonk a sheet over the crack and another half-hour to paint it. The paper looked dreadful, all bobbly. A botched job. And he knew it. Evie was upset, she’d have to live with that, but Neil really didn’t care.
    â€˜Do it yourself if you don’t like it,’ he’d snapped.
    Well, the penny had finally dropped. It had taken her all those months to face up to the truth and now it was staring her right in the face: he didn’t care about the house because he didn’t love her any more. She’d tried so hard to ignore the signs: the bad temper, the never wanting to go out with her on their own, the longer and longer working hours, the turning away from her at night.
    It was several months more, however, before he’d sat her down on the shabby sofa in the sitting room and told her that he’d fallen for someone else. The way he’d spoken, you’d honestly have thought that it was her fault.
    â€˜We’ve got nothing to talk about any more,’ he’d said, refusing to meet her gaze. ‘You’re so wrapped up in the children, whereas Helen has an interesting career and really understands my work.’
    Helen, of course, had every reason to understand his work, being a nurse at the hospital where he was a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist. She was also twenty-five, childless and beautiful. Neil had always liked beautiful women.
    Ironically, he was the one who’d persuaded Evie to give up her job thirteen years ago when she had Freya. He’d said that she could always go back to designing and making wedding dresses when the children were older.
    Evie felt a painful lump in her throat. She tried to swallow it down. It was so cruel. She felt washed up, discarded like an old shoe.
    She dropped her keys on the hall table and caught sight of the white envelope, still unopened, addressed to Mr Neil Freestone. She must remember to give it to him next time he dropped by. Tomorrow, probably.
    She tugged off her coat and threw it over the banisters. Kicked off her shoes too, and left them there in an untidy pile along with the others. At least she had Nic and Becca – and the children, of course. He couldn’t take them away from her. She swung round, glanced at herself in the mirror and smoothed down her fair hair,