Other People's Children Read Online Free PDF

said.
    â€˜Have you ever wanted to be?’
    Elizabeth looked down into her coffee. Half of her wanted to tell him primly that he didn’t know her anything like well enough to ask such a thing and the other half wished to confide, in a rush of relief at being able to, that she only ever seemed to want to marry men who were already firmly married and that it troubled her that she only felt able to release herself into loving if there was no real danger she might have to commit to it. And yet – and this was an increasing pain — the loneliness caused by this inhibition was getting daily harder to bear. It was beginning to colour everything. It was making her think, as her father had pointed out, that every half-full glass of whisky was in fact merely half-empty. When she had stood in the little house in Lansbury Crescent that morning, she had been able tovisualize her solitude there, but not the scene that Tom had suggested, of a summer evening, with the garden door open and a tray of drinks on a table on the patio, and a group of friends. She had friends, of course she did, friends she went to the cinema and theatre with, friends who asked her round for Sunday lunch and failed to fool her, for a moment, despite their loud comical wails of complaint, about the deep proud satisfaction they felt in having children. You could – and she had other single friends who did this – make friends into a kind of family, but in the end your separateness awaited you, not so much in your empty flat, as in your heart. This fact had struck her very forcibly only the week before, when she was filling in a kidney-donor card at her local surgery. Who should be notified in the event of her death? My father, she wrote. And then she paused. When her father was dead, who would it be then?
    â€˜I thought,’ she said to Tom Carver, ‘that we were going to talk about my house.’
    â€˜We are.’
    â€˜But—’
    â€˜I’m luring you into telling me if you really want to spend maybe fifteen thousand pounds on something your heart might not quite be in.’
    â€˜Why should it matter to you?’ Elizabeth said rudely. ‘Why should you care? You’ll get your fee in any case, whether I like the house or I don’t.’
    Tom Carver got up and went across to the kitchen counter where he had left the coffee pot. He said equably,‘You’re quite right. With most clients, I don’t really care. They’re the ones who are making the choices after all, and the consequences of those choices are their responsibility. But—’ He paused.
    â€˜But what?’
    â€˜You’re a nice woman,’ he said simply. He held the coffee pot above her mug. ‘More coffee?’
    She shook her head. He filled his own mug. He said, ‘Can I show you something?’
    â€˜Of course.’
    He put the coffee pot down and went to the other end of the kitchen which was arranged as a kind of sitting-room, with a sofa and armchairs and a tele vision set. He came back carrying a framed photograph, and set it down in front of Elizabeth.
    â€˜There.’
    It was a photograph of a little boy, a boy of perhaps – Elizabeth was never very certain of children’s ages – about seven. He was extremely attractive, with thick hair and clear eyes and a scattering of freckles. He wore a checked shirt and jeans and he was sitting astride a gate or a fence, staring at the camera as if he had nothing to hide.
    â€˜My boy,’ Tom said. ‘He’s called Rufus. He’s eight.’
    â€˜He looks angelic,’ Elizabeth said.
    â€˜I rather think he is,’ Tom said. ‘At least, in his absence, I do.’
    Elizabeth moved the photograph a few inches away from her. ‘Is he away at school then?’
    â€˜No. He lives with his mother.’
    â€˜Oh dear,’ Elizabeth said.
    â€˜His mother left me,’ Tom said. ‘Almost a year ago. She left me for