Public Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page B

wedding?”
    She’d kept her shoulders rounded and barely shook her head. The smoke twining mystically in the air had made her temples throb.
    “Want some cake?” He had reached out to give her hair a gentle tug, but she’d cringed away. “What’s this?” Baffled, he’d patted her shoulder.
    Already queasy, Emma’s stomach had rolled with a combination of terror and too many sweets. After one hiccup, she’d lost her cake and tea ail over her father’s lap. Wretched, she managed a single moan before curling back over Charlie. As she lay too sick to defend herself from the beating she was certain was coming, he’d begun to laugh.
    “Well, I imagine you’re feeling a good bit better.” Too high to be disgusted, he’d staggered to his feet then held out a hand. “Let’s get cleaned up.”
    To Emma’s amazement there had been no beating, no cruel pinches or sudden smacks. Instead he had stripped them both down to the skin in the bathroom, then hauled her into theshower. He’d even sung as the water had poured over them, something about drunken sailors that had made her forget to be sick.
    When they were both bundled in towels, he had woven his way to her room to slip her into bed. His hair had been wet and sleek around his face as he’d fallen over the foot of the bed. Within seconds, he’d been snoring.
    Cautious, Emma had crawled out from under the covers to sit beside him. Gathering her courage, she’d leaned over and pressed a damp kiss to his cheek. In love for the first time, she had tucked Charlie under Brian’s limp arm, and gone quietly to sleep.
    Then he had gone away. Only days after the wedding the big car had come, and two men had carried out luggage. He had kissed her and had promised to bring her a present. Emma had only been able to watch wordlessly as he’d ridden away, and out of her life. She hadn’t believed he was coming back, even when she heard his voice over the phone. Bev said he was in America where girls screamed every time they saw him, and people bought his records almost as fast as they were made.
    But while he was gone, there wasn’t as much music in the house, and sometimes Bev cried.
    Emma remembered Jane crying, and the smacks and shoves that had usually accompanied the tears. So she waited, but Bev never hit her, not even at night when the workmen were gone and they were all alone in the big house.
    Day after day, Emma would cuddle up on the window seat with Charlie and watch. She liked to pretend that the long, black car was cruising down the drive, and when it stopped and the door opened, her da came out.
    Each day when it didn’t come, she became more certain it never would. He had left because he didn’t like her, didn’t want her. Because she was a nuisance and bloody stupid. She waited for Bev to go away too, and leave her alone in the big house. Then her mam would come.

    W
HAT WENT ON IN the girl’s mind? Bev wondered. From the doorway she watched as Emma sat in her now habitual position on the window seat. The child could sit for hours, patient as an old woman. It was rare for her to play with anything exceptthe ratty old stuffed dog she’d brought with her. It was rarer still for her to ask for anything.
    She’d been in their lives now for almost a month, and Bev was a long way from resolving her feelings.
    Only a few weeks before, her plans had been perfectly laid. She wanted Brian to succeed, certainly. But more, she wanted to make a home and family with him.
    She’d been raised in the Church of England, in a calm, upper-middle-class family. Morals, responsibilities, and image had been important parts of her upbringing. She’d been given a good, solid education with the idea that she would make a sensible marriage and raise solid, sensible children.
    She had never rebelled, mostly because it had never occurred to her to rebel. Until Brian.
    She knew that although her parents had come to the wedding, they would never completely forgive her for moving