Public Secrets Read Online Free PDF

straps as well, and white tights. No one had scolded when she’d smudged the knees.

The wedding had seemed very strange and solemn to Emma, with everyone standing out in the garden and the sun fighting off clouds. One of the men everyone called Stevie had worn a long white shirt and baggy white pants. He’d sung in a husky voice while strumming a glossy white guitar. Emma had thought he was an angel, but when she’d asked Johnno, he’d only laughed.
Bev had worn a circle of flowers in her hair and a flowing multicolored dress that had swept her ankles. To Emma, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. For the first time in her young life, she had been struck by true envy. To be beautiful, and grown-up, and standing beside Da. She’d never be afraid again, or hungry again. And like the girls in the fairy tales Brian was so fond of, she would be happy ever after.
When the rain had started, they had gone inside to have cake and champagne in a room with fabric books and flowers and fresh paint. More guitars had been played and people had sung along and laughed. Beautiful women, in slim short skirts or flowing cotton dresses, had roamed the house. Some of them had cooed over her or patted her head, but for the most part she’d been left to herself.
No one noticed that she’d had three pieces of cake and smeared icing on the collar of her new dress. There had been no other little girls to play with, and Emma was too young to be dazzled by the names and faces of the luminaries of the music business who had wandered through the house. Bored, a little queasy from cake, she’d gone off to bed, lulled by the sounds from the party.
Later, she’d woken. Restless, she had dragged Charlie out of bed to go downstairs. But the heavy scent of pot smoke had stopped her. She was familiar with it, too familiar. Like the stink of gin, the sweet scent of marijuana was firmly linked in her mind with her mother, and the shakings and beatings that had come whenever Jane had crashed from her highs.
Miserable, she had huddled on the steps, cooing reassurances to Charlie. If her mam was here now, she would take her away. Emma had known she would never again wear the pretty pink dress, or hear her da’s voice, or go into the big, bright stores with Bev.
She’d cringed when she heard the footsteps on the stairs, and waited for the worst.
“Hello there, Emma luv.” Soaring, at peace with the world, Brian had dropped down beside her. “What’re you doing?”

“Nothing.” She’d curled tighter over the stuffed dog. She made herself small, very small. If they couldn’t see you, they couldn’t hurt you.
“It’s quite the party.” Leaning back on his elbows, he’d grinned at the ceiling. Never in his wildest fantasies had he believed he would one day entertain giants like McCartney, Jagger, Daltrey, in his own house. And his wedding, too. Good Christ, he was married. A married man with a gold ring on his finger.
Tapping his bare foot to the beat of the music that crashed its way up the stairs, he’d studied the ring. No going back, he’d thought comfortably. He was Catholic enough, and idealistic enough to believe that now that the deed was done, it was forever.
It was one of the biggest days of his life, he’d thought as he’d fumbled in his shin pocket for the pack of cigarettes he’d left downstairs. One of the biggest, he’d thought again with a sigh. And if his father had been too drunk or too lazy to pick up the bloody tickets he’d sent to Ireland, what did it matter? Brian had all the family he needed right here.
He’d pushed thoughts of yesterdays out of his mind. From now on there would only be tomorrows. A lifetime of them.
“How about it, Emma? Want to go down and dance at your da’s 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