What She Never Told Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

but the twin catastrophe of losing my husband and my mother has dealt my sobriety a blow and, as the evening goes on, I manage to down a few more drinks.
    ‘I love the hair,’ Ursula says. ‘It suits you. Takes years off you. Fabulous jacket, too. I’m glad to see you’ve been treating yourself – for a change.’
    In the afternoon, on a whim, I had walked into a hairdressing salon and asked the stylist to decide what kind of cut would work for me and to get on with it. I had nothing to lose. Hair grows and, over the past few months, mine had grown so much that I had taken to wearing it pulled back into a ponytail or scrunched into an unruly up-do. But I liked the cut the hairdresser gave me, short and spiky and gamine, nothing I would ever have imagined might suit me.
    And, to celebrate the haircut, I had spent a small fortune on new clothes. A dark green leather jacket, a long and tight-fitting black cashmere jumper, black jeans and narrow ankle boots. The boots were almost flat, which was just as well, because any more of a heel and I would have had trouble staying upright.
    ‘Let’s drink to that!’ I say, taking a bottle and filling up my glass.
    ‘Do you not think you’ve had enough?’
    ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Ursula! That’s a bit of a joke, coming from you. Pot? Kettle? Anyway, it’s my birthday, and no, I don’t think I’ve had nearly enough. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to go to the loo.’
    The Sandy lookalike I pass on the way to the loo stops me in my tracks, and for a moment I’m persuaded that my estranged husband has turned up, after all. But it’s not Sandy. He’s a lot younger and, as I discover when I examine him more closely, he doesn’t really look like Sandy at all. But he’s not unattractive. He’ll do. I chat to him for a while, my confidence boosted sky high by the booze and by his telling me that I remind him of a short-haired Sandra Bullock, and then I go back to my party. But I know he’ll be waiting for me when I leave. And he is.
    With all the food I’ve eaten, I’ve sobered up enough to feel the disapproval of my friends as I wave goodbye to them and stagger back to my flat in Ladbroke Grove with my new friend. He, too, has had a lot to drink. He has waited for me, and now that we are inside my flat, he’s eager for action. My enthusiasm has waned with tiredness. But I’m feeling confident. Here’s someone who wants me, even if Sandy doesn’t. And so I make all the moves I am supposed to make, all the usual sounds as we grind against each other. But when I pull away from him, I feel empty of everything but self-disgust.
    I shunt him out of the flat, telling him my husband will be home any minute. He stares at me in drunken astonishment.
    ‘You’re . . . nuts,’ he manages to say, struggling to get into his coat as I ease him out on to the steps and close the door behind him.
    Tomorrow I’ll make the phone calls to Ursula and the others. I’ll apologise for abandoning them and walking off with a stranger.
    I have an excuse; I’ve had to deal with too much loss all at once and alcohol has given me a temporary respite from it, but I’m all too aware that this has not been my finest hour.
    *
    ‘Sorry about last night. I didn’t behave well,’ I tell Ursula on the phone.
    ‘So you bloody well should be. I hope you have the mother and father of all hangovers and that it lasts for a week.’
    ‘I have a hangover and it’s horrible. So am I forgiven now?’
    ‘I’ll think about it. But, really, Lou, how could you go off with a stranger? He could have been a serial killer.’
    ‘But he wasn’t, was he? I’m a good judge of character.’
    ‘Yeah, and I’m sure a lot of women killed by charmers who turned out to be serial killers thought they were good judges of character, too,’ she says drily.
    ‘Well, I seem to recall that you’ve wandered off with a few strangers in your time,’ I mutter.
    ‘Lou, I know this is a hard time for you, but don’t