Read Every Good Girl for Free Online Page B

listened to Lucy’s laugh. Even with the indulgence of a mother she had to admit it wasn’t a pretty sound. From somewhere among her and Joe’s ancestral way-back, their younger child had inherited an irritating high-pitched bray that ended on a cackle. If there was, as now, just something small to be delighted about there might just be the cackle on its own. Once it had been a sort of party piece, this donkeying, egged on by any amazed audience to almost uncontrollable shrill hysteria which only ended with Lucy streaming-eyed and choking and threatening to throw up. Ninahad hoped she’d grow out of it. There was still time, but it was hard to fight habit.
    The audition was at a dingy rehearsal studio close to the Albert Hall. Nina thanked the patron saint of car salesmen for allowing them to persuade her that all she needed was the little Polo to replace the Passat she’d shared with Joe. In a couple of years when Emily went off to university, she’d probably be open to the suggestion that all she needed was a motorbike. It was quite an exhilarating thought, speed and power, leather, freedom. There she’d be, magnificently mid-menopausal, flying on her Harley Davidson and there Joe would be, changing his tiny son’s (son’s?) nappies and wheeling a slow buggy round the park, worrying about swings, dogs and bad men . . .
    â€˜Ready?’ she asked Lucy. Lucy’s school uniform lay in an untidy heap, thrown onto the back seat from the front. She’d changed, expertly managing not to expose her young body to bus passengers and van drivers, into jeans and a sweatshirt.
    â€˜I’ll just brush my hair,’ Lucy said, delving into the vast canvas bag that always went with them on these outings. ‘Do I look OK? Are you sure this is what Angela said they wanted?’ Her triangular little face, peering through the long hanks of pale hair that she was vigorously brushing, looked anxious. Nina felt sudden sympathy for her. Perhaps Joe was right, perhaps there was more of an element of pushing Luce into this than Nina was prepared to admit.
    â€˜â€œClean casual,”’ Nina reassured her. That’s exactly what Angela said.
But
– you don’t have to do this, you know, we could just go home. We could have a pizza, go to a film if you want.’
    Lucy leapt out of the car, throwing the hairbrush onto the seat and slamming the door. ‘No! No I want todo this!’ she yelled through Nina’s window. ‘I
like
it. I like everyone looking at gorgeous lovely
me
!’ Nina climbed out of the car and fed the meter while Lucy fidgeted and scuffed at the pavement. ‘We can have a pizza later, if you like,’ Lucy said, sounding, Nina thought, as if she was the grown-up calming a truculent child. Everything felt upside down.
    Monica Dyson’s diary hung from a shabby old orange silk bell-rope next to the phone. She picked it up and flicked through the pages, squinting and holding the book at arm’s length. Just as she did every time, she then sighed deeply and put on the reading glasses that hung round her neck. It always felt so like giving in to despicable weakness. She peered over the top of them at the book and then turned to Graham who was halfway down the stairs, up and ready for the night shift, smelling of shaving foam and cheap deodorant.
    Monica sniffed and wrinkled her nose. ‘You’ll make them nauseous,’ she complained. ‘Those poor patients of yours – the pong of hospitals is bad enough without you adding to their woes.’
    Graham sat on the bottom step to put his shoes on, smiling gently and ignoring the complaints. He heard them every day: that one, or the one about the colour of his socks (‘Purple? With brown shoes?’) or the way he’d parted his hair (‘Are you sure about the left? I always thought the left was for men who
bat for the other side
’).
    â€˜They don’t mind what