Read Skeletons for Free Online Page B

violins,’ Amelia said.
    Charles sidled up behind her and wrapped his arms round her, squeezing tight. ‘You know you love me, really.’
    ‘Maybe,’ Amelia said, coquettishly.
    Charles squeezed more tightly.
    ‘OK, yes, I do, now get off me.’ She batted him away with a tea towel.
    ‘See …’ Charles smiled a victorious smile at Jen as he went to leave the kitchen again with the two clean glasses – Sundays were always a relay of clean and dirty glasses for Charles. It never seemed to occur to him that he could
just refill the ones each of them had already used. ‘I’m irresistible.’
    The front door banged, announcing the arrival of
Poppy and Maisie, closely followed by a heavily first-time pregnant Jessie, and Martin. Coats were dumped on the backs of chairs, more gin and tonics
appeared. Jessie and Martin joined Jason and Charles in the living room while Poppy slumped at the kitchen table. Amelia had set paints and paper out for Maisie, and she gravitated towards them like an addict to a rock of crack.
    ‘She’s definitely a Masterson,’ Amelia said approvingly.
    Jessie heaved herself into the room. On her still skinny frame her seven-month baby bump made her look like she was attempting to smuggle a spacehopper through customs. She held on to her lower back and moaned theatrically.
    ‘They’re all discussing cars in there. It’s like an episode of bloody
Top Gear
.’
    ‘Aaah, is no one talking about you?’ Poppy smiled a sarcastic smile.
    Jen stifled a laugh. Jessie-baiting was one of Poppy’s favourite pastimes. It was almost too easy.
    ‘Mum …’ Jessie whined. Exactly, Jen imagined, as she would have when she and Poppy were ten and thirteen.
    Amelia put a glass of apple juice down in front of her. ‘She’s only teasing.’
    Jen stepped in. ‘How are you feeling, Jess? She kicking much yet?’
    Jessie and Martin had opted not to find out the sex of their baby, but the rest of the family was just assuming it would be a girl. The Mastersons specialized in having girls. Jason, they all agreed, had been an anomaly. The only boy of his, or
the next, generation among the whole extended clan.
    Jessie turned to Jen, happy that she was the main topic
again. ‘Like crazy. I think she – or he, obviously – is going to be a dancer. I’ve been doing this pregnancy yoga and I swear the baby
tries to join in –’
    ‘She’s probably just attention seeking. I wonder who she takes after?’ Poppy chipped in.
    ‘I’m not even listening to you.’ Jessie held up her hand. ‘It’s like you don’t exist.’
    If she ignored the way they had all aged, Jen could have believed she was back in the early 1990s. The arguments were the same, the decor had barely changed – except for a few coats of the same colour paint, which had all then been completely
recovered with the same old artwork. Even Jason’s misshapen pot still held pens in the middle of the table. She wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
    ‘What else can I do?’ she said, putting her arms round her mother-in-law from behind as she stood at the stove.
    ‘Nothing.’ Amelia lifted up one of Jen’s hands, and kissed it. ‘Sit down and enjoy yourself.’
    At lunch Charles liked to rehash old family in-jokes. When he took his first mouthful of lamb, he clutched his throat dramatically, like he always did, and pretended to keel over in a death throe.
    ‘Charles, stop it,’ Amelia said, smiling.
    Charles, as always, sat up with a triumphant look on his face. ‘Just kidding. It’s delicious.’
    He took another bite. Did it again. Maisie squealed hysterically, exactly as Simone and Emily used to when they were little. The more times he did it, the funnier she thought it was.
    Then the reminiscences started. Just as in all families, the old well-worn anecdotes would be aired again and again, with everyone chipping in to add their favourite parts. Typically Amelia or Charles
would run through the time Jason got his thumb stuck in a