Read Something to Hide for Free Online

instance.
    The thing is, I’m lonely. Howlingly, achingly lonely. I can’t phone my children because, for them, it’s either the middle of the night or six in the morning. Besides, they have their own lives and I don’t want to sound needy. Of course I have friends but they’ll be at work.
I
should be at work. I’m a picture researcher and should be up in my study by now. It appears to be eleven o’clock, however, and I’m still in my dressing-gown. Hammerings come from the basement where at last a couple of builders are finishing off what Alan started. Did I tell you, by the way, that he slapped me about? On three occasions he hit me when he was drunk. Once is too many; only a true neurotic would hang about for more.
    Today I’m feeling particularly depressed. During the past few months I’ve been meeting men on the internet, something I’ve been doing off and on for years. After several dismal failures I met somebody I rather liked. His name was Barry and I warmed to him when he asked me about my life – virtually unheard-of, in these situations. Plus he hated golf. And he had a full head of hair. These might seem minor attributes but from them – doggedly, stupidly, like a naive, ageing teenager – I started spinning the man of my dreams. I even imagined our future together, isn’t that pathetic? He lived in Billingshurst – direct trains to Victoria – and I live in Pimlico, a few streets from the station. We could live partly in London and partly in what I imagined was his picturesque dwelling deep in the Sussex countryside where we could spend our days gardening and then, with a sigh, sink into our armchairs with a glass of whisky and I could make him laugh by telling him about Muslim terrorists blowing themselves up by mistake.
    Then, one day, he stopped replying to my emails, and within a week his profile was back on the website.
    And to make things worse, just when I’m feeling at my lowest, my old friend Bev sends one of her round-robins.
    Bev has one of the world’s happiest marriages, you see, and likes to share this with the large circle of friends and acquaintances to whom she sends her excruciatingly smug blogs. As if we’re fucking interested. She’s out in West Africa with her adorable husband Jeremy, who works for some big pharmaceutical company. He’s a litigation lawyer and I suspect he does something murky, like fighting cases brought by poor people who’ve been used as guinea pigs for new drugs. In fact I seem to remember something about some slimming pill, a couple of years ago. There’s a touch of the con man about Jeremy, though I do have to admit he’s fun.
    Bev certainly thinks so.
He’s so funny I’m laughing all day. He’s my lover and my best friend
doesn’t that make you puke?
He also has a wonderful rapport with the local people and is even learning their language – good on you, Jem!
According to Bev their life together is one long adventure, travelling round the world and living in various exotic climes.
Being such vagabonds has brought us even closer
.
    There’s an etiquette to happiness. Shut up. It’s like haemorrhoids – you wouldn’t talk about
them,
would you? Those upon whom the gods smile bear a certain responsibility not to make the rest of us feel even more wretched, our hearts shrivelled to walnuts.
    Now I accept that I’m not the easiest person to live with. My relationship with my children has been somewhat rocky – no doubt a factor in their present whereabouts. I’ve had periods of severe depression. I’ve been told by my therapist that I have both trust and abandonment issues – duh, as if normal people
enjoy
being dumped and betrayed.
    But I’ve also made some disastrous choices. I married young – in those days people did. I used to take loads of drugs and in the early years my boyfriends tended to be sweet and