Read The Yorkshire Pudding Club for Free Online

noticed what she had in her hand. ‘And what’s that thing?’ he said, as if she were holding a rotting fish.
    ‘My birthday present.’
    ‘It’s cheap and tacky-looking,’ he sneered. ‘I suppose Elizabeth bought it.’
    ‘As a matter of fact she did, yes.’ He never missed an opportunity to get a dig in at Elizabeth, although they had seemed to get on in the early days. He said it was because he had not realized she was such a tart back then.
    When she took it into the dining room, he followed at her heels.
    ‘You surely aren’t thinking of putting it in here, are you?’
    ‘Yes, of course I am,’ and she set it down on the table. ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because, as I said, it’s cheap and tacky, that’s why not . If you haven’t any vases, I’ll go out and get you one tomorrow.’
    ‘It’s a nice vase!’
    ‘It’s disgusting,’ Simon said, his nose screwed up as if the vase affronted his sense of smell as well as sight.
    ‘It’s only a vase. Please don’t get so worked up about it!’
    ‘I’m not getting worked up, Helen,’ said Simon with increased annoyance. ‘I just can’t see the point in spending a fortune on a room and then making the centrepiece something like that. The curtains alone in this room cost me eighteen hundred pounds, for Christ’s sake!’
    ‘You’re being ridiculous.’
    He leaned against the stanchion of the door and started staring at her.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. He did not answer, just continued to stare at her, in a silence that seemed to chill the room.
    ‘Simon? What are you staring at? Stop it, will you.’
    ‘I know why you’re nervous. You told them, didn’t you, Helen?’
    ‘Told who what?’
    ‘Oh, don’t play the village idiot, you know what I mean.’
    ‘No, I did not!’ Her voice was convincingly strong but her cheeks betrayed her by flushing red. She fiddled with the flowers. Simon walked around the table, rested his hands on it so he could lean over it and look squarely into her face.
    ‘Why did you tell them when I expressly told you not to?’
    ‘I didn’t, Simon,’ she said in a voice that was shaky and full of gathering tears now. ‘What is this? What have I done wrong now?’
    He shook his head slowly from side to side, despairing of her. ‘You know what. You told them you were pregnant,’ he said quietly.
    ‘No, I—’
    He slammed his hands down on the table. ‘Stop lying!’ and his shout brought the silence it demanded. He was staring at her in a way that would burn her eyes if she were to look back at his. Her body language screamed the weakness of doomed prey: her shoulders were slumped, her head bowed and she could not trade eye-contact.
    He stood back and raked his fingers through his fair wavy hair. Very quietly now, but icily he continued, ‘I really don’t believe you sometimes. I asked you not to tell anyone. You agreed– swore that you wouldn’t–and then you just go right ahead and ignore me.’ His eyes were opened so wide they were more white than blue. She hated it when that happened; he looked like some mad twin of himself.
    ‘You just can’t keep that mouth of yours shut, can you? Pleasing them is just so much more importantthan pleasing me, isn’t it? Never mind about me, I’m of no importance!’
    ‘Please, I—’
    ‘Oh Helen, just…just fuck off. I don’t know why I bother trying to look out for you when all you do is throw it back in my face!’ He turned away from her; she stretched over and touched his arm but he shook her off.
    Where had all this come from? thought Helen, who ten minutes ago had been laughing with her friends–celebrating a birthday and sharing the most wonderful news she would ever have to tell. She just wanted whatever this was to be over, so she confessed.
    ‘Simon, okay, I’ll come clean. I didn’t tell them, they guessed.’
    There was a terrible heavy silence and then he laughed wearily.
    ‘Oh Helen! You are only seven weeks’ pregnant–how on earth