A Hidden Life Read Free

occasion. Her matching hat was wide-brimmed and covered in black feathers. It would have been ridiculous on anyone else, but Ellie, with her wide red mouth and dark eyes, looked terrific. One of Constance’s memorable pronouncements was made about her first daughter-in-law:
She’s a flamingo who wandered into an aviary full of nothing more exciting than sparrows and thrushes.
    Dear old Gran! Always ready with a neat belittling remark. And guess who the thrushes and sparrows were! The rest of the family, of course. Lou was the only person who’d ever called Constance Gran and she did it because she knew how much it irritated the old woman. The war between us, she thought, had been going on for so long. Am I sorry it’s over? I suppose not, not really. But while Constance was alive, Lou had never shrunk from a fight, and she’d never changed her views, even though her father was obviously deeply unhappy that his darling daughter didn’t get on with his mother.
    The last time I saw Constance, Lou thought, I really let her have it, but she’d brought it on herself. It wasn’t anything unusual. Lou had been asked down to Milthorpe to show Poppy off to her greatgrandmother, and she’d been pleased to oblige. She’d thought the baby would offer some protection from Constance’s sharp tongue but not a bit of it.
I’d have thought that for the sake of the child, you’d have made peace with her father … so important for a child to have a father … grow up wild without one, you know … Any possibility of a reconciliation? You’re very young, you know … How old are you? Only twenty-three? A mere infant yourself. You should grow up and realize that life can’t be a bed ofroses all the time, dear …
    And I answered quite politely at first, too, Lou remembered. Tried to explain what it was like to live with being on guard all the time, every minute. What it was like to be always waiting for the next blow to fall, the next overwhelming fury that came out of nowhere and made straight for her. How she’d found she couldn’t stay with him once she discovered she was pregnant. He was a man who didn’t see anything wrong with using his fists when he felt like it, and no child of hers was going to be exposed to someone like that. But how hard it had been to leave him for ever, in spite of the way he behaved. How awful it was to live somewhere that was too small and where she also had to try and do her work. How sad it was to be alone, but frightened of meeting anyone new. How crippling it was to be anxious and panic-stricken at the very thought of someone kissing you. Above all, how daunting it was to be responsible for a vulnerable creature she barely understood. She’d tried to convey what her life was like, and then back Constance had come with
are you sure you hadn’t done anything to provoke him, dear? Some men are very jealous at the thought of a child and we have to understand that, don’t we?
    She’d lost it altogether at that point. Sobbed, yelled at Constance, called her names, told her she had as much understanding of anything as a shrivelled old onion and stormed out, banging the door behind her and shouting that Constance was wicked and had no feelings that a proper grandmother would have. She didn’t regret making a scene. She should have told her grandmother years and years ago that she was on to her, that she realized Constance didn’t love her; quite the reverse. Constance would have denied it, of course. She was good at lying and she’d have trotted out the blood-is-thicker-than-water clichés. But it was true. Constance hated Grandad and me being so close. She knew there was stuff we talked about that he wouldn’t have discussed with anyone else, least of all with her. She was just plain jealous.
    A man Lou didn’t recognize came into the room, and Dad coughed to stop everyone talking.