Bold Counsel (The Trials of Sarah Newby) Read Free

something difficult and challenging and worth doing well. Yes, I need someone like that.’
    ‘And I don’t do those things?’
    ‘You know perfectly well you don’t. Look at this, for example!’ He got up, scooped the curry into the bin, and dumped the plate in the sink. ‘Why do we eat this crap? Why don’t we have something decent for a change?’
    ‘You could go to Tesco if you want. They’re open all night. Get something different.’
    ‘ I could go to Tesco! Not you?’
    ‘I’ve got work to do. Anyway, I’m happy with this.’ She indicated her food with her fork. ‘Bob, what do you mean, someone better? ’
    She stared at him coolly, fear trickling down her spine. Fear, and a sort of misery she had hoped she’d never feel again. She’d felt it last year when Bob had taken up with his secretary, an ambitious young woman half his age who’d led him on for months before dumping him for someone younger. Sarah’s misery and humiliation had felt like a disease, a sort of rust inside her, as though her energy and confidence were being corroded from within. Sometimes she had felt like collapsing in despair, sometimes like exploding with anger.
    ‘Bob, are you having an affair?’
    The pause before he spoke was an answer in itself. He strode to the window, then turned back to face her.
    ‘It’s not an affair exactly. That sounds so cheap ...’
    ‘So you are! ’
    ‘It’s more than that, Sarah. Let me explain...’
    ‘Explain? I don’t want your explanations, Bob! You’re cheating on me - again! That’s it, isn’t it? All this crap about meals and home cooking and having a little wife to darn your socks and listen to your troubles - you’re having an affair! Who is it this time? Another school secretary?’
    ‘We haven’t had sex yet, exactly, so it’s not really an affair. It’s ... different.’
    ‘Don’t patronise me, Bob Newby. Who is it this time?’
    The pain she felt was sudden and intense. Her fury did something to her chest that made it hard to breathe. She could cope with that, she knew, she always did. But the pain was a wound that had struck deep. It would never go away. It would be there for ever.
    ‘She ... was a supply teacher at my school. She has a couple of young kids. Their father left her. I ... she’s had a tough time. She needs my support.’
    ‘Her name, Bob.’
    ‘Sonya. She knows I’m talking to you, I promised her I would. Look, the point is, Sarah, I’m sorry, I haven’t started this very well, but I’ve had this on my mind for days, weeks even. I mean ...’
    ‘How long has this been going on?’
    ‘Since ... the start of this term, more or less. I mean, we’ve known each other for longer, but ...’
    ‘So when we took Emily down to Cambridge, you were thinking about her , were you? This - what’s her name? - Sonya. That’s who you rang from the restaurant.’
    ‘Yes, maybe, but - look, Sarah, the point is, I’m being honest with you, trying to face facts. And the really important fact is that we’ve changed, you and I. It started with Simon’s case and it hasn’t got better since. You know it as well as I do. We’re not the same people we once were.’
    ‘Nobody is, Bob. People change, they get older. They don’t all go off and have affairs, for Christ’s sake! With secretaries and supply teachers!’
    ‘It’s not like you to be a snob, Sarah. Just because Sonya’s a single parent. After all ...’ He didn’t need to remind Sarah of what she’d been like when they first met. A sixteen year old girl weeping on her desk in his evening class because her mother had insisted she put up her baby for adoption. A baby whose teenage father had left after nearly breaking her arm and giving her a black eye. A school dropout with no future, whose parents despised her. Sarah’s next step, had the lanky, idealistic young teacher not fallen in love with her, might have been to snatch her baby from the clutches of the Social Services and the adoption