The Secrets Women Keep Read Free Page B

her pasta and salad, nausea having taken away her appetite. The others tossed around
suggestions about what they might do over the following week like juggling balls, all of them possibilities but no one catching them: days of rest, country walks, visits to Arezzo, Cortona, San
Gimignano, Siena or Lucca and its Festival of Lights. Eventually the talk turned where it always did: towards their families.
    Eve had already extolled the virtues and despaired of the vicissitudes of her own four children, Charlie, Tom, Luke and – at last, a girl – Millie. Charlie at least had a job,
whereas the twins, Tom and Luke, had sailed through school and university and emerged without a single idea of what they wanted to do in life. They depended on unpaid work experience, contacts they
hadn’t yet made and parental handouts. Millie was still at college doing a degree in media studies, whatever they were, and with as much clue about her future as her brothers had about
theirs. But she was having a good time, and that was what it was all about, wasn’t it?
    The cotton kaftan that Eve was wearing, bought for Daniel on a Moroccan holiday, was far from cool – in any sense. Eve fanned herself with a frantic hand. ‘What about Jess and Anna?
What are they up to?’
    ‘Anna should be here soon,’ answered Daniel, glancing at his watch. ‘When’s her flight land, darling?’
    ‘Six thirtyish, I think,’ said Rose, picking up a knife to cut a sliver of taleggio, then changing her mind. She couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘She should be here for
supper.’ Anna’s presence would provide another welcome distraction. Her elder daughter could be relied on to assume the focus of any gathering, although often for the wrong reasons. She
could be funny, and full of ideas, like her father, but opinionated, difficult and self-centred were qualities she could assume with equal brilliance.
    ‘What’s she up to now?’ Eve reached across the table for the wine bottle and poured herself another glass. They all pretended not to notice the pointed way in which Terry
cleared his throat.
    ‘The café closed down about eighteen months ago and she’s been on a horticultural course ever since. Living in some sort of commune. At thirty!’ Rose closed her eyes for
a second. Her headache was getting worse. ‘I’d so hoped she’d be settled down with a proper job by now.’
    ‘Charlie mentioned that he’d seen her.’ Eve always talked about her eldest son with a dash of reverence, as if surprised that he could possibly be theirs. ‘Said she was
cooking up some scheme.’ She raised her glass to her lips, narrowing her eyes as she sipped.
    Daniel groaned. ‘Now what? We’ve had the teaching, the stall, importing rugs, the café, tutoring . . .’ He counted them off on his fingers. ‘She’s got the
sticking power of a used stamp. How’s Charlie’s teaching going?’
    ‘Oh, no worries there,’ Terry assured him quickly. ‘He loves Gresham Hall and they love him. Not what I was expecting him to do at all – rather hoped he’d follow in
my footsteps – but it’s going well.’ His paternal pride was expressed in a narrow smile that transformed his rather nondescript features, creasing his eyes into slits.
    Rose understood exactly how proud her brother must be of his eldest son, her nephew. She wanted success for her own children too. There was at least some sort of security to be found there.
Though not always happiness, she reminded herself. Charlie had broken away from family expectation and pressure. Not for him the family hotel business, now run by Daniel, nor his father’s
sound accountancy profession. No, he wanted something of his own, and teaching seemed to be his thing. She had hoped once that Anna would go down that path too. After dropping out of her university
course, her elder daughter had embraced the teacher-training course that Rose had found for her with barely expressed gratitude. As soon as she’d