True Colours Read Free Page B

was a very grown up thing and I should be proud of the responsibility they were trusting me with. Sometimes I’d be allowed to invite Katie and Fran for tea on Sundays. We’d always play in my bedroom afterwards because Mum and Dad would be busy catching up on their paperwork in the study downstairs and mustn’t be disturbed. The girls had always been impressed by my pretty dresses and expensive toys, and more especially by the fact that I had my very own telly. I never drew their attention to the fact that I’d realized long ago that these things were only really meantto keep me out of the way. I’d much rather have had parents who found time to play and give something of themselves to me. I let Fran and Katie envy me because even at a young age I’d latched on to the fact that envy was preferable to pity and that material things were better than nothing.
    College was a revelation. For once I felt like a real person, not just an inconvenience to be tolerated. I guessed that Mum and Dad were relieved to see the back of me, even though they put on a show, insisting that they would miss me. Most of the students’ parents drove them to college at the beginning of that first term, seeing them settled in before driving home. Mum took an hour off to come to the station with me, pressing a cheque for a hundred pounds into my hand as I boarded the train. ‘For emergencies – or treats,’ she said with a slightly apologetic smile. As the train drew out I watched her walk across the platform, slim and elegant in her high heels and designer suit. As she returned my wave I could almost hear her sigh of relief.
    I met Rex almost at once. He was a mature student, seven years older than me. He’d decided to study art after serving a plumbing apprenticeship. He told me that his working class parents had always been hard up and he hadn’t had the chance to go to university, but his grandmother had died and left him a legacy which had enabled him to break free and do what he’d always wanted to do. He had plans to become an illustrator and he certainly had talent. I loved the way he took charge, making decisions for me, planning surprise outings for us, concerts and exhibitions to go to, arranging things to do that I’d never have thought of myself. Some girls might have resented having decisions made for them, but I couldn’t believe that someone actually thought me important enough to spend time with, saw me as a worthwhile person and not an irritating inconvenience. I suppose it was inevitable that I’d fall in love with him.
    We were married in our last year at college. Mum and Dad put up no objections, even paying for our honeymoon in Italy. They seemed to approve of Rex but I suspected that they’d have approved of Quasimodo if he’d offered to take me off their hands.
    At the end of my course I went on to study for a teaching diploma while Rex began the tortuous task of getting a foot in thedoor as an illustrator. We lived in a tiny bedsit and worked in bars and clubs in the evenings to keep the wolf from the door, but we were happy – perhaps happier than we’d ever been, before or since. What a pity we never realized it at the time.

    On that spring afternoon, when we first viewed Greenings, Rex had been appalled at the state of it. ‘It’s even worse than I thought,’ he said. ‘It wants knocking down if you ask me.’
    I glanced hopefully at the estate agent. ‘It’s a very fine example of eighteenth century architecture,’ he said, encouraged by my enthusiasm. ‘And, all things considered, it’s in quite good condition.’
    Rex looked at him, one cynical eyebrow raised. ‘Really? I dread to think what you’d consider
bad
condition.’
    I was scarcely listening. The hallway was already working its magic on me with its enchanting arched ceiling and elegant curving staircase. There were three reception rooms on the ground floor and a well proportioned drawing room that looked out on what had once been a