Free The Mill House by Susan Lewis

so dreaded. The last time I broached the subject she told me my father was dead,' she said flatly. 'I knew she was lying, which was borne out when Josh asked her where the grave was so we could visit. She wouldn't discuss it again after that.'
    Pauline was watching Sylvia as she spoke quietly into the phone, it seems pretty clear to me,' she said, turning back, 'that someone else was involved when he left. It would explain your mother's bitterness. Do you suppose it might have been a man, rather than a woman?'
    'I've considered that and it's certainly possible, since homosexuality is something my mother would find utterly abhorrent and deviant, and totally impossible to mention by name, never mind discuss in detail.'
    'Would it give you a problem if he were gay?'
    'Of course not, as long as he was happy. It doesn't chime with my mother's delightful incest charge though, does it, or the hints she dropped a few times about him being in prison.'
    Pauline's eyes widened. 'I don't think you've ever mentioned that before. What was he supposed to be in there for?'
    Julia drew quote marks as she said, '"An unmentionable offence" - which could suggest some kind of lewd act if you want to go that route, but that would be playing her game, which is something I absolutely refuse to do.'
    The sound of Sylvia laughing made them glance inside. 'I have guests,' Sylvia was saying reprovingly, 'so this isn't a good time.' She glanced up and gave them a wink. 'No, I'm not free later. I'll
    call you when I am.' She listened, smiled again and said, I should be at the River Cafe around nine, come and buy me a Martini.'
    After putting the phone down, she fetched a bottle of Pellegrino from the fridge and came back to join them. 'So where were we?' she said, sinking gracefully back into her chair.
    'Still talking far too much about me,' Julia replied. 'So tell us who that was on the phone, and who you're expecting later. A new love?'
    Sylvia looked surprised. 'Did I say I was expecting someone?'
    'You said you're not free, so I assumed ...'
    'Oh. No, I'm seeing my dealer - art, not drugs.' She kept her eyes on the sparkling water as she poured, then raised them to Julia and smiled. 'You know, I've been intrigued about your father for years,' she confessed, 'so I think it's high time we made it our business to find out exactly why he took off like that.'
    'Think of it this way,' Pauline added, 'it could turn out to be the source for your first best-seller.'
    Though Julia's expression remained light her insides sank in the darkness of the words, for it was starting to seem as though her whole life was about rejection - her father, her mother, her books, and, though she dreaded even to think it, Josh too. But it was going to happen, she could sense it as surely as the sun's burning rays on her skin. It was just a question of when, and how, and whether, when it happened, she could manage to survive it.
     
    Chapter Three
     
    Josh's expression was taut and pale as he got up from his desk and carried the phone over to the large bay window that overlooked Queen's Gate Gardens. Right now the view was blurred by a sudden downpour of rain, but his attention was far from the leafy enclave in the middle of the square, it was wholly focused on the appalling way he was handling the call he was on.
    Josh, I want to help,' Harry Greenstock, a good friend - and Julia's old boss at McKenzies - was telling him, 'but you know I can't overrule one of my editors like that.'
    The truth was Harry could reverse an editorial decision, and they both knew it. However, he clearly wasn't going to, and Josh could hardly claim to be surprised. Nevertheless he wasn't ready to give up yet. 'But I think Fiona's the wrong editor for it,' he protested, deeply thankful that Julia couldn't hear any of this, for ballistic wouldn't even begin to describe her reaction. 'Let me send it to Lizzie Bloom, or Carson Maclure.'
    'You chose Fiona because you know she's the best,' Greenstock replied