Free You Don't Have to be Good by Sabrina Broadbent Page A

sure that happened, well, Adrian would probably be all right other than being bored to death, but Laura . . . they’d never forgive themselves if Laura ended up pushing paperclips in an office for the rest of her life.
    Katharine turned the car into the shade-dappled road, where children played on bicycles and glossy dogs trotted smiling on leads. The gravel crunched as she swung into the driveway of a caramel-bricked, double-fronted house and brought the car to a halt. Bea thought, Why would anyone want to leave all this? Then she thought, What’s she brought me home with her for? She looked at Katharine. Katharine looked at Bea.
    ‘Damn,’ said Katharine. ‘Damn and damn it.’
    ‘Don’t worry.’ Bea undid her seatbelt and tried to open the door. It didn’t matter, and anyway, she was pleased to put some space between herself and Frank. Perhaps she would go to the cinema after all.
    ‘I wasn’t thinking,’ said Katharine.
    ‘Let me out, I can walk.’
    ‘No, you can’t possibly.’
    ‘I’d like to, really,’ said Bea and started to laugh.
    She bent down to untangle the strap of her laptop case, which had twined itself round one foot. She opened it, stuffed the papers from one of the two carrier bags in and forced the zip shut. Heat consumed her head and she thought that if she had to continue laughing one moment longer her skull would split.
    Katharine saw her sister beside her, the house in front of them, thought of the champagne chilling in the fridge, the lists to be made and phone calls to be planned. It was going to be such a busy evening and the traffic had seemed heavier then ever, really, Cambridge was worse than London when it came to rush hour. Her throat felt tight and a band of tension had begun to grip her forehead. If she got a migraine now, it would be a disaster. It would take an age to drive Bea home but Richard would disapprove if she let her walk. Too bad. She undid her seatbelt. Here she was, just like work, trapped as usual in an interminable loop where doing the right thing proved nigh on impossible. And here was Bea laughing and rummaging around with her coat and things like some old bag lady. Well, they were here now. The children were tired and there were things to do. She pressed at her forehead with her hand to keep the pain at bay, then rolled her head and closed her eyes with a sigh. It was just too bad, she thought with a guilty sense of release as she swallowed and allowed selfishness to throttle decency.
    Bea had stopped laughing and was looking at her.
    ‘What, walk ?’ said Katharine.
    ‘Honestly, it’s fine.’ Bea struggled with the door handle. They were locked in. Safety feature. Automatic.
    ‘What, all the way?’ Katharine stared at the wiring on the front of the house. She must remember to notify the utilities of their move date.
    ‘Well, yes.’
    ‘Round the ring road?’ Claudia could do all the phone calls though. Thank God for Richard’s PA. It was invaluable having one of those. Like a wife.
    ‘No, along the river.’
    Katharine looked at her watch. Her mobile began to ring. The ringing increased in volume. Bea longed for her own phone, which she had lost. It had Adrian’s voice as the ringtone, Adrian’s voice saying, ‘Ans-wer the phone. Ans-wer the phone !’ in a rising tone of barely controlled hysteria. That hadn’t gone down terribly well at work during her one-to-one Targets and Objectives meeting with the head of Human Resources a few weeks ago. Katharine’s phone continued to ring.
    ‘I feel so bad about messing up your last afternoon with the children, Bea . . .’ She gestured at Laura on the back seat who had earphones in and her eyes closed. ‘But everything is such a bloody rush suddenly.’ She released the central locking and Bea opened her door.
    ‘Really, it’s all right.’ Bea climbed down on to the gravel. Christ, she hadn’t even got them a present. Tomorrow. She would nip into town at lunchtime and send it round