Free Aphrodite's Hat by Salley Vickers Page B

don’t think she was ever unkind to Kitty.’
    Mrs Allen’s frosted pink lipstick folded into a line. ‘No. I’m sure. But that wasn’t … I don’t want to … but I wonder if there wasn’t some sort of …’
    â€˜What?’ Susannah asked, feeling rather frightened.
    â€˜I wouldn’t say “abuse”, because I don’t say that it was anything overt, but Kitty writes a lot about their cuddles. It seems she sometimes slept with, er, Nan.’
    That night Geoff said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. My brother and I used to get into my parents’ bed all the time. We often slept with them if we were ill – or had nightmares.’
    â€˜Geoff, we talked about that and we agreed. It was you as much as me.’ Susannah was the more indignant for surmising that with another woman her easygoing husband would have been likely to accede to other terms for his child’s sleeping arrangements.
    â€˜All I’m saying is that there is nothing sinister about Kitty’s sleeping in Nan’s bed. Until the Victorian period, everyone slept together: men, women and children. It was quite normal.’
    He might have added that it is only humankind among the mammals who think it natural, and preferable, to sleep apart from their young.
    Kitty looked anxious and then defiant when her mother explained that there was something she needed to ask.
    â€˜It’s nothing horrible, darling, I promise. It’s just about Nan.’
    Kitty had grown wary of that word ‘just’. It always seemed to bode so much more than implied. ‘What about Nan?’
    â€˜When you slept in her bed –’
    â€˜I didn’t.’
    â€˜Kitty, it is OK. We know you did. I only want to know what happened …’
    â€˜Nothing did.’
    â€˜Did Nan touch you?’
    â€˜â€™Course she did. She cuddled me. We snuggled down together.’
    â€˜What did “snuggling” mean?’
    Kitty looked at her mother in surprised scorn. ‘Don’t you know what “snuggling down” is?’
    Two days later Nan received a note:
    Dear Mrs Lethbridge,
    We are grateful for all you have done for Kitty but for various reasons we feel the time has come to end the relationship. Kitty will not be coming to stay with you again. We should be grateful if you would not go out of your way to try to see her.
    Your sincerely,
    Susannah and Geoff Giles
    At the end of the year, the Gileses moved house. Kitty needed a larger room, Susannah explained to Mrs Garrod over the road, when she met her in Tesco’s. For some time, when Kitty had a nightmare she would comfort herself by imagining that she was safe and warm in Nan’s large, soft, talc-scented bed. She knew better than to mention this to her mother. And after a longer while, because to do so was easier, Kitty forgot all about Nan.

THE GREEN BUS FROM ST IVES
    William had not planned to go to St Ives over the May bank holiday. But four nights earlier, out of the blue, his wife, Helena, had announced that she was going to Paris with her friend, Dotty Blaine, adding casually that it would be ‘all right about the dog and the cats’ as William would be there ‘to see to them’.
    I’ll be damned if I will, William had said to himself. As those who feel wronged will tend to, he searched about in his mind for something that would demonstrate his difference from his wife. He had never yet visited the Tate Gallery in St Ives and had been promising himself that pleasure for years. Helena didn’t share his enthusiasm for modern art.
    â€˜I’m afraid I shall not be here,’ he said, more belligerently than he felt, for the truth was he felt rather scared. ‘I’m going to St Ives.’
    If Helena, who was used to her husband’s mute acquiescence in her suddenly announced but often long-brooded plans, was surprised to hear of this proposal she didn’t allow it