Free Creeping Ivy by Natasha Cooper Page A

I’d say Robert’s probably as good as they come. We still like doing the same things, and he makes me laugh,’ Antonia’s lips parted in a smile that was at least half a grimace. And he never yearns at me like Ben always did. That used to make me feel sick.’
    ‘Yes, I know. I could see that you hated it.’
    ‘Wouldn’t you?’ Antonia demanded sharply.
    ‘Probably,’ Trish said, hoping that her voice was as calmly affectionate as it ought to be to excuse what she was going to say. ‘But perhaps he wouldn’t have yearned so much if he’d had more confidence in what you felt about him. He always did need a lot of bolstering, didn’t he, poor Ben? And you were a touch niggardly in handing that out.’
    Antonia smiled, some of the familiar queenliness returning to her posture and her eyes. ‘You were pretty keen on him yourself, weren’t you? I used to wonder at one stage if you might be trying to cut me out.’
    ‘You didn’t, did you? When?’
    ‘Oh, ages ago,’ Antonia said vaguely.
    ‘You must’ve been mad. I was always fond of him, of course I was, but in a cousinly kind of way,’ said Trish, before adding more truthfully: ‘He was yours from the beginning and you know what I think about people who break up other people’s marriages.’
    ‘I ought to, you’ve told me often enough. Do you ever see your father these days?’
    ‘No,’ Trish would have talked happily about almost anything to keep Antonia from tormenting herself with pictures of what might be happening to Charlotte, but she still found it hard to discuss her father with anyone.
    He had disappeared with brutal suddenness when Trish was eight. Looking back, she was amazed how well her mother had managed, refusing to panic and finding both a job and a cottage she could afford to rent on her meagre salary within a month. She had had no financial help from her husband until she eventually forced him into court five years after his desertion, but even so she had managed to give Trish nearly everything her schoolmates had. It must have been extraordinarily hard for her, and yet she had never once criticised him in Trish’s hearing. In retrospect that seemed positively saintly.
    In fact, it could have been a bit too saintly. There had been times when Trish felt that a little criticism might have helped. Her father had never bothered to get in touch with her. She’d had no letters from him, no Christmas or birthday presents, no congratulations on any of her exam successes, no contact at all until she had appeared in the papers as a rising young barrister, and by then it was far too late. She was too angry to let him anywhere near her, and she was damned if he was going to take the credit for any success she might have achieved. Her mother had a right to that; but no one else.
    ‘Sorry,’ said Antonia, looking curiously at her. ‘I didn’t realise it was such a sore subject.’
    Trish shrugged. ‘Just one I find difficult to talk about. Tell me about Robert instead.’
    ‘He didn’t break up my marriage to Ben, so you can stop looking so disapproving. It was that American bitch of Ben’s who wrecked it, as you very well know. I didn’t meet Robert until later.’
    ‘Yes, I do know,’ said Trish, keeping her thoughts about Antonia’s many affairs to herself.
    ‘And life is much easier with him than it ever was with Ben.’
    ‘Is it? Good. In what sort of ways?’
    ‘Oh, lots,’ said Antonia with a peculiar smile. ‘If I’m honest …’ She paused and then a moment later nodded as though either she or Trish had said something. ‘Yes, I think a lot of it has got to do with the way Robert loathes all the things Ben always thought were so wonderful.’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘Oh, come on, Trish. You must remember how Ben used to bang on about the wonders of family life. He was forever fantasising about clean nappies drying on one of those old nursery fireguards with the flames flickering behind them and a clutch of dewy naked