Free A Rural Affair by Catherine Alliott

Oh, yes, church.
    ‘Single mothers get priority with council flats, though,’ she told me. ‘You jump the queue.’
    I sighed. ‘Frankie …’
    ‘Anyway, he doesn’t fancy me. Mr Denis does – physics – but he’s properly weird; he fancies everyone. Or I suppose I could
     nick your new intended? Come along to choir practice.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    She got to her feet as Clemmie came back with her brush and a mirror from my dressing table, struggling under the weight.
    ‘Oh, salon stuff!’ Frankie relieved her of the mirror and hoisted it onto the table. ‘A French pleat, madam, or shall we cut
     it all short?’
    ‘All short!’ sang Clemmie, jumping up and down, ecstatic with excitement.
    Frankie grinned. ‘Nah, yer mum might notice that. Then again,’ she grimaced and shot me a look, ‘in her state she might not.
     Here, give me that.’ She took the brush from her. ‘We’re going to go for a pleat, right? And then we’ll give Archie a comb-over.’
    My son had yet to collect much hair, but what he had was long, wispy and very much around the edges. Archie beamed and offered
     her some more cracker, clenched and soggy in his fist. She took it and put it on her tongue, which was pierced.
    ‘D’you dare me?’
    Clemmie nodded. Frankie swallowed. The children roared with laughter, delighted.
    ‘Don’t underestimate those harpies, though,’ she went on as I turned to go out of the back door. ‘Once they put their heads
     together, you’re sunk. Trust me, I should know. Oh, and you might want to take your dressing gown off under your coat. They’ll
     need smelling salts if they see that.’ I glanced down to where two inches of pale blue towelling protruded from my navy reefer.
     ‘Then again, you might not. Personally I like the layered look. But our Jennie’s got ever so bourgeois recently. She’s not
     so into the Quentin Crisp philosophy.’
    I took her advice, removed the dressing gown, replaced my coat, and putting one foot in front of the other, went off down
     the road to choir practice. In a small corner of my mind I was dimly aware that Frankie had given me a searching look as I’d
     left and, for one crazy moment, I’d almost turned and shared with her. Almost come back in, shut the door and blurted out
     my troubles, just as she’d blurted hers. I hadn’t, though. Of course not. Because there was no one I could tell. Not even
     Jennie. Not because I’d be mortified – I would – but because once it was out, I’d have no control over it. Dan would know.
     Then someone in the pub would know. And my children, so damaged already, must never know. Never hear from someone at school.
     I clenched my fists fiercely in my coat pockets in resolve. It must be a closely guarded secret. My secret. No one must ever
     know that their father, my husband, hadn’t found me enough, emotionally. That he’d had another life with another woman. That
     she’d been to see me ten days ago, paid me a visit. That she’d been there at his funeral and I’d never known. Been in our
     lives and I’d never known. Filled a void in Phil’s life I hadn’t been able to. They must never know that their father had
     been unhappy, desperate. It was my shame and I must bear it alone. Tears fled down my cheeks, soaking my face as I walked
     on.

5
    Carefully wiping my face as I stood on the church step, I gave myself a moment; breathed in and out deeply. Then I pushed
     open the heavy door. The choir were already assembled in their stalls up by the altar, but then I was ten minutes late, having
     lingered to talk to Frankie. Most people I knew: friends and neighbours, who turned and smiled as I came in. But as I let
     the heavy oak door swing shut behind me, I wondered what on earth I was doing here. I hadn’t been in since Phil’s funeral
     and the familiar smell of cold stone, candle wax and damp, which I usually found rather comforting, seemed to ambush my senses
     as if a hood had been slipped