Free A Bouquet of Barbed Wire by Andrea Newman

soignée Miss Francis out of papier maché and genius. Manson flopped in his chair.
    ‘All right, Monica, she’s the winner. Especially as there aren’t any other contestants.’
    Monica looked crest-fallen. ‘You didn’t like her.’
    ‘Yes, of course I did. How could I dislike her? I just can’t believe that out of the whole of London you could only find one girl worthy of interview, even at your exacting standards.’
    Monica’s expression grew more and more perturbed. ‘We had about thirty-one applicants,’ she said, ‘but I weeded them out.’
    ‘Evidently. That’s not weeding, that’s more like savagepruning.’ He was surprised to find himself with an urge to needle Monica. Unusual.
    ‘I’m sorry if I did the wrong thing. I was only trying to save you trouble as you’re so busy.’ Her shut-down face. He had offended her.
    ‘I know and I appreciate it. Of course you didn’t do the wrong thing.’ Climb down; make it all right. He didn’t want to conduct dozens of interviews, anyway, and they would all be the same if Monica vetted them first, all perfectly charming and efficient. He would not be able to tell one from the other, let alone
choose
, so what was the point? But still something in him resented that he had not been given at least an illusion of choice.
    Monica said doubtfully, ‘Of course you could still interview them all if you want to. Although there were only five or at the most seven who were even worth considering. This kind of job attracts a lot of the wrong types.’
    Did he want to interview seven little girls? Of course he didn’t. He would probably end up with Sarah Francis, anyway. And Monica was leaving in a fortnight, come what may. He said, ‘Write and tell her she’s got the job.’

11
    C ASSIE SAID hesitantly, ‘Do you think all fathers feel so—possessive about their daughters?’ She watched Marjorie position the cigarette in its holder, light it, and inhale while considering her answer. I shouldn’t be talking to her at all, she thought, only there is no one else to talk to, and I’m tired of thinking, and I’ve had too much wine.
    ‘I dunno,’ Marjorie said, exhaling. ‘I suppose it’s quite common. I’ll ask Alec if you like. I’m not sure how he feels about Judy.’
    ‘Oh no, no,’ said Cassie automatically, now feeling disloyal; then, reflecting that Marjorie would almost certainly discuss it with him, anyway, in the curious non-privacy of marriage, ‘Oh well, all right. It might be a good idea.’ It was at times like these that she should have either more friends or none at all, close to hand; it hardly mattered which. But to be stuck with Marjorie alone, bless her, was absurd.
    She had lost the habit of girl-friends and confidence; confessions were hard to arrive at and stuck in her throat. Friendships, intense at Cambridge, during the war, had vanished, surprisingly, with marriage and children. She had expected to keep up with her friends but she had not. The hectic years in London meeting mostly new people and entertaining business contacts for Manson, then the move to the country when Prue was born. It had all, to her surprise, been fully absorbing, and in what time she had, she read books, propping them against the high chair while she fed Prue,beside the bath when she washed her, above the cooker while she cooked. She read books, after motherhood, as if she had never seen a book in her life before, voraciously, one after the other and often two or three at once, as if she had never obtained two degrees (to Manson’s feigned chagrin at having only one) which she still thought vaguely she might use one day. It was as if Prue’s birth released a kind of intellectual hunger that she had only glimpsed before. But with the twins it waned: gone into the sheer physical and nervous strain of coping with two energetic small boys and Prue as a moody adolescent. It had not returned—instead she found herself making jam and gardening, occupations she