Free Colouring In by Angela Huth Page B

morning, busy with taking Sylvie swimming and so on. Mr. Grant back from abroad, Mrs. G getting muffins out of the freezer and the sun coming in through the windows. I can see it all. Their house is always in my mind. It’s not a place I want to bother with my problems.
BERT
    Still accosted, I am, by an unusual restlessness. Perhaps in middle age one takes longer to re-adjust. It will all be better when I’ve decided what to do. Next week I’ll sit down and seriously consider the offers that are coming in. How do these companies suddenly know I’m on the market, back in London? All very odd.
    It occurs to me Carlotta, who assured me she’d be in touch immediately about her decorating plans, hasn’t rung. Tremendous relief, actually. I’m not up to her barrage of suggestions just yet. So I’ll carry on with the rackety old fridge and oven for a while: only ring her when things actually collapse.
    What I feel like is a peaceful evening with Isabel. Which reminds me, Dan is in Rome. I said I’d ring her. If I don’t do it now, Dan’ll be back. I’ll make my way to the Garrick for lunch, then go hunting for a car. It’d be fun to roll up to number 18 in a Lamborghini, see Isabel’s face. I know she thinks Dan’s taste in cars is fairly unadventurous. What would she think about mine? I’m prepared to be berated.
SYLVIE
    I don’t like it when Papa isn’t here on Saturday morning. He usually drives me to pick up Elli, then drops us at the pool. At breakfast this morning Mama said Bert had rung and was coming round this evening. Again? I said. I mean I like Bert, but I wanted a nice evening with Mama playing games and stuff. But she was extra kind – to make up for having to share her, perhaps. She let me have a fantastic new yummy ice-cream for lunch, and said Bert – why does she always call him Gil bert? – might be coming in some swanky new car, and if he did we’d all go for a ride in it. So? – I mean, that’d be cool. But no car would be as good as Papa’s BMW. Then she said, perhaps we should take our chance and go and get those new trainers (she didn’t even purse her mouth) you’ve been going on about. Cool, I said. Thanks. Whatever’s got into her? She walked about humming, and chopped stuff for salad into very small bits. Sometimes she’s so weird.

Chapter Four
ISABEL
    I heard an unusually melodious hooting of a horn outside. I looked out of the window. Parked outside the house was a great bird of a car, vast and silver. If it had raised invisible wings and risen into the air I wouldn’t have been surprised. It carried on with its cooing noise, like a plaintive dove – surely no warning to errant traffic. I laughed. There was a moment’s silence, then Gilbert got out of the car. From his puffed up gait and jaunty swagger I could see he was tremendously pleased with himself.
    He explained he had only just managed to get the beast in time – and, what’s more, he hadn’t paid for it. No: it had been lent to him for the weekend to try out. He’d already been to Windsor and back and then had had a very entertaining time trying to get to grips with the inbuilt satnav. ‘What made them trust you?’ I asked. Gilbert just shrugged, suggested it was his honest look … Oh, and he had left a deposit large enough to fill the boot with Chateau Mouton Rothschild 84 …
    He couldn’t wait for Sylvie and me to test it. The inside was a cave of bleached leather. Sylvie climbed into the back. Having been thoroughly snooty about the whole idea of this ride when I put it to her earlier, she was now clearly in some awe, but trying to hide her perfidious reaction. Her loyalty to Dan’s BMW is total.
    I swung into the front seat. Gilbert shut the door from the outside. It made that soft clunk that’s the nature of really expensive car doors, the re-assuring noise of leather slippers on stairs. Then we were off – Hyde Park, Constitution Hill, St. James’s Street, Regent Street and back down the