Free Narrow Minds by Marie Browne Page B

computer, it really wouldn’t do to give the family time to formulate a defence, now would it?
    Smiling and happier than I had been in months, I climbed the stairs back to my nice warm Geoff-filled bed. Now I was really looking forward to Philip’s wedding, I hoped it would be a weekend that would be a point of change for us all.
    At the beginning of May, spring didn’t really seem to have made much of an inroad into the winter cold at all and it was on another cold and windy day that I found myself outside Sainsbury’s in Durham waiting for Charlie. Sam had been picked up from school by Mickey and had gone to play at Aaron’s house. I had some shopping to do and as Sainsbury’s was just down the road from Charlie’s school I arranged to meet her there at three thirty, she was late, as usual.
    I felt my phone vibrate and sighed, wondering what her excuse would be this time. The text wasn’t, as I expected, from my increasingly errant daughter, but from Jude at the old moorings. I read her text with an increasing amount of irritation. Just saying hello, she informed me that the weather was great and asked when we were coming down to visit, she signed off saying she had to go as Ruby, her young daughter, had just fallen over in the paddling pool.
    I closed my phone with an irritated flick and looked up at the slate-grey skies, groaning as the first rain drops hit me in the face. Paddling pool! Either Jude had turned into some sort of child-abusing monster who made her children ‘have fun’ in the cold, or they were enjoying far better weather than I hoped to see all summer.
    My increasingly jealous thoughts were interrupted by Charlie arriving with a young man. Still lost in my gloomy reverie I waved vaguely when she introduced him, then, gathering up the shopping, ushered her away toward the car.
    â€˜Are you all right?’ I looked up from packing the shopping bags into the boot and frowned when I saw her still standing by the passenger door. ‘Central locking sweetie, it’s open.’
    â€˜Hmm?’ Charlie looked at me vaguely then nodded hurriedly. ‘Oh, right.’
    She fumbled open the car door and dropped into the seat with an even more graceless than normal thud. I shook my head and got behind the wheel.
    â€˜Did you have a good day?’ I pulled out of the car park and headed back toward home, the sky had now turned a beautiful black and purple, I sighed, puddles up to our knees again tomorrow.
    Charlie nodded and placed her hands carefully on the dashboard. ‘Yeah it was great, I had Geography and Sarah said that …’
    I let her chatter wash over me and concentrated on the road ahead. It was rapidly becoming invisible in the gathering downpour.
    After about five minutes I realised that she was still speaking. It was normally difficult to get more than monosyllables out of her until she had got home, got changed and had something to eat. Even then she always spent a good half an hour moaning and telling me exactly what was wrong with her day, her life, her friends, her hair, her skin and a thousand other irritants that were usually at the forefront of her mind.
    I looked over at her; she was still holding onto the dashboard and had reduced her speech to a sort of constant mumble interspersed with little giggles and burps. I took a careful sniff.
    â€˜Charlie?’
    â€˜Yes?’ She swivelled her head slowly and carefully toward me and stared, unblinking, in my general direction. Her too-bright eyes looked worried and unnatural.
    â€˜Why can I smell whisky?’
    We pulled into the drive and stopped outside the house, Charlie bolted out of the door but was stopped mid flight. The house was locked up and I still had the keys.
    I stood beside her at the door and sniffed again. ‘It’s you, isn’t it, have you been drinking?’
    Charlie giggled then stuffed her fist into her mouth. Oh, this was no good. I wasn’t