Free Other People’s Diaries by Kathy Webb

out that she had to leave, facing a barrage ofstony faces as she walked out the door. There’d be a stressful drive out of the city through the snarls of traffic and then she’d be met at the door by an irate nanny reminding Rebecca that her ‘contract of employment’ had her clocked off by 6 pm. Invariably on those nights the house would be in chaos. Sam would be in tears and Bianca on the warpath as Rebecca hadn’t been home in time to drive her to her band’s jam session.
    Now, Rebecca stared blindly into the darkness. Bianca was definitely getting worse. Their relationship had been wonderful until almost two years ago. Then, soon after Bianca turned fifteen everything had changed. She’d been transformed from a happy, loving girl who teachers adored, to one filled with anger at the world in general and Rebecca in particular.
    Nothing Rebecca tried helped. A month ago she had signed them up for a series of Thursday-night lectures about why vegetarianism was going to save the world. She’d thought that maybe it was something they could learn together. But Bianca had refused to go along even once.
    Her thoughts spun around again. She just couldn’t miss work today. The recruitment agency she worked for had one client bigger than the next ten put together. The client wanted to fill a very senior position and she had finally pinned down the top candidate. He had a high-profile job elsewhere and his interest in this position was highly confidential. Rebecca had arranged several hours of meetings between the candidate and the client’s senior management and rescheduling because of a personal problem was inconceivable. This was her biggest placement in a year. She simply couldn’t mess it up.
    Jeremy hadn’t seen it that way. ‘What if you were sick? Or the candidate was? You can do the same thing tomorrow or the day after. My clients are expecting me to do their trades as soon as the stock market opens tomorrow. Leaving it a day is simply not an option.’
    She turned her head slowly to look at Jeremy again. His arm was flung back, his lightly tanned and still slender chest bare. Regular cycling had helped him avoid the middle-aged spread which had caught so many of their friends and he looked ten years younger than forty-five.
    An idea entered Rebecca’s mind. She rejected it immediately. She simply couldn’t do it.
    She lay there for a moment, picturing the phone calls she’d have to make to reschedule the meetings, the transparent lies she’d have to tell.
    The idea itched at the back of her mind, offering a way out. Maybe it wasn’t impossible.
    Slowly, she inched her body across the bed. The cotton sheets rasped under her pyjamas, the sound magnified in the quiet room. Several times she stopped, heart pounding, certain she’d woken Jeremy. Finally Rebecca dropped her legs onto the floor and stood up, slowly removing her weight from the bed. She held her breath, but Jeremy’s only response was to roll slightly away.
    Walking gingerly on the balls of her feet, she eased the wardrobe open and pulled out the first outfit she saw. Then, on hands and knees, she rummaged amongst her shoes until she found two that matched. Finally, she pulled out her underwear drawer gingerly, throwing lingerie and stockings over her shoulder.
    Slowly she walked toward the door, acutely conscious of the sucking sound of her feet lifting off the polished floorboards. One step at a time, she inched down the steps, keeping to the outside of the treads to stop them squeaking.
    She stood indecisively at the kitchen door, taking in the mess in the kitchen. As usual, she’d been too exhausted the night before to do anything more than scrape the plates and run the dishwasher. The saucepan sat inside the greasy frypan, congealed sauce dripping down its side. The stainless-steel bench was covered with crumbs and a few wilted pieces of rocket.
    Somehow she hadn’t