Other People's Husbands by Judy Astley Page A

right with you. Let’s trash the UK.’
    â€˜You can get to Venice by train. It’s easy,’ Cass pointed
    out.
    â€˜I still don’t want to go. All those hours, too close to strangers. Almost worse than flying.’ Conrad shuddered.
    â€˜OK, well that’s your choice made, but what about the rest of us? Does that mean you won’t come away with me anywhere if it involves flying, ever again?’ Sara asked.
    â€˜Darling, you can find plenty of other people to travel the world with. Call on your stable of trusty men. Ask Will. If he’ll go and see horror movies with you I’m sure he’d be up for weekend mini-breaks. And what about your oil-stained-mechanic admirer who supplies the veg boxes? He’d be handy for carrying your baggage.’
    â€˜Why would I want to go anywhere with Stuart? I’ve never been further than the pub on the Green with him.’ Was he losing his mind, she wondered? Where had this come from? ‘I barely know the guy. And Will’s got Bruno to go on holiday with. I quite like travelling with you actually, Conrad. Sharing experiences, having conversations. All that. It’s called a relationship.’ Why was he being like this? Only a couple of hours ago he was murmuring comfort words into her hair.
    â€˜But we’ve been just about everywhere we’ve really wanted to go by now, haven’t we?’ he said. ‘We can impose ourselves on your mad sister Lizzie in Cornwall if we want to get away. Or explore the outlying edges of this lovely British mainland. Why ask for the Maldives? We have Stonehenge! Get it? Good that, I thought!’
    â€˜Hmm. Going all New Voyager on me isn’t a top placatory tactic,’ Sara warned him, taking up the long sharp knife from the cheese plate and waving it at him. Cass and Pandora backed away, nervously.
    â€˜Mum . . . Just . . . like, put it down?’ Pandora carefully took the knife from her mother’s hand and placed it out of reach.
    â€˜Well – he’s annoying me, so childish!’ Sara said. Conrad smiled at her, blew her a kiss. She tried not to smile back, though it was difficult. He was pouring more wine and looking too pleased with himself, knowing quite well he’d got round her, as ever. No party. No big-deal celebrations. That was fine, so long as that was what he really wanted.
    â€˜You’re as bad as each other, you two,’ Cass told them, glancing at the taped-up window. It was one of very few ordinary, small-sized windows in this house of wall-sized safety glass and wood. It was lucky, Cass thought, that her mother hadn’t gone mad with a sledgehammer and written off half the building. Perhaps that was next. Lucky she’d moved back in, really, as it looked like she wasn’t the one most in need of supervision.
    â€˜You’re not just telling me you don’t want to do anything special because I threw that stupid jar, are you?’ Sara persisted. ‘Is it because you think a bit of organizing might send me right over the edge?’
    â€˜No, Sara.’ He sounded tired suddenly, she thought. ‘No, I really don’t want any fuss. Please. Just . . . nothing.’
    He was quite capable of being this insistent now, but when it came to the crunch he could well sulk and accuse them all of not caring. He was too used to her being the calming influence. Come to think of it, she probably did tend to treat him a bit like a child, second time around or not. Maybe she always had been the one who did the taking care of: fending off the persistent admiring women who couldn’t believe a man as famously attractive as Conrad didn’t want to take advantage of sexual offers. And then there were his clients . . . all those egos having their portraits painted. They always started out thinking they wanted the manic, quasi-abstract Blythe-Hamilton portraiture, but no one could accuse Conrad of being a flatterer when it came