The Right Thing by Judy Astley Page A

pacing the floor of her workroom and stirring up cooling air. He kept glancing out of the window as if half expecting Rose’s silver BMW to flash into the yard again.
    She was probably way past Exeter by now, Kitty calculated, driving too fast, carelessly flicking through radio stations or making phone calls. She wouldn’t waste time concocting a credible story for the long-suffering Ben. And Kitty had no doubt he must be long-suffering – she’d now concluded that he was a man of routine and solidity who tolerated his unreliable wife for the pathetic excitement of her returning to him in need of a shot of stability and comfort. She would be more than tolerated, Kitty thought as she watched Glyn grumpily pacing, she would be positively treasured. Rose would easily have managed to keep an air of maddening elusiveness that had Ben still, after what must be twenty years, absolutely panting after her, body and soul.
    There’d always been an interesting unreliability about her, bordering on sly deviousness. Boys had always fancied that aspect of her, back in their schooldays. So hard to pin down was Rose that the will-she/won’t-she question about sex would be the last to come up with anyone who asked her out; they all had to start the guessing game with wondering if she’d even turn up. Kitty felt quite envious of this imagined Ben-and-Rose-excitement scenario: she objected to being lined up as the opposite by Glyn, lumped in with the safe and plodding and domestic and predictable. She pointed her paintbrush at Glyn, accusing, ‘You’re sounding like some boring old fart who doesn’t want any new experiences in life any more. Just because you’ve officially retired, it doesn’t mean you have to get dull and territorial.’
    Glyn looked quite hurt. The skin on his forehead furrowed like the field Rita had let Josh plough so very badly the year before. He stopped pacing and went to the sink to scrape bits of Petroc’s engine oil out of his fingernails with a palette-knife. ‘Sorry. I just thought she was sort of flighty. Not a bit like you. I didn’t know you had friends like that.’
    Kitty was even more annoyed: he’d now damningly confirmed her private thoughts. ‘Actually I don’t have friends like that. You can’t call someone a friend just because they were at school with you when you haven’t seen them for a million years. Though why I’m not to be allowed “flighty” friends I can’t imagine. I don’t intend to feel in the slightest bit old and boring.’
    â€˜Now you’re being contrary,’ he pointed out.
    â€˜Better than giving into being bloody geriatric, especially at your age. Next, you’ll be complaining when someone sits in “your” chair and grumbling if we don’t have halibut every single Friday,’ she countered. She squeezed a dollop of Winsor blue on to the palette and felt calmer. ‘Did you manage to get Petroc’s car sorted?’
    â€˜We jump-started it. He’s not in the best of moods either. Must be something in the air.’ Glyn looked down out of the window again. ‘There’s that George, wandering up the lane. I wonder if he’ll discover Rita.’
    Kitty looked out, down at the lane and along towards Rita’s farmhouse. A corner of it was visible through the beech trees that were just coming into leaf. Kitty thought of them as half dressed, shivering in leaves too small and delicate. Only weeks from now she wouldn’t be able to see the house at all. She could hardly wait, winter in the country was so desolate. When they’d lived in London, warmed by traffic pollution and heating blasting out from shops, she could almost ignore it. Here there seemed to be weeks of endless damp windy grey with just the occasional reward of a scintillating blue day of brave vivid sunshine. Even the sea, when it wasn’t rowdy with storm, seemed to