deserve any breakfast after what I’d done yesterday. She said I ought to be whipped and locked in my room.’ His face grew shadowed and fearful. ‘You won’t…you won’t tell my father about the milk, will you, Sarah?’
‘Not if you don’t want me to,’Sarah assured him, mentally crossing her fingers. She had every intention of making sure that Gray Philips knew exactly what she thought of a man who left his child in the sole charge of a woman like Mrs Jacobs.
It was almost lunchtime, and when she discovered that because of the accident Robert had not had any breakfast she opened the fridge and stared in disgust at its meagre contents. The freezer section below it was packed with microwave dishes and TV dinners, but there was nothing, as far as she could see, nutritious enough for a growing child…no fresh fruit, no fresh vegetables, nothing in the fridge that could in any way constitute the ingredients for a well-balanced healthy meal.
The bread-bin, when she found it, held half a loaf of dry, unappetising white bread, although the biscuit barrel was well stocked. Sarah turned away from this in disgust to announce firmly, ‘Robert, you and I are going to do some shopping.’
It was warm enough for Robert to go out in his shirt and shorts, but before they left Sarah found an envelope in her handbag and wrote down a brief note on it, leaving it propped up on the kitchen table in the unlikely event of Mrs Jacobs’s alerting Gray Philips to the fact that she had left Robert on his own and his coming home to ensure that he was safe.
Since she had no keys to any of the doors, she had to leave the back door unlocked, and as they drove away she prayed that no one would break into the house while she was gone.
In their nearest market town they had a good selection of food stores, so there was no need for her to drive as far as Ludlow.
After they had parked the car and collected their trolley she asked Robert what he liked to eat, and was pleased to discover from his answers to her questions that his mother had obviously been very strict about a healthy diet.
However, when she made some comment about his mother, he shook his head and told her, to her surprise, ‘But I didn’t live with Mummy and Tom. I lived with Nana. There wasn’t room for me at Mummy’s house, and besides…’ He scowled and dragged his toe along the floor, telling her gruffly, ‘Tom didn’t like me. Peter’s father liked him,’ he added wistfully, causing Sarah to cease her inspection of the shelves and pause to look at him, asking questioningly,
‘Peter?’
‘He was my friend at school,’ Robert told her. ‘He lived with his mummy and his daddy. His daddy used to play with him. He was teaching Peter to play football,’ he told her enviously.
Poor little scrap. Sarah ached to pick him up and hug him and to tell him that it wasn’t his fault, that he had just been unlucky in the adult males in his life, because she could see the fear in his eyes, the belief that it was somehow his fault that first his mother’s lover and then his own father had rejected him.
It seemed odd, though, that, after going to all the trouble of obtaining sole custody of him and refusing to allow his father to see him, his mother should then allow him to live full-time with his grandmother.
She was frowning a little over this as she scanned the shelves. She had plenty of cash with her, money she had brought with her when she had arrived from the city and which so far she had had no need to spend, thanks to the generosity of her cousin. According to Sally and Ross, Gray Philips was a wealthy man, and certainly wealthy enough to provide his son with a proper diet, so there was no need for her to scrimp on her purchases.
She could only marvel at the quality and training of a housekeeper who apparently was content to feed a grown man and a growing child on pre-cooked frozen microwave meals. There was nothing wrong with such things for emergencies or days when cooking was inconvenient or impossible, but as a sole source of food…
As she paused to ask Robert if he liked fish she tried not to contemplate how Gray Philips was likely to view her interference.
Her shopping complete, she and Robert headed back to the car. He was chattering to her about his grandmother as they did so, and Sarah could tell how much he missed her—more, it seemed, than he missed his mother, but then, if he had lived with his grandmother…It would account for that oddly old-fashioned air he had about him at times, that grave, almost too adult manner that set him apart from the other children of his age that she knew.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
