Secrets Read Online Free Page B

you on someone’s doorstep.’
    The door burst open and Jim came in. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
    ‘Just a few home truths,’ Rose said as she flounced out of the room. Jim followed her.
    Adele sat on her bed in deep shock for quite some time. She wanted to believe that her mother was just suffering from some kind of sickness through losing Pamela, and that she hadn’t really meant it. Yet people didn’t say things like that, even when they were hurting themselves, not unless it was true.
    Adele was still sitting like a statue when she heard her parents leave for the funeral. They didn’t say goodbye, just left without a word as if she was nothing. Adele’s room was at the back of the house, so she couldn’t see the street. She waited until they’d gone down the stairs, then went into her parents’ bedroom, pulled the closed curtains back just a crack and saw the hearse waiting down below.
    No one in Charlton Street had a car, so when one stopped in the street it was quite an event, and all the boys rushed to look at it. Adults would discuss who it might belong to and the purpose of the visit.
    Hearses, however, created a different kind of reaction, and today’s was typical. The neighbours who were going to the funeral were gathered in a little group, looking almost unrecognizable in tidy black clothes.
    Further down the street women watched from their doorsteps. Men passing by took off their hats. Any children not at school had either been taken indoors or if still outside were being made to stand still in respect.
    While it was reassuring to think her sister was afforded the same degree of respect as an adult, it was unbearable for Adele to think of Pamela lying inside the shiny coffin. She had been such a show-off, so chatty and lively. There was hardly a house in the street that she hadn’t been into at some time – she was nosy, funny and so lovable that even the crustiest of old people were charmed by her.
    Yet there weren’t very many flowers. The neighbours had got together to buy a wreath, Adele had seen it when it was brought round earlier. It was only a small one because no one had much money to spare, and as in January flowers were hard to come by, it was mainly evergreens. The one from the teachers at Pamela’s school was bigger, like a yellow cushion, and there was a very nice bouquet from Mrs Belling, the piano teacher.
    The wreath from Mum and Dad was small too, but at least it had pink roses. It was very pretty and Adele felt Pamela would have approved.
    As she watched, she saw her parents move to stand behind the hearse, and Mr and Mrs Patterson from the ground-floor flat beckoned to the other neighbours to fall in behind them.
    Then the hearse slowly pulled away and crept on up the street to the church, everyone walking behind it with their heads held down.
    Now there was nothing more to see, Adele could only think again of the nasty things said earlier, and she began to cry again. Had her mother really thought of leaving her on a doorstep? Surely all mothers loved their babies?
    Two months later, in March, Adele trudged wearily home from school. Every single day since Pamela died had been misery, but today when they played netball, Miss Swift, her teacher, had asked her in front of the whole class how she got the marks on the backs of her legs.
    Adele had said the first thing that came into her head, that she didn’t know. Miss Swift said that was ridiculous, but her knowing look suggested she knew exactly how the marks were made.
    The truth was that Rose had hit her with the poker the previous Saturday morning. She had picked it up as Adele was kneeling laying the fire, and struck her because she’d spilled ashes on the rug. At the time, Adele was hardly able to walk. But by Monday morning it was bearable and fortunately her gym slip was long enough to hide the weals. But she hadn’t thought about stripping off to her knickers for netball.
    Maybe if Miss Swift had asked her about