Katy Carter Keeps a Secret by Ruth Saberton

a jelly.”
    My thumb’s still poised over send. I know we need the money, I know this chapter ticks all the boxes in the brief and I know I can deliver the goods, but something deep down inside me is saying this might not be my brightest idea. I’m aware that Ollie’s been keeping secrets from me too – meeting Carolyn for one, and his head-teacherly ambitions for another – but it just doesn’t feel right. Besides, it was bad enough when I was writing for Tansy. How would St Jude’s feel if their prospective Assistant Head Teacher was living with Tregowan’s answer to E L James?
    “I’m not sure,” I say cautiously. “Maybe I should run it by Ollie first?”
    “What will that achieve? It’ll only stress him out,” Mads points out. “What our other halves don’t know won’t hurt them.”
    “Err, that wasn’t what you said a moment ago when I told you Ollie hadn’t mentioned the Assistant Head thing.”
    “Different rules for us, babes. Never forget that. Anyway, didn’t you say that Throbwould give you a pen name? Ollie won’t even know it’s you and neither will anyone else. Now stop making such a fuss, think of the money and send the bloody email!”
    For a vicar’s wife Mads is pretty happy to tempt me with Mammon – which, let’s be honest, isn’t very hard. The local sparky pushed his estimate for the rewiring through the door this morning and, ever since I scraped myself off the floor after the shock, I’ve been trying to figure out how to pay him. Is Maddy right? Is this the only way? I just don’t know.
    “Mads! Katy! I knew I’d find you in here, darlings! Let me buy us some drinks to celebrate my return to the motherland!”
    Frankie Burrows – Ollie’s cousin, who also happens to be a rock icon – bursts into the pub and flings his arms around us both. I’m caught in a wiry embrace and tangled in his flowing Hermès scarf; my thumb slips on the iPhone screen and oops! The email is sent. Call it fate, call it coincidence or just call it my sodding bad luck as usual , but the issue has been decided for me. I have just submitted a sample chapter toThrob.
    “Shall we have champagne, darlings! On me?” Frankie trills. “Bolly? Cristal? Dom P?”
    “Stop being such a show-off,” Mads scolds. “You’re in Cornwall now, not L bloody A. Seriously, Frankie, you’re spending far too much time with celebs and not nearly enough with the peasants! Get over yourself and drink house white like the rest us.”
    “Righty-ho,” says Frankie, who by now is used to Maddy’s razor-blade put-downs. “Three glasses of paupers’ white it is. Oh! Here’s Holly! Hello, angel! Wine for you as well? Celebrate that sparkly ring and marrying the delicious Guy?”
    My sister joins us, pulling off her bobble hat and running her hands through her red curls.
    “Believe me, he’s far from delicious when he rolls in at midnight reeking of fish and booze.”
    “Ooo! How manly!” Frankie shivers theatrically. “I’m just picturing him now, naked except for his oilskins and his skin glistening from the storm.”
    Holly gives him a pitying look. “Guy doesn’t wear his oilskins at home, and if there’s bad weather the last place you’ll find him is at sea because he’ll be in here, propping up the bar. This is real life, not The Perfect Storm .”
    “No prizes for guessing who got all the imagination in the Carter family,” Frankie says.
    “Frankie was just offering to get a round in,” Mads tells Holly, stuffing my printed chapter into her bag. “White wine for you?”
    My sister shakes her head. “No, not for me thanks. I’ll just have a mineral water.”
    “Mineral water?” Frankie looks shocked. “Are you ill?”
    “I’m fine,” Holly says, pulling herself onto a bar stool. “I just don’t need a drink. It’s been a long day. I wouldn’t mind some food though. Maybe a portion of cheesy chips.”
    I look at my sister a little more closely. Never an outdoors person, she looks