Untold Story by Monica Ali

she’d worn for years longer than she’d needed to.
    When she was feeling this way she knew that what she should do was go for a swim. She checked the time. Five o’clock. Half an hour until the drugstore closed. She could make it in time to buy up an armful of magazines. There was bound to be a photograph or two.
    She picked up her car keys, and Rufus, at the sound of them, headed for the front door.
    “Clever boy,” she said.
    A sense of dread came over her like a clammy hand pressed over her nose and mouth. She had to sit down on a stool. How could she have left them? She was inhuman, despicable.
    Judgment Day. Again.
    Rufus trotted back and gave her a look, as if to say, that wasn’t funny.
    Mothers didn’t leave their children. It was some kind of deformity she had. An abnormality of the soul. Maybe it just ran in the family. Hadn’t her own mother left? She hadn’t been able to take the children, which wasn’t her fault. But Mummy was a bolter, anyway.
    Stop it, she told herself, stop it. “Rufus,” she said, “we’re going right now.”
    Why had she bought this car? It was too big. She’d thought it would be useful for picking up supplies for the shelter, but most everything got delivered and it was just another bad judgment she’d made. If she couldn’t get the small things right, how could she judge the big things in life?
    Rufus draped himself over the hand brake and pushed his head onto her knee.
    She walked up Albert Street toward the drugstore, counting her blessings, even though she knew that never worked. It never worked in the old days either, when she’d had everything, the world at her feet, supposedly. She browsed through the books above the magazine shelves to see if there was anything new. Most of it was rubbish—thrillers, horror, true crime, and swaths of cheap romance. She was going to buy one anyway, and chose a paperback with a picture of a young woman with a flower behind her ear. It had gold embossing on the cover which, she had discovered, was always a terrible sign. But it was like having a sweet tooth. Fine to give in to the cravings now and then. It would see her through this evening, no worse than sitting down with a big bar of chocolate.
    There were twelve magazines she could buy and she stacked them all up. The cashier said, “Treating yourself today?”
    “I suppose I am, Mrs. Deaver,” said Lydia.
    Mrs. Deaver wore horn-rimmed glasses and a knitted skirt and jacket. She looked more like a retired schoolmistress than a store clerk. “Is it the time of the month? Lot of girls come in here and buy a stack, along with a box of Tampax.”
    “Just going to curl up for the evening,” said Lydia.
    “You do that, my dear. That’ll be seventy dollars and twenty-five cents. Are you sure you want them all? You’ll find it’s the same stories over again.”
    Lydia paid and went out. Carson was walking along on the other side of the road. If he saw her, would he stop? Would he see her? Her heart was racing. How pathetic. She was going to walk straight to the car and drive home.
    Rufus darted out across the road before she could stop him.
    Carson picked him up and got a big lick on the nose.
    “I have something that belongs to you,” he said, when he’d come over to her side of the street.
    “Thank you,” said Lydia. “He’s pretty keen on you.”
    “I know. I thought maybe you were as well.”
    “Maybe I am,” she said.
    “Has anyone ever told you how astoundingly beautiful your eyes are?” He put Rufus down. “That’s one question I already know the answer to.” He rubbed the back of his neck. Lydia wanted him to rub hers too. He said, “I think I overreacted this morning. I’m sorry.”
    She had been horrible to him this morning, and now he was apologizing to her.
    “It was my fault,” she said. “As soon as I said it I wanted to take it back.”
    “We could have discussed it, if I hadn’t gone off into my Iron John act. . . . That’s a lot of