Читать книгу The Birthday That Changed Everything: Perfect summer holiday reading! - Debbie Johnson, Debbie Johnson - Страница 14

Allie took us both off to the restaurant for lunch, steering us towards a table for four. A waiter held a bottle of water for us, opening it with as much aplomb as you would a vintage Bollinger.

‘That’s Adnan, the head waiter,’ said Allie, leaning forward to whisper conspiratorially as he left, ‘he’s got twelve kids…that he knows of.’

‘Bloody hell!’

Our scurrilous gossip was interrupted by the arrival of an elderly lady, who stopped at our table and greeted Allie enthusiastically. She was so short and round that she could have passed as a garden gnome. A garden gnome who’d been kicked out of Gnomeland for having terrible dress sense and making the other gnomes look bad.

Head to toe she was dressed in a shade of pink so vivid I could feel it burning holes in my retinas. Her dimpled knees were peeking out beneath the hem of her shorts, and her freakishly small feet were encased in pink socks and pink trainers.

Little Miss Pink’s hair was short and snowy white, tightly permed around a tanned and deeply wrinkled face.

‘My, my, my! What an interesting outfit you have on, my dear!’ she said, in a delicate Scottish accent. Yes, well. She had a point. So much for critiquing her look.

‘Miss McTavish!’ exclaimed Allie. ‘Come and join us for lunch – this is Sally. She’s just arrived and she’s here with her kids.’

‘Och, no husband?’ she asked, as she sat down. Her plump pink derrière spilled over both sides of the chair until it was completely subsumed. It looked like she was floating unaided in front of the table, like a levitating pink blancmange.

‘Dressed laike that and unchaperoned? How very adventurous of you, Sally! I like your style already – you’ll have to tell me how you get on with all these fit young hunks!’

She chuckled disturbingly as she helped herself to a breadstick, inserted it into her puckered mouth and started to suck on it. I closed my eyes for a second and hoped the image would go away one day.

I wasn’t here for fit young hunks, or overheated body parts, or sharing sex tips with the Incredible Glowing Granny. Admittedly from the looks of things she had a better love life than I did, but that applied just as well to Trappist monks who’d taken vows of celibacy. I’d given up on men. I was going to turn into a sexless old woman who wore beige cardigans and got her kicks from walking really slowly over zebra crossings.

‘Sorry to disappoint you, Miss McTavish, but there won’t be any of that going on. I’ll be living like a nun for the next two weeks.’

‘Now then, that would be an entirely different costume, wouldn’t it? Maybe a spot of leather for that one, with a matching rosary for whipping naughty bottoms?’ she said, her blue eyes twinkling with mischief.

Allie and I stared at her, rendered speechless, as she continued to fellate her breadstick.

‘But if you’re sticking to the quiet life, dearie, won’t you be a wee bit lonely?’ she asked, when we didn’t respond.

It was a semi-serious question, and not one I was prepared to answer honestly. Because yes, I was lonely. And more than a wee bit. I felt it every time I looked at a couple holding hands. I felt it every time I saw a couple bickering. I felt it every time I saw some harassed-looking bloke putting the bins out, and every time I woke up in the morning and every time I went to sleep at night.

I felt it pretty much all of the time, in fact, which I didn’t even want to admit to myself. I’d been married to the same man for seventeen years and had fully expected that to continue until one of us popped our clogs. I was so lonely I might sink in a sea of despair if I even let myself acknowledge it. I was functioning purely on autopilot, and flying straight into turbulence.

‘Of course not,’ I lied, ‘I’ll be too busy to be lonely, and I’m looking forward to spending some quality time with my children.’

Assuming they’d had personality transplants, I added silently.

Right on cue I saw Ollie and Lucy walking towards the restaurant. The need for sustenance must have driven them out into the wild to hunt.

Ollie was wearing those surfer shorts I hadn’t been able to fit into earlier. They hung so low on his bony hips you could see the waistband of his almost-as-low boxers peeping out.

Lucy was in a black bikini top and black shorts. Her dyed hair was swinging loose on her shoulders and most of her face was hidden by huge dark sunglasses. I knew she’d be coated in factor 50 to maintain the ghostly white skin tone she was aiming for.

‘Lucy! Ollie!’ I shouted, standing up and waving my arms frantically.

Ollie grinned and waved back, meandering between the tables towards us. Lucy paused to think about it for a second then followed. She stopped a few feet behind him, facing in the opposite direction to avoid any meaningful social interaction.

‘Hello, darling!’ I said, hugging Ollie tightly to me and holding on so hard he couldn’t pull away. I was totally over-egging the pudding to show Nympho Gnome that, far from being lonely, I was in fact a woman cherished and adored and held precious at the heart of a loving family unit.

‘Do you two want to join us for lunch?’ I asked, praying furiously to whichever god would listen that they needed cash – the only possible reason Lucy would give me the time of day. There was usually a sliding scale of civility depending on how much she needed.

Seconds after the words tumbled out I remembered that Simon had bunged them both a small fortune in guilt money before we left. They probably had more spare cash than I did. I could almost hear the coffin lid slamming shut on my fantasy image of normal family life.

Lucy swivelled her head slowly towards me, propping her shades up on to her hair and staring at me with narrowed, reptilian eyes. She looked like one of those Velociraptors that eats everyone in Jurassic Park. I stayed very still and hoped she wouldn’t hone in on my heat signature.

‘Why the fuck would I want to do that, Nurse Nancy? Does it look like I’ve suffered brain damage in the last hour? Why don’t you give me a real holiday treat, and not speak to me for the next two fucking weeks, all right?’