Читать книгу The Wedding Favour - Michele Gorman - Страница 6

‘Are you positive she’s not dead?’ My niece’s worried whisper is so close to my face that I catch a whiff of her sweet Frosties-breath. At six, she’s the perfect height to scooch onto the sofa where I’ve spent the night. The middle cushion has slid partway off, and no wonder, with its silvery brocade that always gave my clothes a fierce case of static cling when I perched there in happier days. My arse is wedged into the sofa’s murky depths, definitely touching whatever is underneath, but I’m not about to move a muscle now.

‘She’s not,’ Leo answers with his usual big brother authority. ‘Mum says she only wishes she was. She’s had a hard time so she’s sleeping.’

He whispers the words, as if I’ve got a terminal diagnosis. He’s not far off.

‘But it’s almost lunchtime.’ Little fingers poke at my shoulder.

‘Caitlin, don’t. Mum said to leave her.’ I can hear the start of a wrestling match as Leo subdues his sister.

I pry open one eye just in time to catch him snatching the biscuits Rowan left last night with my undrunk tea. ‘Leave me alone, rug rats, and put those back! Can’t a person have a mental breakdown in peace?’

Then I hear a ping. Finally! Better late than never. ‘That’s my phone!’ Frantically, I fling things from the coffee table: balled up tissues, my bra, more open packs of biscuits than you’d find at a blood donation clinic. ‘Where is it?!’

That sends them scattering. I must sound completely unhinged.

That’s because I am completely unhinged.

‘You’re up,’ Rowan calls from the lounge doorway. She doesn’t wait for an invite to come into what is, technically, at this moment, my bedroom. She simply makes her way towards me, picking her way past my overnight bag (or rather overnights, plural), discarded clothes and seemingly every toy in the house. Still, she manages to get a march on. My sister-in-law never lets any stumbling blocks, literal or otherwise, get in her way.

Everything about Rowan screams efficiency, from the top of her no-nonsense (but still very cute) pixie cut to her always-in-ballet-flats feet. Pretty Ballerinas too, not knock-offs, on account of her high-flying programming job for one of the big banks. I had hoped my niece and nephew would inherit her looks instead of my brother’s, but they’ve been cursed, like Paul and me, with the long Fraser nose, close-set eyes and furry brows that I have to pay good money at the salon to keep under control. Paul really should too, instead of walking around with a sleeping chinchilla on his brow. They did get our good lips, though, so that’s something, and Rowan’s pale blonde waves – though both Caitlin and Leo wear those longer than Rowan does – and they don’t turn beetroot in five minutes of sun like their mum.

I’d take Rowan’s lack of melatonin any day to get the rest of it. Imagine, if you will, the woman who really does have it all (without being smug about it like I’d probably be) … Well, that’s Rowan. To this day I don’t know how my brother ever convinced a gem like her to give him the time of day, let alone marry him.

But then, people are probably about to say the exact same thing about me and Matt.

‘My phone, where is it?’ How many times do I have to repeat myself before the importance of this question is impressed upon my family?

‘I don’t hear anything,’ Rowan says. She tips her head like a spaniel listening for the tin opener.

‘Not now. Before.’ I reach under the sofa in case it fell from my heartbroken hand when I finally drifted off into fitful sleep.

‘Oh, that. That was just the microwave. I’m heating up leftovers. Pizza. Mmm mmm. Want some? Oh, duck,’ she says, catching my sob face, ‘you don’t have to eat it.’

She sits beside me. Credit to her, she only reels back a little bit when I slump into her arms. Must shower one of these days. ‘I don’t want pizza,’ I snivel. ‘I’d never eat pizza again if I could have Matt back.’ Not that one has anything to do with the other. Or that I’d be able to keep the promise anyway. Blame my sorry state for making me resort to nonsense like this.

‘Here’s your phone.’ Caitlin unplugs it from the wall. That’s right. I’d wanted it charged in case his make-up call took more than 27% of my battery.

Now I’m fully charged but still broken up.

‘Nobody rang,’ she says, handing it to me.

‘You’re too young to be looking at phones,’ I snap. Which is also ridiculous considering that she could practically build her own apps before she was out of nappies.

I feel like a first-class arse when Rowan gathers her daughter in for a hug. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ I tell Caitlin. ‘I haven’t been myself lately.’

‘I know, Auntie Nelly, but there are other fish in the sea.’

‘You didn’t really just say that.’

Caitlin shrugs. ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’

‘I’ll take dating advice from you when the Tooth Fairy no longer has to visit, okay?’

She sticks her tongue in the hole where her bottom tooth had been. ‘I’m just saying what Mummy said.’

‘Way to belittle my breakdown, Rowan.’

Now it’s Rowan’s turn to cast evils at her daughter. ‘You’re not having a breakdown. This is a temporary situation.’

‘You mean you think we’ll get back together?’ I hear the desperation in my voice.

Rowan’s eyes slide from mine. ‘Maybe.’

‘You’re a hopeless liar.’

‘I mean it might not be the worst thing if you didn’t,’ she says. She starts to gather up my tissue mountain but changes her mind. Instead, she folds over the ends of the biscuit packets. ‘To be honest, he didn’t always seem totally committed. He stayed away for Christmas.’

The cushion slides further towards the floor when I sit up. ‘He got food poisoning, Rowan. You’re not suggesting he purposely ate bad chicken to get out of seeing Gran. Trust me, he’s totally committed. I mean, until we broke up. But I can fix this.’

Rowan shakes her head. ‘I’m not sure you should, though, duck. You shouldn’t have to convince a bloke to be with you.’

‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you, when my sap of a brother made it so easy. Meet, fall in love, get married, job done.’

Rowan, being Rowan, doesn’t take it personally that I’m being a complete cow. She knows I couldn’t have loved her more if she were my own blood sister. Luckily, she remembers it even when I talk like this.

‘I’m saying that you’re worth more, Nelly, that’s all. And you know it. If someone hasn’t got the brains to see that, then that’s his loss, not yours. He hasn’t bothered to ring you, has he?’

‘It’s only been three days.’

‘And how many days is okay before he’s an arse for not ringing his fiancée?’

‘Ex-fiancée, apparently.’

‘Just— Don’t ring him, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Really okay? Or are you just saying okay until I leave the room and then you’ll ring him?’

‘Really okay.’ I do have some pride left. Rationally, I know Rowan is right. I just need my heart to catch up with my head. And for Matt to ring me to apologise.

I can’t bear to think about what it will mean if he doesn’t.

I suppose I should come clean now, because you’ll realise it sooner or later anyway. I’m the family screw-up. Not jailbird level. Just as in nobody is surprised when something else doesn’t work out for me. There’s always that knowing eye-roll. Like it’s all my fault and what do you expect, it’s Nelly.

But this is jailbird level. I’m the one about to be jilted. Never mind that my heart feels like it has been ripped in two. Oh, how everyone will pick over that with their Christmas dinner. Nelly’s fiancé ran a mile rather than marry her.

Maybe I’ll fake food poisoning this year.