To My Best Friends. Sam Baker

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      But that’s not the point of this letter. No, what I’m really writing about are my twin babies, my darling girls, my Charlie and Harrie, your goddaughters. And you’ve been such a good godmother, Jo, the very best. Which is why I want you to be more . . .

      Chapter One

      There were few things in life Nicci Morrison had not been able to control. But being buried on a dank, drizzly day in February was one of them.

      It was not yet two o’clock, and the dirty grey cloud hung low over the church, obscuring the spire, making the hour seem closer to dusk.

      ‘There you are!’ Jo Clarke called out as a tall thin woman, hair frizzing from the bun at the nape of her neck, picked her way along the muddy path. She was clad head to toe in black – hardly unexpected at a funeral – but her spike-heeled ankle boots would have looked more at home in a bar.

      ‘Let me guess,’ Jo laughed, eyeing the Jimmy Choo boots. ‘The person responsible for you buying those in the first place is to blame for you wearing them now?’

      Mona Thomas raised her eyebrows and looked pointedly at the red mary-janes on Jo’s feet. ‘Takes one to know one,’ she said.

      ‘Typical Nicci, huh?’ Jo hugged Mona hard to distract herself from her tears. Nicci had known outfit-planning would be the last thing on anyone’s mind, and so, unable to break the habit of a lifetime, she had done it for them.

      ‘Hello, Si.’ Mona reached over Jo’s shoulder to pat his cheek. ‘Am I the last?’

      Shaking his head, Si moved aside to make way for a group of unfamiliar faces waiting impatiently in the mizzle behind his wife and her friend.

      ‘Lizzie and Gerry are inside. Well, Lizzie is. Gerry dropped her off at the gate and went to park the car. You on your own?’

      ‘Yep. I thought I’d spare Dan. I know he was fond of Nicci – and he adores David – but, y’know . . . kids and funerals . . .’ Mona’s voice trailed away, and Jo and Si nodded. They knew. Adults and funerals, too.

      ‘You guys go on in,’ Si said. ‘I’ll wait for Gerry. The, erm, the . . . hearse will . . . you know . . . be here soon.’

      Jo nodded gratefully and took Mona’s arm. Si knew she wouldn’t want to see her best friend arrive that way.

      ‘So have you told Si yet?’

      ‘Told him what?’ Jo whispered, leaning across the pew so she could be heard by Lizzie and Mona, but not the random mixture of family members, customers and distant friends who had gathered to pay their respects.

      ‘About the letter, of course,’ Mona hissed.

      Jo’s eyes bulged. ‘Of course I bl—’ she stopped herself, remembering where she was. Jo wasn’t religious, but even so. ‘Of course I haven’t! What was I supposed to say? “Hey, Si, after the last three years, all the money we’ve spent, all the . . .”’ she swallowed, focusing on her hands until Lizzie’s freckled arm reached over and squeezed one of them, “. . . all the disappointment, guess what. It doesn’t matter now if we can’t have kids because we’ve been left shares in someone else’s?” You can imagine how that would go down.’

      Actually, now she thought of it, Jo didn’t have the first clue how that news would go down with Si. It was months, longer, since they had even talked about it.

      ‘You don’t have to put it quite like that,’ Lizzie whispered gently. ‘After all, it’s not as if it’s that straightforward.’

      ‘It’s not remotely straightforward.’

      Closing her eyes, Jo leant back in the pew. Centuries-old oak dug uncomfortably into her vertebrae and the organ music was giving her a headache. Whatever Nicci’s instructions for the funeral, and, Nicci being Nicci, there would have been plenty – the flowers for a start; the church was awash with blue and yellow, not a lily in sight – Jo was sure they hadn’t included a wheezing, clunking rendition of ‘Dido’s Lament’, or anyone else’s lament come to that.

      ‘I’ve told Gerry,’ Lizzie coloured as she rushed the words out. She couldn’t help herself; never had been able to. If there was a crease Lizzie had to iron it out. A silence – awkward or not – she had to fill it.

      Jo’s eyes flicked open. ‘About our bequests?’ she asked, her voice tight. ‘Didn’t we agree to keep that between ourselves for now, just while we work out what to do? Whether we have to, you know, comply with Nicci’s wishes.’

      ‘Not yours and Mona’s, just mine.’ ‘Oh,’ snorted Mona. ‘That’s hardly the same, is it? At least Nicci left you something—’

      ‘Just out of interest,’ Jo interrupted, hearing Mona’s voice rise and seeing Lizzie’s lip quiver, ‘what did Gerry say, about your bequest, I mean?’

      Lizzie’s mouth twisted. ‘What d’you think he said?’

      ‘Let me guess,’ Mona said. ‘I bet it had something to do with cheap labour.’

      Lizzie’s laugh burst out over the hush of voices and the wheeze of the organ. She clapped a hand over her mouth, but not before earning a scowl from an elderly woman sitting on the other side of the aisle. ‘That’s about the sum of it. Gerry said . . .’ she put on his voice. It was posh Yorkshire. He used being northern when it suited him and hid it when it didn’t, ‘. . . “Don’t you usually have to pay someone to do that?”’

      Jo and Mona exchanged glances. They loved Lizzie but, despite years of trying, they still didn’t get Gerry. If he hadn’t married one of their dearest friends their paths would never have crossed. Nicci had barely tolerated him, declaring him smug and materialistic, and nowhere near good enough. But once Lizzie announced a date and flashed a rock that – as Nicci muttered later – cost a fortune and still looked as if it belonged in an Argos sale, she backed off. If Gerry was what Lizzie wanted then, like him or not, he was what they wanted for her too.

      As ‘Dido’s Lament’ segued clumsily into Albinoni’s ‘Adagio’ Mona mimed sticking her fingers in her ears. ‘Clearly there are some things even Nicci’s ghost can’t control. Now That’s What I Call Funerals.’

      ‘Still,’ said Lizzie, ‘what are the alternatives? Westlife? Celine Dion? Bette Midler?’

      ‘That, and the self-invited guests,’ said Jo. ‘Guess it’s what you get for being popular.’

      ‘Yeah,’ said Mona. ‘Can you imagine having loads of people you hardly know turn up for your wedding?’

      ‘I did,’ Lizzie said. ‘Remember? My mother insisted on inviting a bunch of aunties and cousins three times removed.’

      ‘Nicci did too,’ Jo said. ‘But weren’t they all distant relatives of David that he said he hadn’t seen since his christening?’

      A sudden hush cut them short. The organ music had died and all around them people were getting to their feet as the pallbearers entered the church. Si slid in beside Jo, Gerry behind him.

      ‘Here we go, love,’ Si said, slipping his arm around Jo’s shoulder . . .

      ‘Ready СКАЧАТЬ