A Part of Me. Anouska Knight

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘Oh, come on, don’t be mad. I was only pulling your leg!’

      ‘Ignore him,’ I instructed. We were nearly at the brow of the ridge.

      ‘At least I didn’t play dead!’ Bywater added. ‘You might have given me the kiss of life!’

      He’d be dead a long time before then. I did not need this right now. I did not need joker clients adding to an already tense work situation. Who even does that? What kind of sicko thinks that’s funny?

      ‘I take it this means we won’t be giving him a fee proposal?’ Hannah enquired timidly, trying to keep pace with me. The colour had returned to her face. There was a very good chance that mine was somewhere past mid-pink too.

      ‘Oh, he’ll be getting one, Hannah.’ I was power-walking again. ‘First rule of business: if you’re client’s an asshole and you don’t want to work with them,’ I said breathily, navigating the soft earth in office shoes, ‘you price them out of the game.’

       CHAPTER 7

      TUCKED AWAY IN the dining room, I didn’t hear the front door click to. It wasn’t until Mum had put her things down in the kitchen and given James’s flowers another approving sniff that I heard her at all. I closed down the stack of tabs where I’d wandered off task and had sporadically trawled the net for anyone else who had set a precedent for sabotaging their own adoption application this far in. Surprise, surprise, I hadn’t found anyone that self-destructive. Content that Mum wouldn’t stumble across my findings, I checked the time in the corner of my laptop.

      ‘Hey,’ I called through, ‘I wasn’t expecting you home until at least half nine.’ I began surveying the information that I was supposed to be concentrating on laid out on the screen in front of me. Rohan Bywater. Just reading his name was enough to make my neck bristle.

      ‘Hi, sweetheart. We finished early. Karen and Sue suggested we all get off early so we’re full of beans tomorrow evening.’ I saved my document and looked over my laptop at her in the dining-room doorway.

      ‘Why? What have the WI got on tomorrow? Fruity calendar shoot, is it?’

      Mum shook herself out of her chunky calf-length cardigan and slipped the silk scarf she’d nicked from my room from her neck. ‘I wish. I quite fancy myself wearing nothing but a pair of currant buns and a smile. Alas,’ she sighed dramatically, ‘we’re preparing our argument for this ruddy council meeting at the community centre. We’ve got less than a fortnight and Karen and Sue want to rally as many faces as possible to show the officials that there are people, like us, who really do value the place. The community ruddy values it.’ Mum stopped folding her cardigan, an expression of illumination warming her features. ‘You should come, sweetheart! We could do with someone there to suggest how to give the place a facelift on a budget. They do it all the time on the telly, everyone coming together and chipping in with a few pots of paint.’

      ‘Earleswicke community centre? Ma, the place doesn’t need a facelift, it needs an identity. Or a bulldozer.’

      Mum leant on the back of the dining-room chair opposite. ‘And where do you think the mother and toddler group is going to convene, young lady, once the council bulldozes it? Or the youth club kids, hmm? Where will they have to go? Or the Macmillan coffee mornings or flower-pressing night? Just because you don’t use the centre yourself any more, Amy, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be taking an interest in it.’

      ‘I am interested, Mum.’ I probably wasn’t that interested. ‘But the community needs to come together if they want to hang onto it. A handful of WI members aren’t going to cut it. Not unless you go smaller than a current bun.’ I swallowed my smile. She didn’t look impressed.

      ‘Just remember, Amy, you may have been off enjoying city living these last few years, but Earleswicke is still your community. There’ll be nothing for anyone here to do if they take the community centre. Well, they can go whistle. They’re not having it.’ I felt my eyes widen before falling back to the screen and that name again. The WI was supposed to keep Mum out of trouble. Give her some blue face paint and a kilt and she was about ripe to give Mel Gibson a run for his money.

      ‘If it’s not viable, Mum, it’s not viable. Buildings cost money to run,’ I said, reviewing the figures for Bywater’s building on screen. The numbers did look a little offensive, but that was the point. There was no way he was going to ask me to work on the mill, not at these fees. Good. It wasn’t like I didn’t have enough on my plate at work.

      Mum huffed wearily. ‘The council absolutely has the money to run the community centre, Amy.’

      ‘So? What’s their issue, then?’ I asked, copying Bywater’s email address from the papers on the table next to me.

      ‘What do you think? What is always the issue, the stingy swines?’ Vivian asked.

      I gave up concentrating on my task until Braveheart got through with her rabble-rousing. ‘They can get more money for it if they just get rid?’

      ‘Bingo. They’ll flatten it, and build a car park, or a ruddy pole-dancing club.’

      ‘Probably,’ I agreed absently ‘Although on the bright side, it’d give you somewhere more lively to hold your WI meetings.’

      ‘You could at least pretend to be interested, Amy. It would be different if it were your gym that was about to close down. You practically live at the place, you’d have something to say then.’

      ‘Not any more,’ I reminded myself. James had killed that one for me. I sucked in a deep breath and sank back against the hard dining chair. ‘I’ve got to get through these emails, Mum,’ I said, nodding at the screen between us.

      She took the hint. ‘Right then, I’ll leave you to it. Would you like a nice slice of this key lime pie Sue’s sent back for you?’

      I rubbed a new tension from the side of my head. Did everyone know about my failed personal life? ‘Not until I’m back at the gym.’

      A run-down of all the meals Mum had watched me eat since I’d been staying here flashed through my mind like some sick calorific version of The Generation Game. No gym meant I was going to have to start jogging. I hated jogging. Mum lingered in the doorway. ‘You know, you don’t need to be so controlled all of the time, sweetheart. It’s okay to loosen the reins from time to time.’ I smiled to pacify her. It was quicker than going into the finer details of my fitness regime and the reasons for it. Mum had gained a little after her menopause, but she’d taken it all in her stride. What my mother constantly seemed to forget though, was that I wasn’t in my fifties yet. It probably wasn’t the best idea I’d had at the time, but I’d immersed myself in the horror stories, endless forum threads, post after post about the average weight gain in that first year after surgery. Twenty to thirty pounds, I’d read. Twenty to thirty pounds.

      ‘Have you thought any more about how long you’re planning on staying, Amy?’

      I shook my head.

      ‘You know you’re welcome to stay as long as you wish, darling, and I’ll support you in whatever you choose. But it would be good to know what your plans are.’

      ‘My plans aren’t really working out at the minute. But I’ll let you know if any СКАЧАТЬ