Best of Friends. Cathy Kelly

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and joy, and Lizzie never caught sight of it without feeling glad that she and Myles had been able to contribute to its purchase. Lizzie’s part of the car had been money she’d saved to fix the leak in the roof in the kitchen, but there was plenty of time to deal with that. Debra’s happiness was more important than a bit of damp.

      Debra let herself into the house with her own key and went immediately to the kitchen.

      ‘I shouldn’t have any shortbread,’ she said by way of greeting. She put two sugars into her tea, added lots of milk, and took a biscuit.

      ‘How are you, darling?’ said Lizzie, not wanting to sound too like a concerned mother. Debra hated that.

      ‘Fine,’ said Debra through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘Whatever am I going to do about Sandra? Fine bridesmaid she’s turning out to be. You’d think she’d be happy to have a dress bought for her. Stupid girl’s the size of an elephant.’

      ‘Not everyone’s skinny like you.’ Lizzie felt sorry for Sandra, a sweet-natured girl who didn’t share her brother’s good looks or slim physique.

      ‘That’s not my fault,’ Debra said with the disdain of one who’d never been less than pleased with her reflection in the mirror. She finished her biscuit and took another. ‘I just don’t want her to ruin my day because of this. We’ve only got a few months to go – you’d think she’d say something before this, wouldn’t you? But that’s typical of Sandra. Troublemaker.’

      Debra’s temper made her face flush, and Lizzie did what she’d always done when her children were upset: she reached out and comforted her.

      ‘It’ll be fine, love. Barry will talk to Sandra. He’ll explain that this is your special day, that everything’s got to be perfect and that you want to pick the dresses.’

      A brief flash of memory reminded Lizzie of her own hastily arranged wedding where the bride wore a dress a size too large in order to hide her burgeoning belly and the bride and groom’s parents wore stunned smiles. Times were different then, Lizzie reminded herself. Nobody had the money for big days out with three bridesmaids, a five-tier cake and an Abba tribute band at the reception. Mind you, nobody had the money for that now either. But Debra’s heart was set on a big day in mid-July and neither Lizzie nor her ex-husband had the heart to say anything.

      Just then, an idea hit her.

      ‘Remember those lovely bridesmaid’s dresses in the wedding shop off Patrick Street? We could go and have a look at them again,’ she coaxed.

      ‘But I thought we couldn’t afford to buy the ones I liked.’ Debra was suspicious, thinking of the compromise that had been reached when the cost of the reception had begun to spiral beyond the agreed sum. Something had to give and Debra felt that it wasn’t any great risk to herself to have the bridesmaids wearing outfits from the dressmaker. Who would be looking at them? She was the star of the day. Her own expensive gown was worth the money but spending too much on bridesmaids was wilful waste. ‘The dressmaker’s doing a good job, really. It’s just Sandra who’s got a problem.’

      ‘Well, maybe we could let Sandra get a dress from the wedding shop. All three bridesmaids are going to be wearing different colours anyhow –’ began Lizzie.

      ‘I don’t know,’ said Debra, struck again by the unfairness of her future sister-in-law’s behaviour. ‘I hate weddings, honestly. It’s all a total pain. I’ve a good mind to tell Barry it’s off.’

      Lizzie sighed. Debra was so highly strung that she sometimes failed to see others’ points of view. Unlike her mother, who saw everyone’s point of view. They may have looked alike – the same big eyes and round, open faces – but in character they were very different. Lizzie used to wish that Debra wasn’t so uncompromising but, in retrospect, she’d changed her mind. Being gentle and yielding got you nowhere in life.

      

      Wednesday was manic in the surgery. First in the door on the dot of nine were Mrs Donaldson, a large, prune-faced pillar of the community, and her daughter, Anita, a shy, heavily pregnant woman in her late twenties, who would have been enjoying a perfectly normal pregnancy had it not been for her interfering mother. Mrs Donaldson, with five pregnancies behind her and a superiority complex, insisted on always seeing Dr Morgan because she thought male doctors knew nothing about female plumbing, but obviously felt that she herself was the expert on all things gynaecological.

      She herself was ‘delicate’, she’d told a disbelieving Lizzie early on in Anita’s pregnancy. ‘My side of the family were all small-boned and pregnancy was such a strain,’ sighed Mrs Donaldson, folding big strong arms over a considerable bosom emphasised by a silky blouse with an inappropriate pussy-cat bow. ‘Dr Morgan won’t see that poor Anita’s the same. Poor lamb needs more ante-natal care and more visits. I can see it so why can’t her stupid obstetrician?’

      Through all of this, Anita smiled sweetly at everyone and followed her mother meekly into the surgery for each unnecessary visit.

      Clare Morgan, normally the soul of discretion regarding her patients, confessed that she loathed the sight of Mrs Donaldson.

      ‘Anita’s perfectly fine and I’m convinced her mother’s constant agitating is creating more stress for her than the pregnancy,’ she said.

      Today Mrs Donaldson was on high alert because next door’s cat had been seen lurking in the vicinity of Anita’s clothesline.

      ‘Toxoplasmosis,’ said Mrs Donaldson darkly to Lizzie. ‘All cats should be put down.’

      Lizzie’s eyes instantly swivelled to the windowsill, where Clare Morgan’s ginger cat, Tiger, liked to sit and mew miserably to be let in, even though he knew he wasn’t allowed into the surgery. Luckily, there was no rotund marmalade shape there. Mrs Donaldson was quite capable of running out and hitting him with her handbag.

      ‘The doctor is very busy this morning but I’m sure she’ll fit you in,’ Lizzie said, knowing that there was no point in saying anything else. Mrs Donaldson did not grasp the concept of people saying no to her.

      By half-past twelve, after a hectic morning where the surgery had been packed with sneezing and wheezing patients, including one white-faced man who’d had to keep rushing into the loo to be sick, Lizzie felt as if she had only one unjangled nerve left. Every appointment had run late and there were always a few impatient patients who felt this was Lizzie’s fault for overbooking and glared at her furiously as they waited. But somehow, the throng had cleared and the last person had just gone in to see the doctor. Lizzie got a glass of cranberry juice from the tiny fridge in the kitchenette and dosed it liberally with echinacea. She didn’t know if it was the immunity-boosting medicine or the fact that she was daily exposed to every bug going, but she rarely got sick.

      Luxuriating in the silence, she leaned back in her chair and stretched her aching back.

      ‘Clang’ went the bell over the surgery door. Lizzie straightened up to attention.

      ‘Hi, Sally,’ she said cheerfully, and relaxed again. Sally Richardson was a friend as well as a patient. She, Steve and their two boys had lived in the road behind Lizzie’s for the past four years and Lizzie had come to know them both from the surgery and from bumping into each other in the tiny corner shop where they bought newspapers and emergency cartons of milk. She’d been to several of their parties, although she’d had to miss Steve’s now legendary birthday party six months ago. And when Lizzie’s funds ran to it, she’d enjoyed a facial in Sally’s СКАЧАТЬ