What She Wants. Cathy Kelly

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СКАЧАТЬ always discussed things with Sam; it was so strange of her not to have even mentioned this startling new plan, unless…unless. Sam’s eyes narrowed. Bloody Matt. This was some damn fool plot of his, she’d swear to it. As ever, Hope was going along with it. Sam quickly checked out the train times to Bath on Saturday mornings, then phoned her sister. Flu or no flu, Hope needed sense talked into her and face to face was the only way to do it.

      They stowed Sam’s small weekend bag in the boot of the Metro with the groceries, Hope marvelling that her sister could always look so immaculate and yet bring so little with her. To look half-way decent when she travelled, Hope needed a giant suitcase and would still forget something vital. Though very pale, Sam looked Vogue-fresh with just a small, squashy bag. Her flu had improved miraculously, probably due to the quantity of anti-flu capsules she’d been consuming.

      ‘Let’s go for a coffee in town before heading out,’ suggested Sam to her sister, pleased that, for once, Hope hadn’t brought the kids, which gave them the opportunity to have a private chat about the madcap idea of moving away for a year. In fact, Hope hadn’t told the children their beloved aunt was coming so she could have some time alone with her sister. If Millie had heard the news, she’d have thrown a complete tantrum wanting to go along too. Hope had also told Matt she preferred to pick up Sam alone: Matt wouldn’t have been able to resist arguing with Sam if she criticized his precious plan.

      ‘Is this quiet cup of coffee on our own so that you can give me the “are you insane?” lecture without Matt butting in?’ inquired Hope with a faint twitch to her mouth. She wasn’t stupid. Her sister wasn’t given to last-minute visits and you didn’t need to be a nuclear physicist to figure out why she was here now.

      ‘Yes Sherlock, that was precisely the plan,’ admitted Sam, grinning. ‘I’m shocked that you saw through me that quickly. I must be losing my touch. I can remember the far off days when we were small and I could make you do anything I wanted purely by using the correct tone of voice.’

      ‘I remember that too,’ Hope remarked, ‘and I have moved on a bit.’

      ‘Only a bit,’ Sam retorted. ‘Matt certainly manages to make you do exactly what he wants.’

      Hope locked the car. ‘How about we have a cease-fire on the question of our trip, at least until we’ve got a cup of coffee in our hands.’

      ‘Done.’

      It was only half ten in the morning: a crisp early October day with a watery sun low in the sky. They strolled past the Abbey, vast and majestic in the sunlight.

      ‘This is such a beautiful city,’ Sam sighed. ‘I never seem to get the chance to spend any time here, just wandering around like a proper tourist.’

      Hordes of tourists meandered through the streets, some excitedly wielding high-tech cameras and taking endless photos, others looking weary, as if the tour bus had just dumped them there and they were feeling the strain of a whistle-stop tour of the hot spots of Britain.

      Hope and Matt had done all the touristy things when they’d moved there first. They’d sipped the sulphuric water in the Pump Room. ‘Disgusting,’ gasped Hope, wishing she could spit it out. ‘A bit like tonic water,’ said Matt, reflectively. They’d toured the Roman baths and listened to stories about when the city was Aqua Sulis, the Roman stronghold with lots of gracious villas complete with proper underfloor heating. Matt’s favourite part of the tour had been the Roman sites, while Hope’s romantic soul loved the Georgian history of Bath. As a teenager, she’d secretly adored the Georgette Heyer romances where Bath often featured as the fashionable watering hole for wealthy aristocrats. She was fascinated by the Assembly rooms where both Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer’s heroines had swirled around in Empire line dresses; she loved the Museum of Costume and she liked nothing better than idling around the pretty, curving streets with their yellow sandstone colonnaded buildings, imagining ladies stepping from carriages and sedans into the houses.

      The sisters walked past a trio of classical buskers playing something that Sam instantly identified as Mozart. Two years as product manager of a classical label had taught her a lot, and she no longer immediately thought of the Lone Ranger theme music when she heard the first strains of the ‘William Tell’ Overture.

      ‘It is lovely here, isn’t it?’ said Hope, who practically never came into Bath to do anything other than rush into work or rush into some shop or other. Simply coming in to wander around aimlessly was sheer heaven.

      Sam insisted on going into Sally Lunn’s cake shop, a spot where Hope insisted that true Bathites would never set foot.

      ‘It’d be like you walking round London’s Piccadilly Circus with your mouth open in awe or having your picture taken right outside Buckingham Palace,’ she said as Sam dragged her into the cosy, tourist-filled spot where the scent of the unique Sally Lunn buns rose into the air. ‘My reputation for being cool and trendy will be ruined. Locals don’t “do” Bath!’

      ‘Don’t be a spoilsport,’ said Sam, suddenly aware that she’d eaten practically nothing for the past few days because of her flu. She could murder one of those Sally Lunns covered in salmon. ‘Next time you come to London, I promise I’ll get my picture taken with a Beefeater. Deal?’

      ‘And in Madame Tussaud’s and outside Harrods too?’

      ‘You drive a hard bargain,’ Sam sighed. ‘I’ll even buy a “My friend went to London and all she brought me was this lousy T-shirt” T-shirt, OK?’

      Sam ate her Sally Lunn and had the left over half of Hope’s too. Hope was currently on what she called her ‘half’ diet: she got to eat half of anything she fancied. Half her dinner, half a biscuit, etc. It was very difficult.

      Sam chatted as she ate, being funny about work, how she’d missed an important meeting and how her social life was suffering as a result of the new job.

      ‘Mad Malcolm upstairs accused me of having a party,’ she said, licking crumbs from her fingers. ‘Honestly, I’m in the office so much, there’s as much chance of me having a wild party as there is of Steve Parris developing a nice personality.’

      ‘That bad?’ Hope asked, knowing that her sister used humour and funny stories to hide how she really felt.

      For a moment, Sam’s eyes were opaque. ‘We’re not here to talk about me,’ she said quickly.

      ‘Pardon me,’ said Hope. ‘As you’ve come all this way to deliver a lecture to me on living my life, at least let me get my two penn’orth in about your life.’

      ‘I don’t have a life, I have a career. There’s a difference,’ Sam said sourly.

      Hope leaned forward over the little table in a ‘spill the beans’ manner.

      ‘It’s this flu,’ Sam said quickly, sorry she’d revealed so much. ‘I’ve been feeling a bit low lately, I don’t know why. I’ve had two 24-hour bugs since September, although it’s one way of keeping my weight down. I keep getting the most awful periods that put me out of commission for two days each time, and to cap it all, Steve Parris, my new boss, is a complete asshole, excuse my language, but he is. I’m going to have to keep proving myself until I’m a hundred, which feels like it’ll be any day now.’

      Hope reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand.

      ‘Sam, you should go to the doctor and have a check up. That’s three bouts of illness in nearly СКАЧАТЬ