A Gift to You (14 page)

Gina and Isobel are in cahoots. They have it all worked out. Lonely, afflicted Nan would be only delighted to have her granddaughter come to live with her for a while. Rent-free too, I bet. So
there
is
an ulterior motive behind this unexpected visit. Just like my granddaughter’s last one when her car-insurance money was needed and she was broke. I’d paid up, to a
gushing flood of thanks and promises to drive me wherever I needed to go.

Anger and hurt swell and swirl inside. I am being used again, made a convenience of by my own kith and kin. My grandchild that I used to cuddle and kiss and spoil and romp with now sees me as an
easy touch, as I’m beginning to fear, does her mother.

Well, madam, you’ll not be getting your feet under my table now or in the future, I think coldly.

Don’t get me wrong, if Isobel was in trouble or homeless, she could have that room with a heart and a half, but she’s not getting it like this. Sneakily. Opportunistically. I will
not be her or Gina’s doormat.

I’ll be keeping a wary eye on Miss Isobel and Master Richard. I’ve been thinking about updating my will for a while now. I want to make it more in Emily’s favour; after all,
she is the one who does all the running around for me, and my son is happy to leave her do it. I want to leave a decent bequest to Lily, too. ‘Kindness is as kindness does.’ Another
favourite quote of Mother’s. Isobel, Richard and Gina will weep and wail at my funeral, and be the first to read my will, but Emily and Lily are the ones who will truly grieve me.

I am nobody’s fool. I still have my marbles. I know a set-up when I see one.

I silently thank God for these mercies.

‘Have another slice of cake, Isobel,’ I say briskly. ‘And turn up the sound on
The Big Bang Theory
. I have today’s paper here; we might as well have a laugh
before we go looking for your new abode.’

Isobel’s jaw drops! Her eyes widen in dismay as I casually flick through the paper to find the apartments-to-let section.

‘
Bazinga!
’ As Sheldon would say!

‘Why do you bother going on holiday with Melissa Harris? She’s such a cow. She only uses you, you know,’ Denise Irvine said crossly, as she forked chicken
korma into her mouth and took a sip of white wine.

Sophie glowered at her sister. ‘She’s not
that
bad!’ she snapped irritably, dipping a piece of naan bread into her tikka masala sauce.

‘Oh, come on, Sophie, she’s a walking bitch and always has been. She drops you like a hot potato as soon as there’s a bloke on the scene and then you don’t see her for
dust until she’s ditched and needs a shoulder to cry on. You’re too soft with her and always have been. It’s time you told her where to get off. Remember last year, you were
supposed to go on holiday with her and then she dropped you at the last minute because she met Mister Wonderful, and took off to Ibiza with him?’ Denise pronged a stuffed mushroom and ate it
with relish.

Sophie looked at her younger sister with envy. Denise could eat and drink all round her and not put on an ounce. She’d be up two pounds at least on the scales after this pig-out.

‘What happened to Mister Wonderful, anyway?’ Denise topped up their wineglasses. ‘I thought they were going back to Ibiza.’

‘She found out that he was two-timing her. She’s in bits, really she is, Denise. I’ve never seen her this bad,’ Sophie said earnestly. ‘She was crazy about Tony,
really nuts about him. He was the love of her life.’

‘Don’t be daft, Sophie!’ Denise scoffed. ‘How could
he
be the love of her life? She’s so passionately in love with herself, there’s no room for
anyone else.’

‘Oh, leave her alone,’ Sophie muttered.

‘Well,
I
would have told her where to get off, if she’d asked me to go on holiday with only a week’s notice after her behaviour last year,’ Denise retorted,
helping herself to a portion of aloo saag.

It’s all right for you,
Sophie thought glumly, as she studied her bright-eyed, immaculately groomed, supremely confident younger sister. Denise had friends to beat the band and
men fell over themselves trying to get a date with her. She breezed through life with not a care in the world, the epitome of the career woman about town. She thrived in her busy job as a publicist
in a large publishing company and at the age of twenty-two, drove her own company car.

Sophie, two years older, drove an ancient Fiesta that she’d had for the last six years. She was a paediatric nurse and while she enjoyed her job, she felt that her life lacked the glamour
and excitement of that of her sister’s.

Sophie’s two closest friends had got married within six months of each other and in the last two years she’d had no one to go abroad with. The idea of going on a singles holiday
filled her with dread. Hence the acceptance of the offer of two weeks in Majorca with Melissa Harris. Sophie sighed and took a slug of her Australian Sauvignon. She’d known Melissa since her
school days. Blonde, blue-eyed, bubbly and indescribably self-obsessed, Melissa was the centre of the universe in her own eyes, or, as Denise cruelly christened her,
The Queen of the Me, Me, Me
Planet.
An only child, spoilt by doting parents, Melissa swanned through life accepting adoration as her due.

In Sophie, she had the perfect handmaiden. It had always been so, from the moment in junior choir when Melissa decided that she preferred Sophie’s little black velvet bow to the red ribbon
that adorned her golden ponytail. Sophie had handed over the bow unquestioningly, mesmerized by the baby-blue eyes batting perfect long black lashes at her and thrilled beyond measure at the
invitation to join Melissa’s gang. Although the entire class aspired to be a member of Melissa’s entourage, only the chosen few were given the honour.

The honour was withdrawn regularly according to Melissa’s mood and whim, and Sophie would find herself on the outside of the golden circle until Melissa had need of her services again.
This was the pattern of their friendship, through childhood, teens, and while Melissa studied to become a beauty therapist and Sophie was a student nurse.

Weeks could go by and Sophie wouldn’t hear a peep from Melissa and then some crisis would occur and Melissa would arrive at Sophie and Denise’s flat in search of TLC, and sympathy,
while she sobbed over her latest heartbreak and declared that ‘All Men Were Bastards’.

Tony Jenkins was the most recent addition to the AMWB’s list. He and Melissa had been scheduled to take Ibiza by storm again until Melissa had discovered him in a steamy clinch with a
beautician colleague at a friend’s engagement party. It seemed they were having a rip-roaring affair.

‘I really loved him,’ Melissa wept. ‘I just don’t understand what he sees in her, Sophie. She’s an awful airhead and she’s got cellulite! When I think of all
the times I did electrolysis on her – she has a terrible hairy lip – I should have let the needle slip and scarred the bitch for life.’

Sophie made a mental note
never
to have Melissa do electrolysis on her. Not that Melissa ever did beauty treatments for her, now that she was qualified. It had been a different kettle
of fish when she’d been training and needed guinea pigs. Sophie had been manicured, pedicured and French polished, not to mention tweezed and waxed within an inch of her life.
That
had been painful!

‘That tart is going to Ibiza with him. Can you
believe
it?’ Melissa was incandescent with rage, her usually flawless porcelain skin mottled red with temper. ‘Soph, you
simply have to come on holiday with me. I’m damned if Jayne’ – the cellulite afflicted ‘other woman’ – ‘is going to come into the salon sporting a tan and
showing off photos of her and The Rat.

‘We’ll go somewhere and get the best tan ever and find the most gorgeous hunks to take care of us and our photos will make that two-timing toad pea-green with jealousy. I’ll
make sure he gets to see them. I’ll post them on Facebook. Bet he still looks at my page. But even if he comes crawling on his hands and knees, he’s history, Soph. I’ll go
straight to the travel agent’s tomorrow and book a holiday for us.’

Melissa assumed automatically that Sophie would drop everything and be thrilled to go on holidays with her.

‘I don’t know, it’s very short notice. I wasn’t planning to go abroad,’ she’d protested. ‘I’m a bit skint.’

‘Don’t be silly, Sophie. What do you mean, short notice? You’re not doing
anything
are you? You weren’t planning on going away, were you?’ Melissa scowled.
‘I’m skint too. When I found out about The Skunk and that phony so-called friend, I went out and blew a fortune on this gorgeous Dolce & Gabbana dress. It’s to die for,
Sophie, but my Visa card is having a nervous breakdown, so it will have to be a cheapie for me too. But who cares? We’ll strut our stuff on the beach and we won’t have to spend a
penny,’ Melissa retorted confidently, her eyes beginning to sparkle at the thought of her next conquest.

A fortnight in the sun would be nice, Sophie thought dreamily. Lazing on a lounger with a big blockbuster Jackie Collins novel and a Piña Colada or a dressed Pimm’s, while Melissa
strutted her perfectly toned and sculptured stuff. Sophie would be quite content to lie on her lounger, her flabby bits not being at all suitable for strutting.

Two weeks later, they were sitting in a bar at the airport, waiting to board a TransAer flight to Majorca. They’d been delayed for three hours and Melissa was frothing at
the mouth. ‘This is bloody ridiculous. The plane hasn’t even left Palma yet. We’re going to be here for hours. That’s a whole day wasted. It will be the middle of the night
before we get to . . . Portal . . . Portal . . . wherever that place we’re going to is.’

‘Portal Nous,’ Sophie murmured.

‘I hope it’s going to be a bit lively. It’s three miles from Palma Nova. It was all I could get at such short notice,’ Melissa fretted.

‘It will be fine, Mel, stop panicking,’ Sophie placated. ‘Now let’s have coffee and a sandwich, I’m hungry.’ Her nerves were frayed. Three hours of Melissa
whingeing and moaning about their delayed flight and the devastating betrayal she’d suffered at the hands of The Unmentionable was doing her head in.

‘Oh, no, not coffee. Let’s go and get pissed.’ Melissa flung back her golden hair and uncoiled herself from the hard chair she’d been sitting on, quite aware that every
male’s eyes in the vicinity were upon her. She undulated towards the bar in her skin-tight white jeans and tightly fitting black halterneck.

Sophie’s heart sank. If Melissa went on the sauce, she was in for a load of hassle. Melissa, unfortunately, could not drink, and always needed looking after when she was the worse for
wear. Many were the times Sophie had hauled her into loos, or shoved her head out taxi windows as she threw up all round her.

‘Now, Melissa, go easy, you’ve already had three tequila slammers,’ she warned.

‘Oh, quit it, Soph! You’re not my mother!’ Melissa snapped as she ordered another drink. ‘Do you want one?’ she asked ungraciously.

‘OK, I’ll have a Bud,’ Sophie agreed. It might shut Melissa up for a while. Personally, she’d be happy enough to sit in the boarding area and read one of the six books
she’d brought with her. She couldn’t decide which to start with. The Ciara Geraghty or Philippa Gregory novels Denise had given her. She was so looking forward to getting into them.

Three hours later, Melissa was well and truly plastered and had upchucked twice. She was draped across a tall, dark, arty type, who was waiting on a flight to Crete. ‘We should shange our
flight and go to Schrete . . .’ she slurred gaily.

‘Off you go,’ muttered Sophie, utterly pissed off.

Two hours later, they finally boarded their flight. Melissa promptly fell asleep and snored loudly for the duration, her head lolling on Sophie’s shoulder. Sophie couldn’t believe
her luck. She pulled
Saving Grace
out of her travel bag and chuckled her way across France and Spain as Melissa’s musical snores drowned out the roar of the jet engines.

Unfortunately, a bumpy descent into Palma Airport revived both Melissa and her stomach and, for the third time that day, Sophie resisted the urge to drown her in a toilet bowl.

It took another hour to collect their luggage and find the coach that was to bring them to their apartments. Sophie found it hard to keep her eyes open as the air-conditioned coach finally sped
along the motorway towards their destination. She half listened to the forced jolliness of the rep as she reminded her clients to use lots of sun factor and not to imbibe too much San Miguel.

Melissa, green-faced, once again found refuge in sleep.

By the time the coach pulled into the small, two-storey apartment block, Sophie was whacked. It didn’t look ultra modern, she noted, as they stopped outside a building that had white
flaking paint and two pots of dried-out wilting flowers at the entrance. She was too tired to care as a sullen receptionist took their passports and handed her the key to room 103. They were the
only passengers to get off the coach so at least the check-in was quick, Sophie thought, wearily, as they click-clacked their way along a tiled floor, dragging their luggage behind them.

‘It’s a bit kippy,’ Melissa moaned as Sophie struggled to get the big black key to turn in the lock.

Basic, was how Sophie would have described it, she reflected, as she surveyed the white-painted room with a shabby sofa and two chairs, a pine table and chairs and an alcove that housed a
two-ring cooker, sink and fridge. The bedroom had a built-in wardrobe whose doors didn’t close properly, two divans and a small bedside locker each. The bathroom, decorated in mustard tiles,
was not a place she’d spend too long in, she decided. It was 3 a.m., she was exhausted and Melissa’s shrieks of dismay were the last thing she needed.

‘Let’s go to bed. You chose the apartment, Melissa. It’s not my fault. I’ve had a long day. I don’t want to hear any more about it. I’ve had enough, so zip
it!’ she exploded tetchily, as she pulled off her T-shirt and jeans and dived into the nearest divan.