Faith - Lesley Pearse [240]
‘Will you be living there then?’ she asked, trying not to sound dismayed that he wasn’t going to be working in London.
‘I’ve bought a small cottage by Loch Awe,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘It’s a bit of a mess, the old man who lived there had been on his own since his wife died, and he’d let things go. He had to go into a nursing home, so it was a quick sale.’
It stung Laura that he’d been organizing all this but hadn’t mentioned any of it in his phone calls. ‘That’s marvellous,’ she said, even though her heart was sinking. ‘You always did want to live in the Highlands.’
‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘In those days I relished somewhere primitive, but I’ve had a taste of luxury over the years and I don’t know that I’m going to enjoy roughing it this winter.’
‘You can always come down to London for a long weekend, and we’ll cosset you,’ Laura suggested.
She thought that he would make a joke about her going up there to rough it with him, but he didn’t.
It was well after ten when they finally left the restaurant. Patrick went on home, and though Angie asked Stuart if he’d like to come back to her flat with them, he declined.
‘I’m leaving for Oban in the morning,’ he said. ‘I’ll need to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Besides, you don’t want a lone male spoiling your girlie fun.’
He hailed a taxi for them, kissed them all on the cheek and said he’d keep in touch, and as the cab drew off Laura turned to watch him through the back window. He might look like a city slicker today in his smart suit, but she thought his loping walk was that of a man who would be happier in the great outdoors.
‘When are you going to see him again?’ Meggie asked, slurring her words because she’d had too much to drink.
‘He didn’t suggest anything,’ Laura said sadly. ‘He didn’t even give me an address or a phone number.’
Laura thought she would fall asleep the moment her head touched the pillow that night, for it had been a long day, and she’d had so much to drink. But once she was tucked up in bed in Angie’s tiny spare room, she found sleep eluded her.
It had been so strange seeing her old shop again, for Angie had insisted they all went to see it before going back to her flat. Very little had been changed, just a fresh coat of paint and a new carpet, but Angie was taking in more expensive designer clothes now, and a big range of costume jewellery. Ivy was thrilled to find a black leather Chanel handbag, and Meggie bought a dark red Jaeger jacket.
But while her sisters were gleefully raking though the clothes, Laura found herself looking at a chair she’d found in a junk shop and sprayed gold, and remembering how Jackie had helped her re-upholster the seat with cream velvet, and that they’d laughingly called it the ‘Versailles’ look.
She wondered then if she’d ever make another friend as close as Jackie had been. Some of the very sweetest moments in her life had been just sitting around chatting and laughing with her. Always so much laughter, and they had believed it would go on until they were very old ladies.
Once they had even joked about sharing a home when they got to seventy. They imagined themselves going on coach trips to Blackpool or a day out on the Yorkshire Moors, only they’d be going into pubs for brandy while all the other old ladies had cream teas.
It was only now she was free that it really hit home how empty life would be without Jackie. Meggie and Ivy were great, but on a different level. She and Jackie had always been on the same wavelength, they could pick each other’s brains, tell each other off, even have a blazing row and it was forgotten in half an hour. They were in so many ways twin souls, they understood each other without lengthy explanations. How could she ever find anyone like that again?
Meggie and Ivy were sleeping on the bed-settee in the lounge, and through the open door Laura could hear Meggie snoring softly, just the way she did when she was little.