Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [10]
It had been, he guessed, her way of trying to pretend nothing had happened.
`Chloe, what's the point?' He had been gentle with her, but firm. `I've already told you, I'm moving out. If you want to go to the party, you go.'
`I couldn't.' Chloe's blue eyes had filled with tears. `Not on my own.'
That had been it. Greg had shrugged, indicating that this was hardly his fault, and Chloe had flung the invitation to the floor before rushing from the room. Greg had been the one to bend down, retrieve it from beneath the coffee table and put it safely on the mantelpiece.
Daisy Schofield.God, she was gorgeous.
That body…
Oh, what the hell, Greg thought as he slid the invitation into the back pocket of his jeans. It wasn't as if Chloe was going to be using it, was she?
Let's face it, some opportunities are simply too good to miss.
It was a cold, bright Sunday. For what seemed like the first time in months, the sky was blue and the sun was out.
Florence was sitting gazing out of her window when she heard Miranda clatter down the stairs.
`It's me, I'm going shopping.' She poked her head around Florence's door. `Anything I can get you?'
`Absolutely. A bottle of Montrachet, please.'
Miranda's expressive eyebrows slanted at right angles. `Sounds like a sneeze. What is it, some kind of cough medicine?'
`Wine. Better than medicine.' Florence wheeled herself across to where her handbag lay. `Here, let me get you the money.'
`It's all right, I'll pick it up in Tesco. Pay me later.' Florence waggled a fifty-pound note at her.
`We aren't talking plonk here, this should just about cover it. And you'll have to go to the wine merchants in Kendal Street.'
`Blimey. Special occasion?' Privately Miranda thought Florence must be mad. Tesco did some great special offers. If she was in the mood to push the boat out she could get a really nice Australian Chardonnay for Ј3.99.
`It's April the tenth. Ray's birthday. We always drank Montrachet on his birthday.' Briskly Florence snapped her purse shut, determined not to sound like a sentimental old fool. `I've kind of kept up the ritual. Well, we always said we would. It was Ray's favourite wine. Flashy bugger,' she glanced fondly at his photograph, on the table next to her, `he reckoned he was worth it.'
When Miranda arrived back with the wine an hour later, she found Florence waiting for her by the door.
`Why are you wearing a hat?'
`It's cold outside.' Florence adjusted the tilt of her jaunty red fedora. `You've been ages. The cab will be here any minute.' She took the tissue-wrapped bottle as carefully as if it were a newborn baby. `Was the fifty enough?'
`Three pounds change. Where are you going?'
`Hampstead Heath. Parliament Hill.' Florence grinned at the expression on Miranda's face. `The sun's shining. I could do with the fresh air. Anyway, it's where Ray and I first met.'
`People will stare at you.'
`Oh well, I'm used to that.'
`You're going to sit on Parliament Hill drinking a fortyseven-pound bottle of wine?' Miranda said in disbelief. `Have you got a corkscrew?'
`I'm in a wheelchair.' Comfortably, Florence patted her bag. `I'm not senile.'
The bag, when she'd patted it, had made a clinking noise. As a minicab pulled up outside, Miranda said cautiously, `Two glasses. One for you and one for…?'
If Florence said, `Ray,' she would have to stop her. There was such a thing as too weird.
`You, of course.' Florence opened the door and began to wheel herself through it. `Who else d'you think's going to push me up that bloody hill?'
Chapter 5
The view over Hampstead was breathtaking. White clouds scudded across a duck-egg-blue sky and the kite flyers were out in force. Miranda, feeling the cold, dug her woolly orange beret out of her jacket pocket and pulled it on, Benny Hill style, over her tingling ears.
Florence held the glasses on her lap and Miranda