Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [11]
`Mm, yum,' she lied.
`Ha, and I'm the Queen of Spain. Doesn't matter if you don't like it,' Florence said cheerfully, polishing off her first glassful and smacking her lips. `I'll manage the rest.'
To steer the subject away from her own shameful ignorance, Miranda huffed on her frozen hands and said, `So how did you and Ray meet?'
`Haven't I told you before? Oh, it's a great story.' Florence held her glass out for a refill. `I was up here early one Sunday morning with Bruce. He had a new bike and I wouldn't let him out on the roads. So of course he set out to prove he could ride the thing - he was eight, you knowwhat they're like at that age - and the next minute he was hurtling out of control down that path there.' She nodded in the direction of the narrow path curving to the left below them. `Poor little sod ended up going slap into a tree.'
`You've never told me this!' Enthralled, Miranda leaned closer, cross-legged on the grass. It wasn't difficult to imagine Bruce as a stubborn eight-year-old. `What happened next?'
`Blood and teeth everywhere. One wrecked bike, one sprained knee. Bruce was screaming blue murder and there was me without so much as a tissue to mop up the blood.'
`Poor Bruce.'
`Poor me! I was in a complete flap. Bruce wasn't the only one in tears, I can tell you.'
`Hang on, I can guess the rest,' Miranda said excitedly. `Then - trumpets, trumpets! - over the hill came Ray riding to the rescue on his motorbike' - she had heard all about Ray's devotion to his Norton 500 - `with a first-aid kit slung over one shoulder and a big bag of false teeth on the other.'
Florence chuckled.
`Not quite. Over the hill came Ray, on foot and hungover, making his way back to Highgate after an all-night party. But he came to the rescue, bless his heart, and he had a clean handkerchief, which was more than I did. He cleaned up Bruce's mouth, managed to stop him screaming and insisted on giving him a piggy-back home. He even carried the smashed-up bike,' Florence remembered fondly. `It's a wonder he didn't have a heart attack there and then. Well, that was it as far as I was concerned. Love at first sight. There was Ray with his Clark Gable hair - that was when
he still had hair, of course - and me trotting along carrying his dinner jacket. Bruce was dripping blood all over his white evening shirt and he wasn't even bothered. He made us both laugh. And he wasn't even doing it to impress me, because as far as he was concerned I was just a young housewife in need of a hand. When we got back to the house he said, "Your husband's going to have his work cut out getting that bike fixed."'
`This is so romantic,' Miranda sighed. `And…?'
`I said, "He certainly is, seeing as he died three years ago."'
Miranda wrapped her arms around her knees in delight. `Then what?'
`Well, he just stood there for a minute, grinning at me. Then he said, "In that case, I'd love an aspirin and a cup of tea."'
`Oh! Did he mend the bike as well?'
`I suggested it.' Florence snorted with laughter. `He told me he wasn't the fixing kind. When things got broken, he bought new ones.'
`And did he buy Bruce another bike?'
`Certainly did, four days later.' Florence waggled her left hand at Miranda. `And so I wouldn't feel left out, an engagement ring for me.'
Having disposed of the rest of the bottle, Florence contentedly closed her eyes and said, `Okay for five minutes while I have a little snooze?'
Miranda sat back, stretching out her legs and propping herself up on her elbows. In this position she could enjoy the faint warmth of the sun on her face and view the kites performing their colourful acrobatics in the sky.
Squinting in the sunlight, she surveyed the panoramic view spread out before her. There in the distance was St Paul's Cathedral, pointing up into the sky like a silicone-stuffed Hollywood breast. And