Miranda's Big Mistake - Jill Mansell [136]
`Did you have one?' said Miranda, interested.
`When I was a kid? Oh yes. Mad Aunt Pearl. She'd take me on cat-tracking expeditions.'
`Where you would…?'
`Find a cat and follow it. Wherever it went. Up trees, along walls, through gardens-'
`And cat-flaps,' said Miranda.
`Mad Aunt Pearl was built like a tank. She wouldn't have fitted through a cat-flap.' Danny was smiling, he clearly had fond memories of his eccentric, tank-sized relative. `Oh, but she was great. She used to dress up as a pirate. The neighbours thought she was mad.'
Eccentric, outrageous, certainly not run-of-the-mill AuntPearl was beginning to remind Miranda of someone she knew. She thought, so that's why he gets on so famously with Florence.
`Okay, I'll do it. When Chloe's baby's a bit older, I'll take it on adventures and get my bottom stuck in cat-flaps.' Miranda was beginning to enjoy herself. `And we'll go to the circus together, and the pantomime, oh, and ice-skating… and I'll be able to read to it, all the stories that I used to love when I was little.'
`Which stories did you love when you were little?'
`God, there were loads. The Enchanted Wood,' Miranda remembered. `And all those Laura Ingalls Wilder books. And Flambards, when I was a bit older. Oh, oh, and my absolute favourite was called Footprints in the Snow.'
Danny frowned. `I've never heard of that one.'
`My grandmother gave it to me when I was six. It was the copy she'd had when she was a girl, so it must have been ancient. But I read that book over and over.' Picturing the old-fashioned cover with its sellotaped-together spine. Miranda recited dreamily, `Footprints in the Snow, by Racey Helps. It fell to bits in the end, of course. I remember crying when my mum said we had to throw it out.'
Their cups were empty. Danny was smiling at hei reminiscences. Miranda smiled back at him; this was fun, she could sit here all evening exchanging childhood
'Hell's bells, what's the time?'
He consulted his watch.
`Twenty to seven.'
`I'm meant to be at the hospital by seven!'
Danny stood up.
`My car's just down the road. I'll give you a lift.'
`Typical,' Miranda said drily as they sped through the dusty streets to the Chelsea and Westminster. `I'm so busy telling you what a terrific aunt I'll make that I'm late for my first antenatal class.'
`We'll make it.'
`I'm not even going to have time to make our badges.' Danny shot through a set of traffic lights on amber. `What badges?'
`According to Chloe, all the other women will be with their husbands,' Miranda explained. `I was going to make up a couple of badges saying We Are Not Lesbians.'
Raising his dark eyebrows, Danny chided, `If you're going to be Mad Aunt Miranda you mustn't care what other people think of you. It's your mission in life to get them gossiping behind your back.'
Does he think I'm being prudish and narrow-minded? Is he teasing me, Miranda wondered, or having a bit of a dig?
Right.
`That's all very well,' she retorted smartly, `but a girl has to keep her options open. What if the place is teeming with gorgeous doctors? I wouldn't want to put them off.'
Returning home from work on Saturday evening, Miranda pushed open the front door and sent a small, well-wrapped parcel skidding across the polished parquet floor. Bending to retrieve it, she realised that the parcel bore only her name, not her address.
Both Florence and Chloe were out. In the kitchen Miranda took off her jacket and flicked on the kettle. Then, mystified, she began to unwrap the parcel.
When she tore open the last layer of bubble-wrap, a lump came into her throat.
She was six years old again.
Footprints in the Snow by Racey Helps.
It was the cover she knew so well, with Millicent Littlemouse and Nubby Tope sledging down a snow-covered hill on a basket piled high with sticks.
The very same cover, in the same faded green and beige colours. Only this time the spine wasn't held together wit' yellowing strips of Sellotape.
Opening it with trembling hands, Miranda saw the datc inside: 1946. Then