• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

‘Only last week they were a bit hairy.’

‘What were?’

‘The cakes. That ancient sheepdog of Caro's – Megan – is moulting like billyo, and your mum and I had to brush them off a bit.’ She grinned. ‘Not that the old dears would probably notice, or care.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘And I'm not even sure if some of them eat anything, but they're pleased to see someone, at any rate.’

‘Yes. I bet they are.’

She frowned at my tone; glanced across. ‘What's up?’

I shrugged. ‘Oh, just thinking how good you all are. And you're all so busy. You and Caro, anyway.’

She gave me a look. ‘I'm not good, Evie.’ She turned away, narrowing her eyes into the traffic, which was heavy as usual. ‘But I suppose I'm busy. But you know what they say: ask a busy person…’ She paused. ‘Your mum's busy too, you know. You left her off your list.’

I smiled. ‘I know. Her jogging, her reiki. But yours is proper stuff. Giving lectures, holding seminars, that sort of thing.’

‘Well, each to their own. Don't decry what your mum does, Evie. She's a better person than I'll ever be.’

I struggled with this, as I always did when Felicity praised Mum from the rooftops. She knew what I was thinking. She smiled.

‘The thing is, Evie, you tend to confuse being clever with being nice. It's often not so. The nicest people are often the least intellectual.’

‘The least intelligent.’

‘No, the least academic.’ She looked at me. ‘You've no idea how poisonous clever people can be. Your mother's the complete antithesis of that. That's why I like her so much. She doesn't have a mean bone in her body.’

I nodded. Yes, that much was true.

‘And don't feel guilty about your own lack of Good Works either.’ She swung the car around a mini roundabout and headed off down a suburban street. ‘You have your own problems at the moment.’

‘She told you?’

‘She did.’

‘And?’ I sat up.

‘And what do I think?’

‘Yes.’

We'd pulled up outside a row of tiny bungalows that seemed to stretch on for miles, into infinity. She sighed and turned the engine off. After a moment, she said, ‘I think that if I'd had one child, I'd be the happiest woman alive. If it turned out I had two, like Ant, I'd be delirious.’

I gazed at her. I'd never thought of it like that.

‘And if you were me?’

‘I'd look at it as one and a half. Which is still better than one.’

I swallowed. It occurred to me that Felicity, like Stacey, was an outsider who had integrated into our family. She'd adopted us. As we'd adopted her. And what a success that had been. What a runaway success. My heart began to purr down a runway, to pick up speed, then soar. All the lights went on. I felt alive suddenly, electric: plug me in and I'd light up every bungalow in this street. Yes, look what Felicity had done for our family. She'd made us. Completed us. Complimented us. She, a ‘step’, had so wonderfully extended us.

‘You're right!’ I said, eyes shining as she got out of the car. I sat there for a moment or two in dazed wonder. Then I hurried round to join her at the boot. She handed me two polystyrene boxes. ‘You're right, Felicity, and I'd never looked at it like that. Never thought of her as an asset!’

‘Well, one step at a time. You've yet to meet her, but you're getting the idea. Now. This one for Mrs Carmichael at number six – no fowl – and this one for Mr Parkinson, see the blue spot, no red meat, next door. He's quite a distinguished old boy. Just to give you a flavour, when he filled out his original order form, under “Any Special Dietary Requirements”, he put, “Red meat and good claret.”’

I grinned. ‘Good for him! So what's he getting?’

‘Lentil stew and rice pudding.’

‘Oh.’

‘He's got gout.’

‘Ah.’

As I beetled up the path to his door, I wondered briefly if he'd prefer to be gouty and take his pain relief in the form of a very fine Fonseca '66, or to be pain free and sucking lentils. Mine was not to reason why, though, and anyway, I was miles away. My heart was still up there, at three thousand feet, soaring through the stratosphere, cutting a dash through the