Just Between Us. Cathy KellyЧитать онлайн книгу.
haven’t.’ Alastair’s wife, Angela, who had followed him from the party, sounded insulted.
Her husband grinned and took her hand in his. ‘Sorry, darling. There are two sensible people in the rabble.’
‘What about us?’ said Stella, grinning and gesturing at herself and Holly.
Hugh ushered Alastair out the door. ‘Get out of here before you get lynched, Alastair. You know we can never say the right thing with women.’
Slowly, the guests went home and the family were left alone. Glasses and crumpled up napkins littered every available surface and Stella sighed at the thought of clearing it all up. Parties were wonderful but the aftermath was not.
‘I’ll get started here,’ Rose said, picking up a tray. ‘We don’t need to leave for midnight mass for another ten minutes.’
‘No, you won’t,’ said Stella firmly, taking the tray from her mother. ‘You have a rest and beautify yourself. I don’t have to get ready, so I can do this.’ She was staying at home with Amelia who, despite begging to be allowed up with the grown-ups, was fast asleep in bed.
For once, Rose acquiesced. ‘Thanks, Stella love.’
‘Mummy, is it time?’ said a sleepy voice from the doorway. Amelia, eyes crinkled with tiredness, stood there fully dressed in purple corduroy trousers and an embroidered lilac jumper. She must have been awoken by the sounds of people leaving. ‘I’m a big girl now, can’t I go with you?’
Rose sat with her family in a middle pew of the soaring Kinvarra cathedral and stared at the altar. Amelia leaned against Rose with her eyes half-closed.
‘Grown-ups get to go to see Baby Jesus in the crib for the first time,’ she’d said miserably earlier. ‘Why can’t I go? Becky and Shona get to go. I’m not a baby.’
‘You’ll be too tired,’ Stella had said.
‘I won’t,’ Amelia was insistent.
‘She wants to,’ Rose said, ‘why not let her. You can sit beside me, Amelia, and we’ll cuddle.’
Amelia had sat wide-eyed and alert beside her grandmother at first but now tiredness was getting to her. Even the thought of seeing the Baby Jesus in his crib couldn’t keep her awake and she snuggled into Rose’s soft camelhair good coat.
On the other side of Rose sat Holly, who didn’t look terribly awake either. Holly leaned in the direction of her father, who sat at the edge of the pew. She adored her father, Rose knew, and was closer to him than she was to Rose. In times of trouble, Holly had always run to Hugh.
From the corner of her eye, Rose could see her husband’s proud head, his bearing upright and proper even at midnight. Hugh looked as if he was concentrating totally on the service, although Rose knew from experience that Hugh’s mind could be miles away however attentive he looked.
Rose knew that her eyes always gave her away if she didn’t pay attention, no matter how carefully she schooled her expression. She stared at the altar and thought about the phone call that had exploded into her Christmas Eve party like a hand grenade.
It was a miracle she’d heard the phone at all, what with the noise of the guests and the sound of Sinatra crooning old hits.
‘I’m looking for Hugh,’ said the voice on the phone. A woman.
‘Well, hold on…’ Rose had picked up the phone in the hallway so she carried it a few yards so she could look into the living room. She could see Hugh’s silver head towering above most of their guests. He was in the middle of a group of people near the piano and she couldn’t really interrupt him. She hoped Hugh didn’t start a singsong. It always took hours to persuade people to sing and twice as long to shut them up. Nobody would leave until the wee, small hours if the piano got going.
‘I’m afraid Hugh can’t come to the phone right now,’ she said politely. ‘Can I take a message?’ Even as she said it, Rose thought how odd it was that any caller to their home wouldn’t recognise who she was and say ‘Hello, Rose.’ Unless it was business, of course, and it could hardly be a business call at ten o’ clock on Christmas Eve.
‘I need to speak to him.’ The woman was insistent and there was something else in her voice, something Rose couldn’t quite identify.
‘We’re having a party,’ Rose explained, still polite. ‘I can’t get him for you now. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to leave a message? If it’s an urgent legal matter, I can give you the number of someone else from Miller and Lowe.’ She’d picked up a pen by now, ready to write a message on the notepad, although she couldn’t imagine anything so urgent it would require legal assistance right now.
‘No message,’ the woman said silkily. ‘It’s not business. Thank you.’
Rose stood listening to the dial tone. She put the receiver back slowly.
Holly was coming downstairs with some coats. ‘Are you all right, Mum?’ she asked urgently. ‘Was that bad news? It’s not something wrong with Tara, is it?’
‘Nothing like that.’ Rose managed a faint smile. ‘Just a mistake. Now, I must rush and check the oven.’ She flew into the kitchen, shut the door and sat down on the bench seat under the picture window, feeling a cold sweat emerge all over her body. She knew what had been nagging her about the woman’s voice, she knew the unidentified ingredient: mockery.
At noon on Christmas Day, Stella and Amelia drove to Adele’s house to pick her up for lunch. Amelia, thrilled to have got a bumper haul from Santa, not to mention a pink typewriter from the absent Tara and Finn, could only be torn away from her new possessions with bribery.
‘Aunt Adele has your present under her tree and she might forget it if you don’t come with me to pick it up,’ Stella had said disingenuously.
‘Sure, Mum,’ said Amelia, instantly getting up from where she was laboriously typing her name for the tenth time. ‘What did she get me?’
Rose and Stella’s eyes met.
‘Something lovely, I’m sure,’ Rose reassured her.
Hugh would have gone with them but he’d woken up with a sore throat and was sitting in front of the box with his feet up, being mollycoddled by Holly.
Adele had been at a special carol service the previous evening, which was why she’d missed the drinks party. Now, vexation at having missed the festivities made her sharp-tongued.
‘I suppose last night was the big event of the season,’ she snapped as soon as Stella and Amelia stepped inside her hall door. ‘I’m sure your mother outdid herself, as usual.’
Stella told herself to count to ten. No, she reflected, make that a hundred.
‘The party was lovely, Aunt Adele,’ she said evenly. ‘We missed you.’
Adele harumphed a bit. ‘I’ll get my handbag,’ she said, beetling off. ‘The presents are in the living room, Stella. You can manage them, I imagine.’
A Mount Everest of parcels sat on the living room floor. Stella sighed, thinking of dragging them all out to the car. Adele always bought big, un-Christmassy things like frying pans and fake bamboo magazine racks that she liked the look of in catalogues. Over the years, Stella had received two trays specially designed for use in bed and at least three decorative tea towels covered with slogans about the kitchen being the heart of the home.
‘Can I open mine now?’ whispered Amelia, dropping to her knees to check the labels.
‘Better not,’ said Stella.
In the car, Adele thawed out a bit but the ice shield went back up when she got to Meadow Lodge and saw the hall table groaning under the weight of a huge bouquet of flowers which one of the previous evening’s guests had brought for Rose. Too late, Stella saw Adele reading the card, eyes narrowed as she scanned the message full