Dinner at Rose's by Danielle Hawkins Read Free Book Online Page A

Cilla,’ Hazel protested.
    ‘It’s fine,’ said Cilla politely, though her smile looked a little fixed.
    ‘There’s nothing worse than reminiscences about things you weren’t there for,’ I said. ‘Everyone else is in gales of laughter and you have to sit there and pretend to be interested in some barbecue ten years ago where Uncle Phil undercooked the chicken and gave everyone food poisoning.’
    ‘True,’ agreed Matt, giving Cilla’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘Right, anyone want a hot drink?’

    WE ALL LEFT together. (Matt, despite his mother’s pleading, had declined to move back into the family home on his return from Europe. He lived next door, in the worker’s cottage below the cowshed, and I’m sure that felt quite close enough.) We were accompanied out to our cars by Kim who, in a lightning change of mood, had decided to play the role of Most Charming Hostess.
    ‘Are you alright to drive?’ Matt asked his girlfriend as she opened the door of her enormous silver ute.
    ‘Nice try, Matthew,’ she said, climbing in. Crampons would probably have helped her with the ascent. ‘Lovely evening, everyone. Thanks.’
    We murmured polite goodbyes, and Matt waved as he got in the passenger seat. ‘Hey, Aunty Rose,’ he said, ‘I’ll come and fix that hole in the fence tomorrow if you’ll give me lunch.’
    ‘It's a deal,’ his aunt said promptly.
    Cilla started the ute with a roar, gunned it twice and sped down the driveway in a little shower of gravel.
    ‘ What ,’ said Kim, ‘is he thinking?’
    ‘I don’t know why you’ve got it in for the poor girl, she’s perfectly nice,’ I said, though to be honest I wasn’t quite convinced that she was.
    ‘No she’s not,’ said Kim flatly. ‘She only likes him because he’s a farmer. She thinks he makes a – a good accessory.’
    ‘He’s a big boy,’ said Rose. ‘He can look after himself.’
    Kim sighed. ‘But he’s stuffing everything up. Josie’ll meet someone else if he doesn’t stop mucking around.’
    ‘Just stop it, Kim!’ I said sharply. ‘You’re making everything uncomfortable and embarrassing, and – and Matt’s one of my best friends, and I’d like it to stay that way.’
    ‘Sorry,’ muttered Kim.
    ‘The trouble, Kimlet, is that you’re going about it in completely the wrong way,’ said Aunty Rose, opening the door of her car. ‘If you keep insisting that they were made for each other the silly twits will both just dig their toes in and refuse point blank to admit it, even though you’d think it would be perfectly obvious to anyone with half a brain.’
    ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake !’ I said furiously, storming across the gravel to my car, throwing myself into the driver’s seat and shoving it into gear. This would have made for a much more dramatic exit if I hadn’t found third gear instead of first and promptly stalled.

    I WAS STILL good and mad when I got back to the flat, and I stamped up the steps to the back door. The kitchen and sitting-room lights were still on – Andy really was rebelling to have gone out for the night without switching them off. But when I went into the kitchen he was still there, sitting at the table surrounded by empty beer bottles with his laptop in front of him. It was only nine-thirty, and the restaurant he’d booked for this evening (a terribly upmarket place attached to a boutique hunting lodge that mostly attracted overweight American businessmen who saw no shame in shooting old tame stags in a paddock) was a good forty-minute drive away.
    ‘Didn’t you go out for dinner after all?’ I asked. Aunty Rose would have approved of my choice of words – although pleasing Aunty Rose wasn’t high on my list of priorities just at that moment.
    ‘Nope,’ said Andy, then he tipped half a bottle of Speight’s down his throat, pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘How was your night?’
    ‘Crap.’
    ‘Beer?’ he asked on his way to the fridge, weaving slightly.
    ‘Why