Summer With My Sister by Lucy Diamond Read Free Book Online

Grace Berry had made her way into the world in their warm, candlelit kitchen, the heart of the home. When she’d finally slipped between Clare’s legs into the pool, Clare had pulled her up through the water to take her first breaths. ‘Hello,’ she’d said, half-laughing, half-crying as she clasped her baby’s soft, wet head against her body. ‘It’s me, it’s Mummy. Hello.’
    Tears appeared in Clare’s eyes at the memory and she smiled across at her girl, that baby who’d grown up into this bewitching creature with such a cloud of blonde dandelion-fluff hair, cat-like green eyes and freckles like fairy kisses all across her nose. Her girl, who’d been with her in the world for ten years now. She hugged her with a sudden fierceness. ‘Happy birthday, darling,’ she said.
    ‘Uh-oh,’ Alex warned. ‘Mum’s getting all soppy. Here we go: boo-hoo, wah-wah.’ He scrunched his hands into fists and pretended to rub his eyes like a toddler. Everyone laughed, and Clare ruffled his hair.
    ‘Thank goodness we’ve got this cake to stop me blubbing,’ she joked. ‘Who wants a slice, then?’
    ‘Me!’ chorused the children with such gusto that Clare’s dad, Graham, pretended he’d gone deaf in one ear.
    ‘Flipping ’eck,’ he grumbled. ‘That was almost as loud as Grandma’s snores. Better make it a big slice for me, I need something sweet for the shock.’
    Karen, Clare’s long-suffering mum, rolled her eyes. ‘Ignore grumpy Grandad,’ she told everyone. ‘He’s telling porkies again; I think he’s losing his marbles in his old age. I’d love a slice, please, Clare. It’s not every day your eldest granddaughter hits double figures now, is it?’
    ‘It’s not,’ Clare agreed. She was planning to have a massive wedge of cake herself; Debbie was brilliant at baking. Sod the image of denim shorts flashing past her eyes. Sod her bumpy, cellulite-pocked thighs and her soft, squidgy belly that would never be bared in a bikini again. It was a special day, and special days required cake. And so far, today had gone remarkably well. Somehow or other (via Debbie, probably) Jay Holmes, the village wide-boy, had heard that Clare was after a bike for Leila’s birthday and had turned up last night with a rather knackered-looking girl’s chopper.
    ‘I know it’s not much to look at right now,’ he’d said apologetically as Clare’s eyes flickered doubtfully over the tatty blue paintwork, spattered with mud, and the worryingly balding front tyre. ‘But I reckon we could do it up between us, don’t you?’
    ‘What – now?’ Clare had asked, unconvinced.
    He’d shrugged. ‘Why not? We can scrub her up, and I’ve got some old bits of paint we could use: lilac, rose, turquoise . . .’ He pulled them out of a carrier bag like a conjuror producing rabbits. ‘Worth a go, isn’t it?’
    ‘And how much is this going to cost me?’ Clare asked, folding her arms across her chest, leaning against the doorjamb. Knowing Jay, he wasn’t doing this out of the goodness of his heart.
    He shrugged. ‘Fifty quid? Forty-five, if you help clean it up.’
    Clare hesitated. Forty-five pounds was going to be a stretch. ‘Forty?’ she tried.
    He thrust his hand towards her all too keenly; she immediately wished she’d started the bargaining at ten pounds lower. ‘Done,’ he said, pumping her hand up and down. The porch light was reflected in his dark eyes, like sparkles. He was good-looking, Jay, if you liked that sort of thing. Clare didn’t. He was too rough and ready for her, too unshaven and scruffy, with black wavy hair that was well overdue a cut, and a hole in his jeans. ‘Are you going to let me in then, or are you going to leave me standing out here all night?’
    She laughed. Four years older than her, Jay was a charmer, and she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, but you couldn’t help liking him all the same. ‘Go round the back,’ she said. ‘I’m not having this muddy thing