The Vintage Summer Wedding by Jenny Oliver Read Free Book Online Page B

goggle marks. ‘Nothing,’ she said to Hermione.
    ‘Don’t give me that. Who is it? Who have you seen?’
    ‘Luke.’
    ‘Luke Lloyd?’ She could hear the delight in Hermione’s tone. ‘The delightful Mr Lloyd back from saving the world and looking for sex. How marvellous. You must Yes him.’
    Anna shook her head. ‘I’m not going to Yes him. I’m not Yes-ing anyone.’
    ‘Why not? You should meet up with him, show him what he’s missing. Show him what a glamour puss you’ve become.’
    Anna looked down at her dirty cargo shorts and made a face at the idea of ever being referred to as a glamour puss again.
    ‘I couldn’t do it to Seb. ’
    ‘Seb schmeb,’ Hermione sighed. ‘He doesn’t even have to know. Email me a screen shot so I can see Luke.’
    A few minutes later, after some convoluted and irritated instructions from Hermione teaching her how to take a screen shot and then how to email it, they were both staring at the same image.
    ‘He was always a delight. Always. And so exciting. Nettleton would have been unbearable if he hadn’t been around. You should do it, just meet him for coffee.’
    ‘Hermione, I’m engaged.’
    There was a pause. ‘Anna. What did you do today? In fact, don’t tell me, it’ll make me ill. Just think what you would have done had you been here. What are you doing now? Let me tell you what I’m imagining and you can tell me where I’m wrong. Stop me anytime.’ There was a clinking noise as she assumed Hermione was taking a sip of her drink. ‘You’re in that crummy shop and, day to day, maybe one, two people come in. No one buys anything and if they do it’s a ghastly side-table or figurine. Tonight you’ll go home and sit in the garden, the scrap of lawn has possibly been trimmed recently with a Flymo or some other suburban tool. There are bedding plants in various arrays of life and death. Perhaps a fruit tree at the far end, which makes you convince yourself that you’ll make jam at some point and become a domestic goddess when really you’ll get fat and never eat the fruit because it will get some kind of disease or the apples will be too sour. I imagine there are birds tweeting and cows mooing which is all very lovely if you ignore the smell. I know that smell, Anna, I lived with that smell for eighteen years. And I bet your fence is just low enough for some busybody neighbour to stick her head over and say hello, bitch about someone in town or tell you that her colicky baby had her up all night. You haven’t stopped me yet, Anna. Let me think about you. The wine in your fridge is the only white wine you could find in the town, perhaps a Hardys or, if you’re lucky, an Oxford Landing. It’s warm because it’s so fricking hot that you can’t keep it cool enough, and, oooh I know, I bet you’ll lie on one of those ghastly sun-loungers that had brown and orange flowers on it and spiders that live in the metal fold-out posts while Seb watches the rugby or plays on his PlayStation. Am I close?’
    Anna had shut her eyes. ‘He sold the PlayStation.’
    ‘Thank fuck for that.’ Hermione snorted a laugh.
    ‘Shall I tell you what I’m doing? Anna, I’m sitting on the balcony of my flat, the Thames looks beautiful, the sun just catching the water. I can see the Houses of Parliament and the wheel, the sky is red. Actually red, like someone’s squashed a handful of cherries and smeared it over the sky.’
    ‘That’s very artistic.’
    ‘Well I don’t work at Sotheby’s for nothing, darling. I am sitting on an Adirondack chair and I have my feet up on the glass wall of my balcony. And I have next to me a bottle of Bollinger in a cooler and a glass that I am topping up little by little so it doesn’t warm. And, later, my darling, don’t get jealous, I am popping to a party on the top floor of the Gherkin where the alcohol will be free and the Michelin-starred canapés my dinner.’
    ‘OK, that’s enough, thank you.’ Anna watched the marmalade cat