Read Online I Should Be So Lucky by Judy Astley - Free Book Online

hundred per cent domestic goddess (in spite, as Miles pointed out as they ate, of being foolhardy enough to opt for pork when there wasn’t an R in the month) and a potential nightmare for any future daughters-in-law. Irons, to Kate’s household men, were things that lived in golf bags and had little knitted Aran hats. She used to tell Viola off for never ironing bedlinen, having once caught her doing a perfunctory fluff-and-fold and piling everything straight into the airing cupboard.
    It wasn’t till the pudding (a chocolate tart, with strawberries, raspberries and clotted cream) was served that the real subject of the gathering at last surfaced for discussion. Viola had been wondering whether Miles or Kate would raise it first. They’d been waiting for their moment. She guessed Naomi felt the same and smiled at her across the table. Naomi winked back.
    Miles always made Viola feel like a pupil who has disappointed a concerned teacher. So far, he’d contributed little to the lunch conversation other than to tell them that his wife Serena was away on a weekend watercolour course and was sorry to miss them all.
    ‘I bet,’ Kate whispered to Viola. ‘Last time it was a bridge cruise. Never home, lucky cow.’
    ‘Now, Viola. I hear you’re moving out of Mum’s flat,’ Miles began, the moment everyone had picked up their spoons, adding with a slow, sad smile, ‘and leaving her on her own.’
    ‘Yea, ’tis true – we’re going home!’ Rachel said.
    Miles, formal in a cream linen suit that somehow didn’t dare crease, and striped tie, turned to her. ‘You needn’t sound so delighted.’ Rachel flinched.
    ‘Why not?’ Marco defended her. ‘She’ll get her own room back and all her stuff out of storage, she can have friends round. What’s
not
to like?’
    ‘Well, it does rather leave a problem, don’t you think?’ Miles leaned forward towards him across the table. The tie threatened to dangle in his pudding. Viola watched it, fascinated, hoping it would. That would challenge her so-older brother’s air of supreme authority.
    Marco put his head on one side and made an exaggerated thinking face. ‘Um … does it?’
    ‘When you pull that face you look like a budgie,’ Kate snapped at him. He winced. ‘This is serious,’ she declared.
    ‘Pudding wine, anyone?’ Rob waved a bottle of Vin Santo.
    ‘Not now, Rob.’ Kate now turned on him. ‘We’re talking.’ She paused, then smiled at Viola.
    ‘Now, Viola, darling,’ she began. ‘Have you really thought this through? Miles and I are thinking your memories of Bell Cottage can’t be happy ones.’
    ‘I’ve already told you, Kate. My memories of living there are more happy than not. We’re going back. Mum’s fine with it.’ She thought fleetingly of Rhys. He’d lived there with her and Rachel for less than a year, and hadn’t added much more to the place than his toothbrush and a
Top Gear
boxed set. ‘He’s not a settler,’ his own mother had warned. ‘Don’t think he won’t wander.’ Oh, he’d wandered all right. Why had the fact he’d promised her he’d changed made her believe he actually
had
? What an idiot she’d been.
    ‘You can’t be OK with this, Mum?’ Kate turned her attention to Naomi. ‘Who’s going to look after you?’
    ‘I’ll look after myself,’ Naomi insisted. ‘I always have. I didn’t need babysitting before Vee and Rachel moved in and I don’t now. Nothing’s changed in the time they’ve been with me. While I can still drive, walk and find my way to the bathroom in good time I’ll be all right.’
    ‘I think Viola’s being very selfish,’ Miles said. ‘She’s had your hospitality for all this time and now you’re getting frailer she’s bailing out.’ He paused. ‘The best thing all round would be for Viola to stay put. Maybe spread out from the flat a bit …’
    ‘Or,’ Marco suggested, ‘you could sell your house, Naomi. Get something easier to manage, blow the rest on gin and toy