Page 12 of A December to Remember
“It’s a solicitor in Rowan Thorp. I’ve been summoned to hear Augustus’s will being read.”
“That’s a bit old-fashioned, isn’t it? I didn’t think gathering for will readings was a thing these days. How very Agatha Christie! Rather intriguing, isn’t it?”
Simone was frowning at the small print. “Doesn’t look like I can get out of it.”
“Surely you wouldwantto go?” said Evette, her head quirked to one side.
“Why?” She was sure these formalities could be done via email, or Zoom if Vanessa was going to be really picky.
“Don’t you want to hear your dad’s final words?”
She sighed. Of course she did. Augustus hadn’t been a traditional parent in any sense of the word, but he was kind and she had loved him and now he was dead. The problem here was that she was already replete with sadness and if she let in the loss of her father as well, she might lose the control she’d fought so hard to maintain.
Instead of telling Evette the truth, she rolled her eyes. “My father never said a sensible thing in his life.”
“For your sisters, then.” Evette searched her face as though trying to find her wife hiding behind the eyes of this imposter.
She gave a derisive snort. “I don’t have much choice, do I? I’ll book a room at the pub we stayed in for the funeral. I only need to be there for one night.”
Evette fell quiet and then said, “Maybe you should look at doing an Airbnb; there’s plenty of little holiday cottages around there. You could stay a bit longer. Have a little break.”
“What do you mean stay a bit longer? A little break from what?” She could feel the dread rising up into her throat, cold and thick. She swallowed and waited for the blow that she’d been dodging for the last six months.
“A little break from us,” said Evette gently, tears brimming. “If we don’t have some time apart now, I fear we’ll be looking at something more difficult later.” She reached up and rested her palm softly against Simone’s cheek. “I don’t want that.”
“We promised this wouldn’t break us,” Simone challenged.
Evette smiled sadly. “That was before we knew how hard it would be. For me, Simone. Take a break.”
Star bumped thedrawstring laundry bag down the stairs and rested it against the bulging rucksacks, the battered pull-along carryall, and the scuffed guitar case: her worldly belongings.
“I am sorry.” Mr. Cavell looked pained, and for a moment Star wondered if he was going to cry.
“It’s okay,” she soothed. “I completely understand.”
“But I have other tenants. The noise. The shouting. The older residents are frightened.”
“Honestly, Mr. Cavell, it’s okay.” She gave him her most reassuring smile. She’d never been evicted with so much remorse. And she’d been evicted a lot.
She’d been renting a nice room, one of the better places she’d lived in, in a tall Victorian mansion house share in Bradford. There were twelve other tenants in the building; some of them had bedsits, and others, like her, had rooms with shared bathroom and kitchen facilities. She had enjoyed a peaceful existence in this place; she got on well with the other residents andnobody tried to sell her drugs or get her into bed. Unfortunately, Stu wanted to rekindle their relationship and living arrangements.
“How did a nice girl like you get mixed up with a man like him, anyway?” asked Mr. Cavell.
Star liked the way that Mr. Cavell always referred to her as a “nice girl” even though she was thirty-eight. She still felt like she was twenty—Simone would say she behaved as though she were twelve—and she didn’t look a day over twenty-five; she was like her dad in that way, never looking her age. She huffed out a sigh.
“Because I never learn. And because I thought that if I could make Stu happy enough, he wouldn’t need to use drugs to make himself feel better.”
The way Mr. Cavell looked at her then made her realize why he thought of her as a girl.
She slapped her forehead and shook her head. “Trust me, when I say it aloud, I realize how stupid it sounds.”
“And why did he go to prison?”
“That’s a longer story.” She smiled sadly.
“Cup of tea before you set off?” He smiled hopefully and pushed open the door to his ground-floor flat. Gossip was Mr. Cavell’s lifeblood. If she told her landlord about her disastrous relationship with Stu, it would be all over the building by the end of the week. But what did it matter? In an hour she’d be gone, and if gossiping gave the lonely old man an excuse to talk to people, then who was she to deny him some juicy tidbits?
“Why not?” She smiled.
