Page 1 of The Price of Love
Chapter One
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‘My grandfather’s left me his nose. It’s in a matchbox.’
The whole bar went quiet (except for Jazz who only goes quiet under the influence of veterinary-strength drugs) as my friends appreciated the embarrassment of my legacy.
‘I’d forgotten it was the day they read the will. Wondered where you were.’ Jazz came over to our table with the drinks, walking carefully in his huge platform boots. His current look was Goth, but the out-of-control hair and enormous shoes made him resemble a member of a heavy metal band training to be a funeral director. ‘I mean, I thought our Friday nights were sacred. In a purely non-religious way, obviously.’ He plonked the tray down, swirled himself onto a stool and the three of us drank in silence for a moment or two.
‘Okay, well, look at it like this.’ Katie, best friend and absolutelytheperson you want to have with you in any crisis, including the unexpected bequest of body parts, eventually patted my arm. ‘You’re no worse off, are you? In fact,’ shescrewed up her face, attempting to put a positive spin on my bequest, ‘wasn’t it always what he called his “lucky nose”?’
She didn’t understand. I’d adored my grandfather. I’d even worked with him on some of his more outrageous inventions and stood on more wooden platforms holding electrical wires than anyone not called Igor. I had stitched, stapled, glued and on one memorable occasion evenweldedparts of myself into some of his contraptions in the interests of scientific advancement — and I got a nose in a matchbox? Admittedly he’d not been a rich man, but he’d promised . . .
‘No,’ I said sadly to Katie, whose benevolent expression was beginning to get on my nerves. ‘I’m no worse off.’
‘Might bring you luck, you never know,’ Jazz said thoughtfully to his pint. And then, appearing to think more deeply about the matter, which might have been an illusion because Jazz and Deep Thinking went together like Labradors and dinner parties, ‘it is, like,preserved, yeah? It’s not all green and runny, is it? ’Cos I’m not sure you’d want the sorta luck that came from something green and runny. Though I suppose it could be, like, you’d never get a cold again. That sort of luck.’
‘Shut up, Jazz.’ Katie and I spoke as one. We spent so long telling Jazz to shut up that it was an automatic response.
‘Of course it’s preserved,’ I added, defensively. Obviously I was taken aback, but I didn’t want my late grandfather to come over as completely demented. ‘He had it embalmed after it got cut off in that bandsaw accident.’
‘I’d hate to see his unlucky nose then.’
‘Jazz, you’ve really got to cultivate that little thing we talked about called tact,’ Katie said. ‘It’s no wonder you only manage to keep girlfriends for three days. Anyway, Will? Willow?’
But I was suffering from what will be, if they ever make the film of my life, an extremely expensive special effect — the whole bar had receded into darkness, and a tunnel of light was all Icould see. A tunnel which began at the newly opened door to the Grape and Sprout, and ended at my feet. It was like a near-death experience, with vodka. I was aware Katie was talking, but her voice had gone far, far away. They may need to use CGI to properly replicate the whole thing.
‘Willow?’ Now Katie was shaking my arm. ‘Are you okay? You’ve gone all pale.’
‘Delayed shock,’ Jazz confidently diagnosed. ‘She needs another drink. Oh, and while you’re up, Kate, I’ll have another pint.’
‘It’s him,’ I said, indistinctly because my tongue got in the way.
Now, before I explain about ‘him’, there are a few things you should know about me, in case you’re ever the casting director when they do my life film. I’m thirty-two, never been married, never had any particularly long-lasting relationships, lived in York all my life, youngest of five kids of hippy parents (hence the name, I got off lightly, you wait until you meet my brothers and sister) and I have this . . . problem. Cameron Diaz could probably play me if she’s prepared to put on four stone, mostly on her bottom. She’s a bit older than me, but I was once told I looked a bit like her, although the person that said it subsequently turned out to need a cataract operation so — yeah, maybe scrub that suggestion. All right. Back to him.
‘Him?’ Thanks, Jazz. Always ready with the unnecessary link.
‘Over there. Just come in. With the two guys in suits. Don’t turn round.’
Both Katie and Jazz swivelled, although at least Katie did it subtly. Jazz got his long leather coat caught in the rotating mechanism of his stool and fell over.
‘Okayyyyy,’ Katie said slowly. ‘But you have to help us on this one, Will. Who exactlyishe?’
‘You’re looking at the guy in the middle, yes? The one with the cheekbones and the stubble? The one with the violet eyes?’
‘You can tell all that from back here? Bloody hell, Will, yeah. That’s the one we’re looking at.’
‘His name is Luke. We . . . I . . . we were at uni together. Surely you remember him, Katie?’
‘He does look a bit familiar.’ Katie screwed up her face again. She and I met at university, where she also met her husband, Dan, and thus never went back to her native Ireland, which was, apparently, not in need of any more English graduates, unless they were also good with cows. She was, therefore, more like an honorary sister than a friend, and when you meet my sister you’ll see why. Lovely woman, Bree, but all the emotional warmth of a packet of fishfingers, and sometimes you just need ice cream and a hug, not a chat about ‘where you went wrong’.
I gave a small cough and Jazz and Katie looked at me. They raised eyebrows at each other, exchanged one more look then picked me up bodily, hands under my armpits. Then they dragged me, feet flailing against the floor like Scooby-Doo in cartoon retreat, and dropped me outside the Sprout in time for me to be heartily sick down the nearest drain.
‘Close one, that time.’ Jazz mopped his face theatrically and rearranged his hair over the collar of his coat. ‘You’re really gonna have to get help y’know, Will.’
‘It wears off,’ I muttered indistinctly from around the large handkerchief I was wiping my mouth with. ‘It’s only the first few times.’
