How Not To Fall In Love, Actually by Catherine Bennetto

Author:Catherine Bennetto [Bennetto, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471160011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

‘EMMA! MY KEY DOESN’T WORK!’

I opened my eyes. I was nose-to-nose with a bare-chested Joe. His dark lashes quivered on his cheeks. The digital alarm clock on the nightstand the other side of him said 6.41 a.m.

‘EMMA, WAKE UP YOU LAZY TART AND HELP ME OUT OF THIS BLOODY TREE!’

Mum?

I propped myself up on my elbows. Through the triangular loft window I saw my mother dangling like a marionette from an oak tree, seemingly by the waistband of her designer jeans.

‘MUM?!’ I shrieked, struggling under the weight of my baby bump to sit up.

Joe woke, disorientated. ‘What’s going—?’ He stopped as he saw the madwoman hanging from the tree and frantically beckoning me outside.

On seeing the half-naked man next to me, Mum stopped squirming and her mouth fell open. Before I could explain that the woman in the tree in suede Valentinos was, in fact, my mother, and was as mad as a box of frogs that fell down the stairs, the phone next to the bed rang.

‘Hello?’ I said, holding my hand up to Mum to wait.

She dropped her arms to her sides, exasperated, then reached into the handbag dangling on her wrist and started fiddling with her BlackBerry.

‘EMMA, MY GIRL,’ bellowed Arthur from next door. ‘I DON’T MEAN TO ALARM YOU BUT THERE’S A WOMAN IN THE TREE OUTSIDE YOUR HOUSE. HARRIET WANTS TO SET BRUTUS ON HER, BUT – OH, LOOK, HARRIET, IT’S DIANA. SHE SEEMS TO BE ON THE PHONE.’

‘What a strange place to take a call,’ Joe said. ‘Who is that?’

‘Arthur, I am so sorry—’

‘SPEAK UP, GIRL. IT’S NO USE MUMBLING!’

Still loath to yell at an old man, and one in a wheelchair, no less, I raised my voice. ‘IT’S JUST MY MUM, MR SPENCER—’

‘Your mother?’ Joe jumped out of bed and took off down the stairs.

‘Joe, wait!’

‘WHAT WAS THAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU!’

‘Nothing. Mr Spencer, I have to get my mother down—’

‘HARRIET, THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE LINE.’

‘I’LL SPEAK TO YOU LATER!’ I hung up, waddled down the stairs and out the back door before Brutus bounded over the wall and got Mum’s Gucci tote in his maw. Brutus would certainly come off worst in the event of a fight over a handbag. I rounded the side of the cottage, my bare feet cold on the brick path, and found my mother on the phone, her palm up to Joe in a ‘wait a moment’ stance. Joe grinned.

‘Shut up.’

‘I didn’t say anything,’ Joe said, noticeably appreciating the bizarre start to the day.

He waved up at the Spencers, framed in their bedroom window. Harriet, in her quilted nightgown, adjusted her camera angle; Arthur peered over the windowsill.

‘Mum, get down.’

‘Oh, no, not brocade again.’ Mum covered the mouthpiece and whispered, ‘Darling, I’ll just be one minute, run inside and put the kettle on.’

Joe sniggered. I punched him.

‘I know, darling . . . Bastards . . . Florence, tell them Florence . . . I know, darling. I know . . . I’ll fly out next week.

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