The Best of Friends by Joanna Trollope

Author:Joanna Trollope [Joanna Trollope]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2008-01-29T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

‘MRS HENNELL SENT an African violet,’ Cath Barnett said. ‘And Mr Paget’s offered to take over the flowerbeds. For now, anyway.’

Doug grunted. He had been to see Dan in hospital twice but he couldn’t persuade Cath to go.

‘You’re not to blame,’ he said over and over again. ‘If people are going to have heart attacks, they have them anyhow, even lying in bed without a care in the world.’

‘Mrs Sitchell doesn’t think that.’

‘You wouldn’t expect her to.’

‘She’s making models of me out of candle wax, I bet you, and putting them in drawers, stuck full of pins.’

‘Well,’ Doug said comfortably, stubbing out a cigarette, ‘we’ll soon know that, won’t we? When your leg drops off.’

Cath went to the window overlooking the courtyard and lifted the net curtain.

‘This was such a happy place—’

‘Don’t get morbid—’

‘Oh look,’ Cath said, ‘there’s that poor child.’

Doug lifted his head. Under Cath’s upraised arm, he could see Sophy Bedford, dressed in jeans and an immense navy-blue sweatshirt. She’d pinned her hair up and it made her neck look startlingly long.

‘Nice to see someone young—’

‘I think Mrs Sitchell’s out. At the hospital. I’ll go and tell her.’

Doug spread out the newspaper at the racing page.

‘Bring her back, Cath. Bring her back for a coffee.’

He looked down at the paper. There was an evening meeting at York. He’d be glad when the flat season was over and the jumping began again – there was more excitement in jumping. Through the window he could see Cath – heavens, the contrast with Sophy made Cath look a right roly-poly and she shouldn’t really wear leggings, not with thighs like those – with her hand on Sophy’s shoulder. Sophy was a bit taller than Cath and seemed to be standing rather straighter than usual, with her head up in a way Doug would have called defiant in anyone else. She was smiling at Cath but it was a small smile, a courtesy smile. Pretty girl, Doug thought, or at least very nearly, with her hair piled up like that, all casual and soft. Cath often said she thought Sophy had too much to cope with, for her age, but Doug disagreed. He thought you could never learn too early what a right sod life could be, and how best you could cope with it and stay afloat. Look at him and Cath, all those years and years of no-hope jobs or no jobs at all and dismal council flats or bed-and-breakfast hotels. This was the best job they’d ever had, and the best accommodation, and it had taken them until they were over fifty to get it. At least a girl like Sophy Bedford had started in some style, had never had to share a lavatory with eleven other people or feel that life would never be anything better or more interesting than a long series of wet Monday mornings.

He saw Sophy move away from Cath a little, and Cath’s hand fall from her shoulder. Then Cath came back towards

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