The Chocolate Collection by Trisha Ashley

Author:Trisha Ashley [Trisha Ashley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780008142568
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3: Trashed

My mother’s family moved to Southport from Wales when she was a child. A lot of people think all the Welsh are small and dark, don’t they? But that’s not so, and Mother was tall, fair and very pretty, with a smile like liquid sunshine, while my Lancashire father was the small, dark one! A big store in Southport employed Mother as a mannequin when she left school. Twice a day she was dressed in the latest fashions and driven along Lord Street in an open carriage as an advertisement, and then she would model clothes and hats in the shop, too. This would be some time in the 1880s, I expect.

Middlemoss Living Archive

Recordings: Nancy Bright.

We had a wonderful Christmas, quiet and peaceful, with the world and its worries firmly shut out. At the back of my mind lurked the fear that this might be my last one with Aunt Nan, and I wanted to enjoy each precious moment just in case …

I had some lovely presents. Aunt Nan had knitted me a zipped cardigan in rainbow stripes, Lars sent me a richly coloured carpet bag (something I had always longed for) filled with goodies like chocolates, a purple silk scarf covered in butterflies, and a long string of chunky beads made from semiprecious stones.

I don’t know how he can judge what I will like so exactly, and yet Justin, who is supposed to love me, gets it so wrong. I mean, I never wear matching anything, even a cashmere twinset, and certainly not in taupe, a colour that makes me look like a dead frog.

Lars rang me from New York, where his daughters and grandson, Charlie, were staying with him, to wish me and Aunt Nan Happy Christmas. Then I rang my mother in California, a token gesture Aunt Nan always insisted on, even though I’m not sure Immy remembers who I am half the time. I suppose I should be grateful my name is on her Christmas card list!

I left Justin to ring me, rather than the other way round, since I didn’t want to get Mummy Dearest, but it was so late when he did that I’m sure he had almost forgotten me, which was hurtful … and he’d certainly forgotten what it was I’d given him until I asked him if he liked his white silk aviator scarf and the enormous box of Turkish delight, a particular favourite of his.

Luckily he didn’t ask me if I’d liked the taupe twinset and he didn’t mention the plastic cactus I’d given Mummy Dearest, either …

‘Miss you, darling,’ he said in a perfunctory sort of way, before ringing off.

‘Me too,’ I said, though really I just missed the warm place in my heart where I felt loved and wanted by the old Justin, rather than this new, critical one – and anyway, by then I was talking to empty air.

Timmy who, along with his partner, Joe, was staying with his parents in Ormskirk for Christmas, visited on Boxing Day.

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