Читать книгу The Breakdown онлайн | страница 7

As I get to the end I find myself frowning – why was Rachel checking to see if I’d bought Susie a present? I hadn’t, not yet, because with the run-up to the end of the school year I’d been too busy. Anyway, the party isn’t until tomorrow evening and I’d been planning to go shopping in the morning to buy her something. I read the message again and, this time, the words ‘the gift’ rather than ‘a gift’ jump out at me, because it sounds as if Rachel is expecting me to have bought something from the two of us.

I think back to the last time I saw her. It had been about two weeks ago, the day before she’d left for New York. She’s a consultant in the UK division of a huge American consultancy firm, Finchlakers, and often goes to the US on business. That evening, we’d gone to the cinema together and then on for a drink. Maybe that was when she’d asked me to get something for Susie. I rack my brains, trying to remember, trying to guess what we might have decided to buy. It could be anything – perfume, jewellery, a book – but nothing rings a bell. Had I forgotten? Memories of Mum, uncomfortable ones, flood my mind and I push them away quickly. It isn’t the same, I tell myself fiercely, I am not the same. By tomorrow, I’ll have remembered.

I stuff my phone back in my bag. Matthew’s right, I need a break. If I could just relax for a couple of weeks on a beach, I’d be fine. And Matthew needs a break too. We hadn’t had a honeymoon because we’d been busy renovating our cottage so the last time I’d had a proper holiday, the sort where you do nothing all day but lie on a beach and soak up the sun, was before Dad died, eighteen years ago. After, money had been too tight to do anything much, especially when I’d had to give up my job as a teacher to care for Mum. It was why, when I discovered shortly after she died, that rather than being a penniless widow, she was in fact wealthy, I was devastated. I couldn’t understand why she’d been content to live with so little when she could have lived in luxury. I was so shocked I’d barely heard what the solicitor was saying, so that by the time I managed to grasp how much money there was I could only stare at him in disbelief. I’d thought my father had left us with nothing.