by Jill Mansell
“I haven’t the faintest idea who some of these people are,” Suzy marveled. As the organist led them with a flourish into the final verse, she peered past Maeve, trying to make out the features of a shadowy figure standing right at the back of the chapel, next to the double doors.
All Suzy could see was someone in a big trilby-style hat and a long dark coat. The hat was tilted forward at such an angle that it wasn’t even possible to tell whether the mourner was male or female. Deeply frustrated, Suzy resisted the urge to stick her fingers in her mouth and give a shrill whistle, forcing whoever it was to look up. Anyway, she didn’t need to do that, the service was almost over. Any minute now they’d all be filing outside and Thingy-in-the-Trilby would be lining up to shake her hand and offer the usual condolences.
And learning who they were was bound to be a big letdown anyway, like unwrapping a thrilling-looking Christmas present and discovering it was a vacuum cleaner. If Trilby’s a man, Suzy decided, he’ll turn out to be one of Blanche’s hairdressers. If it’s a woman, she’ll be someone who once worked in the local convenience store.
“…the Lord God made them all,” bellowed the vicar, concluding the final chorus. There was a moment of silence, broken only by one of Julia’s semi-stifled sobs, then the organist began to play something altogether more subdued, and the vicar held a solicitous arm out to his front row, indicating that they should lead the way out.
Rory went first. Then Julia, dabbing at her eyes with a black lace-trimmed handkerchief. Suzy, last out of the pew, found it hard to believe it was still possible to buy handkerchiefs edged with black lace. Julia must have trimmed the damn thing herself.
Then she cheered up, diverted by the thought that now she could start matching up faces with who had been who in her mother’s life.
That middle-aged woman over there, for instance, noisily blowing her nose… Ah, yes, seen her before. She’s a member of the bridge club.
And what about that young, rather good-looking guy hovering next to the fire exit? Hang on, wasn’t it her mother’s milkman? Good heavens, was it usual for milkmen to attend their customers’ funerals?
And sob?
Oh well, that was Blanche for you, thought Suzy as she progressed slowly down the aisle. People who didn’t know her that well thought she was great; she’d always been far better at cultivating new friendships than old ones.
Ah, they’d reached the double doors. Suzy searched rapidly among the stragglers at the back for Trilby.
Without success.
Whoever was under that dashing hat had already gone.
* * *
The post-funeral gathering, held at Blanche’s house in Sneyd Park, went on well into the evening.
“That bridge club of mother’s can certainly put it away,” Rory told Suzy as he squeezed past, armed with fresh supplies of Scotch.
Suzy discovered Julia panicking in the kitchen. To cheer her up, Suzy said, “Have you seen Margot from across the street chatting up Mum’s lawyer? Honestly, that woman’s not safe to be let out.”
“I can’t find any oven gloves. Where does Mummy keep the oven gloves?” Julia, stressed out and tearful, was counting the minutes before she could take her next Valium. “The vol-au-vents are burning, and I can’t get them out of the oven, and I just want everyone to go home and leave us in peace.”
Poor Julia. The funeral had been a huge ordeal for her, Suzy realized. As well as the grief, there was all the funeral etiquette to be abided by.
“Come on, sit down.” Feeling sorry for her elder sister, Suzy steered her gently onto a chair, poured her a glass of wine, and switched off the oven. “Don’t worry about the food; they’ve had more than enough. I’m going to start kicking everyone out now. And there’s no reason why Douglas has to read the will tonight—we’ll send him home and schedule a meeting at his office for the end of the week.”
Douglas Hepworth came into the kitchen with Rory at that moment. Having overheard her words, he blinked nervously at Suzy from behind his owlish glasses and made the mini shrugging gesture he always made when he was anxious about something.
“Ah, to be honest, I’d rather get it sorted out tonight. Your mother specifically requested it… Ummm, there is a reason…”
More mini shrugs. Suzy decided it was his way of unsticking his polyester shirt from his plump, perspiring shoulders. Douglas wore the look of someone who’d really rather not be here this evening. Clearly, something was up. Determined to go out with a bang, Blanche had no doubt made some weird arrangements for her estate. Suzy could just imagine the terms and conditions her mother would have had such fun compiling. If Julia wanted to inherit her share of the money, for instance, she’d first have to roller-skate naked down Park Street…and Rory would have to drive around Clifton in a battered truck, wearing a knit cap and gorilla slippers…
Or would Mum make me do that?
Then again, maybe it wasn’t anything to do with terms and conditions. It could be Douglas’s unhappy task to inform them that they weren’t getting anything at all, that their mother had left the lot to a tribe of Amazonian Indians.
Or a blind-donkey sanctuary.
Nothing was impossible where Blanche was concerned.
“It’s nine o’clock.” Rory checked his watch. “Suzy’s right; they can start making a move.”
“But that’s so rude,” wailed Julia.
“Has she not left us any money?” Suzy asked Douglas, who was also surreptitiously glancing at his watch.
“Oh, no… I mean, yes… don’t worry.” Shrug shrug. “It’s nothing like that.”
One of the butch bridge club women popped her head around the door.
“Any chance of another couple of bottles of single malt?”
Julia, the perfect hostess, wiped her eyes and rose obediently to her feet. Suzy placed a hand on her shoulder and guided her back down onto the chair.
“I’m so sorry, did you miss it?” She smiled her most charming smile at the woman in the doorway. “We called last orders ten minutes ago. The bar’s closed.”
* * *
One by one the guests kissed and hugged everyone in sight, told one another they’d given Blanche a send-off she would have been proud of, stumbled into an assortment of cars and taxis, and roared off into the night.
“I’ll make some coffee,” said Rory when the last of them had been dispatched. He closed the front door and loosened his black tie.
“If you’d excuse me for just one moment,” Douglas said damply, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, “I need to make a quick call.”
He retired discreetly to the conservatory. Julia, heaving a massive sigh of relief, said, “Give me five minutes to freshen up,” and headed upstairs in the direction of the bathroom.
The air in the drawing room was opaque with cigarette smoke. When Suzy flung open the French windows, it tumbled out like an avalanche of ectoplasm. In contrast, the night air was cool and clear, and a light rain pattered down through the trees.
Kicking off her high heels, Suzy stepped outside onto the paved terrace, felt the first raindrops land on her face and throat, and set off down the garden.
Just a quick circuit, to clear the industrial quantities of smoke from her lungs and brace herself for whatever Douglas had in store. And it gave her feet a chance to cool down too. It had, after all, been a long day spent in particularly ruthless stilettos.
In fact, now that she’d taken them off, her feet were so grateful they seemed to want to dance around like spring chickens.
Skip, skip.
Ah, that was better. You could almost say her feet were cock-a-hoop.
Skip, skip.
Free as birds, skippety skip, happy as—
CRUNCH.
“Oh God oh God oh God,” howled Suzy, feeling sick.
Cringing and holding her left foot as far away
from the rest of her as possible, she hopped up and down on the path and hung on to the overhanging branch of a weeping cherry for support.
“What is it?” an alarmed voice blurted out of the darkness. A figure stepped out from behind the trunk of the cherry tree. “Are you hurt?”
A pair of warm hands grabbed hold of Suzy’s arms. Which was lucky. Otherwise, she would have keeled over in shock.
“I’m not hurt. I stepped on a snail.” Suzy’s heart was racing. “What about you? Are you a burglar?”
“No.”
“Who then?”
A moment’s silence. Broken by “Can’t you guess?”
Baffled, Suzy said, “Of course I can’t guess.”
“OK, look, why don’t we sort you out first?” It was a female voice, husky and awkward. “I’m sorry, but I can’t concentrate on anything while you’ve got bits of snail stuck to your foot.”
She had a point, whoever she was. Hopping around in the blackness, Suzy managed to unclip her suspender and peel off the sheer stocking in one go. Shuddering with revulsion, she flung it—snail remains and all—into a nearby hydrangea bush. Then, leaning back against the rough trunk of the cherry tree, she peered more closely at her intruder.
It was too dark to see her face, but there was certainly something familiar about the silhouette.
And the long coat.
“You were at the funeral this afternoon.”
She saw the head dip in agreement. “Yes.”
“You left before the end.”
“That’s right.”
“Why?” Suzy was fascinated by the clicking noises made each time the girl nodded—what was she wearing, maracas for earrings? “And why didn’t you come back to the house afterward with everyone else?”
“I didn’t think I should.”
“I’m sorry; I don’t get this at all.”
“I didn’t want to cause any trouble, upset you any more than you were already… I mean, the last thing any of us needs is a big dramatic scene in front of an audience.”
The girl’s voice was unsteady, almost fearful. Totally flummoxed. Suzy ran through a few unlikely scenarios in her mind. Suddenly recalling the plot of a movie she had seen the other week, she exclaimed, “Good grief! Are you trying to tell me my mother was a lesbian?”
This question was greeted by an astonished silence. At least, Suzy hoped it was an astonished one. It was possible, of course, that it was the kind of disappointed silence emitted by someone who didn’t expect you to guess the right answer so soon.
Eek, Blanche a lesbian. Surely not.
The mysterious clicking noises began again, but this time, the girl appeared to be shaking her head from side to side.
Well, that was a relief anyway.
“I can’t believe this. You must know who I am.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Suzy protested, “but what am I supposed to be—Psychic Suzy, Mind Reader Extraordinaire? Look, we could do it with charades if you want. You start with your name. First word, how many syllables? Hang on, somebody’s coming…”
At the sound of approaching footsteps she swiveled around. The next moment a bright flashlight shined directly into her eyes. Dazzled and blinking, Suzy held up one hand to shield herself from the light.
And a stunned male voice said, “I don’t believe it. Jesus!”
This situation was fast becoming too weird for words. Suzy felt her heart begin to flap like a parrot in a cage. She might be blinded by the flashlight, but she recognized that voice at once.
“Harry?” Shock made her babble. “Heavens, of all the gardens in all the world you had to walk into this one. Harry, I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re doing here, but you’re interrupting a really important game of charades. You can be on my team, OK?”
This had to be some kind of elaborate setup, Suzy decided. A ploy to meet her again. Unless…and bearing in mind that he was, after all, a policeman…
“Hang on, is this an undercover operation?” Suzy swung back to face the girl. “Do you work with Harry?” She smiled. “Or are you an international drug smuggler?”
Harry held up a phone.
“I’ve been waiting for you to come back to the car.” He was addressing the girl, Suzy realized. “He just called a couple of minutes ago. It’s time to go in.”
Going in, that definitely had an undercover ring to it. Maybe the girl was a fellow officer after all.
Next to her, Suzy heard the girl take a deep breath.
“Right.” She turned to face Suzy. “I’m Lucille.”
“What?” Suzy mentally ran through the possibilities, charade-wise. Loo. Seal. Well, that would have been dead easy.
“Lucille Amory.”
Suzy gazed blankly at her. It was clearly meant to mean something, but she couldn’t for the life of her imagine what.
“I’m sorry, I’m usually terrific at names. Could you…?”
“Your sister,” Lucille said awkwardly.
Suzy laughed. “What?”
Her sister’s name was Julia, for heaven’s sake.
Harry, clearing his throat, said, “I think maybe we should go in.”
Chapter 4
It wasn’t until Suzy was standing aside to allow Lucille through the French windows ahead of her that she realized where the clicking had been coming from. Hundreds of tiny beads, threaded among the dozens of plaits in her hair, made contact with one another every time the girl moved her head.
Lucille’s skin was the color of Taster’s Choice made with double cream. Her eyes were chestnut brown. She looked nervous but stunning, like a young model making her debut on the catwalk.
“This is a joke, right?” Suzy glanced from Lucille to Harry and back again. “Did Jaz set this up?” Far-fetched, admittedly, but Jaz may have thought they could do with a practical joke to lighten the mood.
But if he had, wouldn’t Lucille be screaming with laughter by now instead of trembling uncontrollably and looking as if she’d quite like to burst into tears?
She’s got eyelashes like Bambi, thought Suzy. Now how fair is that?
The door was flung open, and Julia appeared. Her gaze shifted from Suzy’s legs to Harry to Lucille. “Who are these people?”
Glancing down, Suzy remembered that she had one bare leg and one stockinged one. When she moved, she felt the redundant suspender flapping attractively against the back of her thigh.
“This is Lucille. Our sister, apparently. Technically, she’s a half sister. And all this time we thought darling Daddy was such a saint. Oh well, good for him. That’s what I say.” Suzy paused briefly and gestured at Harry. “And this is Harry. He’s a policeman. I’m afraid I don’t have a clue what he’s doing here. Unless, of course, he’s our brother.” Eek. “Oh God, you aren’t, are you?”
Harry was giving her an odd look.
“Lucille’s my friend. I’m just here to give her some moral support. Believe me, when we came here tonight, I had no idea I was going to see you.”
“Daddy would never have an affair,” Julia quavered, outraged. “Never. This girl’s lying through her teeth!”
“Your father didn’t have an affair,” said Lucille. “Blanche was my mother. Look, I’m sorry; this isn’t easy for me either.” Catching her breath, she looked with ill-concealed longing at the drink clutched in Julia’s thin hand. “I really thought you knew.”
* * *
Suzy realized it was true the moment Douglas Hepworth broke the silence. Bustling past them into the drawing room with his briefcase clutched importantly in his pudgy hand, he ignored Julia’s thunderstruck expression, plonked himself down in the leather armchair, and said brusquely to Lucille, “Good to see you, glad you could make it. Right then, if everyone’s here, I’d like to begin.”
It was will reading in the style of a smash and grab. Dougla
s, keen not to let himself become embroiled in the repercussions of finding out that one’s family was…well, bigger than you’d always thought, confirmed in less than three minutes that Lucille Amory was indeed Blanche Curtis’s daughter and that the estate was to be divided equally between her four children.
Then like Superman—whoosh—he was gone.
Well, thought Suzy, like Superman, only fatter and without the red panties. Then again, who am I to talk, with one seven-denier barely black leg and one simply bare one? Talk about uncoordinated.
“This is ridiculous. I don’t believe this is happening,” sobbed Julia.
“Me neither.” Lucille laced her fingers together in her lap. “I mean, I wasn’t exactly expecting a wild welcome, but…” Her voice trailed away.
“You hadn’t expected to have to break the news to us yourself,” Suzy supplied, feeling sorry for her. “Let’s face it; it was pretty amazing news to have to break.” Although it was, at the same time, absolutely typical of Blanche. “Ummm…if it isn’t a rude question, how old are you?”
“Twenty-six. And a bit.”
“You were born when I was eight.” Rory had been the diary-keeping type as long as he’d been able to write. He thought for a moment. “Mother took off on one of her trips then. I remember she was away for six months.”
“So much for adventuring through the South American jungle,” Julia interjected bitterly. “She wasn’t up the Amazon at all, was she? She was knocked up. Oh, for heaven’s sake, Rory, are you going to fill up my glass or do I have to drink straight from the bottle?”
Suzy felt as if her brain had grown too big for her skull. There were a million questions to ask. “Where do you live?”
“Here.” Lucille was clutching Harry’s hand for support. “I mean, in Bristol. Bishopston.”
Just a few miles away.
God, imagine!
“And you were adopted,” said Suzy.
“No. My dad brought me up. Mum just…ummm, visited us every now and again.”
“Your father’s black?” Julia looked horrified.
“No, pale green. Of course he was black.”