by Jill Mansell
“Did our father know?” said Rory.
Lucille shook her head.
“But you thought we knew.” Suzy was struggling to understand.
“I was curious. After your father died, I asked if I could meet you. Mum said she’d told you all about me”—her gaze flickered in Julia’s direction—“but you decided it would be easier all around if we didn’t meet.”
Indignantly, Suzy said, “Well, that was a big lie. We hadn’t any idea!”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I just don’t want this to be happening.” Julia flapped her hands in distress. “We’re talking about a whole double life here. Our mother has spent the last God knows how many years involved with a…a…”
“Black man,” Lucille said evenly. “Dad came to this country from Mauritius thirty years ago.”
“Couldn’t be bothered to come to the funeral, though, could he?” Julia retaliated bitterly.
“That’s because he’s dead. Otherwise,” said Lucille with a flash of spirit, “I’m sure he would have bothered.”
“Look, I’m sorry about my sister.” Suzy rushed to make amends. “She’s a bit…you know. Cares a lot about what the neighbors think.”
“Are you calling me a snob? I am not a snob.” Julia was by this time quivering with outrage.
“Oh, yes you are.” Suzy smiled at Lucille. “She is, she’s horrendous. Julia tried to bribe a TV crew once because they’d caught her on camera coming out of Walmart. She almost died of shame when it appeared on the local news.”
“I was taking a shortcut,” Julia insisted through clenched teeth. “You can’t seriously imagine I’d buy anything from Walmart.”
Suzy beamed. “See what I mean?”
“This is ridiculous; we aren’t here to discuss me.” Julia seethed visibly; she hated being made fun of. “Let’s face it, Lucille’s here for one reason and one reason only. The moment she gets her hands on the money, that’ll be it. We won’t see her for dust, will we?”
This was what Julia clearly hoped would happen. Embarrassed by his sister’s breathtaking insensitivity, Rory said awkwardly, “Hold on now. That’s entirely up to Lucille.”
“If that’s what you want to happen,” Lucille said stiffly, “then fine. It really isn’t my mission in life to embarrass all of you and bring shame on your family.” There was an edge to her voice as she uttered these last words. There were also tears in her eyes. Suzy impulsively reached for her arm as Lucille rose to leave.
“Please, you can’t go. Julia doesn’t mean to be rude.” Well, she probably did. “It’s been a shock, that’s all. And I don’t even know why any of us are shocked, because this is so bloody typical of Blanche. A bit of drama, a good old showdown—wasn’t that all she ever wanted? So long as it was one where she wasn’t around to take the flak.”
“Don’t you dare talk about her like that,” Julia burst out. “You mustn’t speak ill of the dead!”
“Why not? It’s true. If she’s watching us now, she’ll be loving every minute of this. And why didn’t she tell us we had a sister?” Suzy demanded hotly.
Except they already knew the answer to that one. Julia’s horrified reaction was all the proof they needed. Blanche had always reveled in being the center of attention, but only on condition that it showed her in a flattering light.
* * *
“And then she left.” Suzy finished telling Jaz and Maeve the next morning, in the kitchen at Jaz’s house. Reaching across the table, she helped herself to a handful of grapes. “It was a bit embarrassing actually. I tried to give her a hug to make up for Julia being such a cow and got one of my earrings caught up with some of the beads in her hair. Harry had to untangle us.” She pulled a face. “And then it got more awkward because it felt like the end of a disastrous date. I asked Lucille for her phone number and she said, ‘Look, you don’t have to try to be nice. Why don’t we just leave it to the lawyer to sort out.’”
“Sounds more like one of my disastrous marriages,” Jaz observed with a grin.
“But I do want to see her again. I mean, imagine, all this time I’ve had a sister I didn’t even know about! I always wanted a nice sister, not a bossy, neurotic older one like Julia. And think what it must have been like for Lucille, growing up in the same city and thinking that we didn’t want to meet her.”
“What’s she like?” Jaz looked interested.
“Beautiful.”
“Nothing like you then.”
Suzy kicked him efficiently under the table.
“Ouch.”
“You know I’m gorgeous. She’s just got it in a different way. Taller, thinner, real cheekbones, that kind of thing.”
“And this Harry fellow—the one you were so keen on—he’s her boyfriend?” Maeve was standing at the head of the table, briskly chopping her way through a mountain of tomatoes.
Suzy shook her head.
“Just a friend, apparently. They grew up next door to each other in Stockwood. I did manage to tell him that I hadn’t run out on him at the Avon Gorge the other week, I explained about being kidnapped and mentioned in passing that I wasn’t seeing anyone else at the moment. I was rather hoping he’d ask me out.” Suzy popped another grape into her mouth. “But he just frowned and said, ‘I hardly think this is the time or the place.’ Which was a bit of a bugger. Still, never mind,” she concluded brightly. “He can always get my number from Lucille.”
“So subtle, so shy, so retiring.” Jaz eyed her with amusement. “You really should be a real estate agent.”
Suzy glanced at her watch.
“Speaking of which, I’d better make a move. I’m showing a gynecologist around that new apartment in Guthrie Place at nine fifteen.”
“What does she do for a living?” asked Jaz.
“I just told you.” Suzy was busy tucking her pink shirt into the waistband of her white skirt. “Gynecologist. Funny kind of a job for a woman”—she mimed peering up something with an imaginary flashlight—“but there you go; I suppose it takes all sorts.”
“I meant Lucille.”
“Oh.” Hurriedly, Suzy smoothed her skirt over her hips and reached for her jacket. “No idea. She didn’t say.”
* * *
Nobody had been more amazed than Suzy herself when she had taken to selling property like a Scot takes to porridge. Having plowed her exams in spectacular fashion—because who needed exams; she was marrying a rock star!—she had emerged two years later from the wreckage of her marriage to Jaz dazzlingly ill-equipped for…well, pretty much anything. Taking pity on her, but not at all sure that it was a smart business move, Rory had offered her a job at the agency, and—not at all sure that it was her cup of tea, but touched by his concern—Suzy had accepted.
Happily, they were both proved wrong. Meeting prospective clients and matching them to the perfect home came so naturally to her that within three months Suzy was outperforming the senior agent—who promptly threw a tantrum and left. Rory promoted Suzy, crossing his fingers hard and praying she wouldn’t get bored.
She didn’t. The buzz of successful selling had Suzy in its grip. She made the clients laugh, startled them sometimes with her honesty, charmed them so naturally that they half fell in love with her, and never for a moment lost her infectious enthusiasm for the job.
* * *
“Well?” said Rory when she erupted into the office at ten thirty.
“Sold to the gynecologist with the creepy rubber gloves.” Waving her cell phone in triumph, Suzy threw herself onto the nearest swivel chair and did a victory twirl. “She offered two three five, and the Clarksons accepted.”
“She wasn’t bothered about the bathroom?” Rory was impressed; the Clarksons’ poky bathroom had put off a number of clients. “I thought she’d go for that second-floor apartment on Pembroke Road.”
“She was going to, but I told her th
at if she bought Pembroke Road, she’d be living above a family with three teenagers. She doesn’t need a massive bathroom, but she definitely wants peace and quiet.” Suzy beamed. “I said, OK, this one costs a few grand more, but think what you’ll save on earplugs and expensive psychiatric treatment. And she laughed and offered me a job as her receptionist.”
“Dr. Witherton?” Donna looked up from her computer. “Actually laughed? My friend Hazel works on one of her wards at Frenchay. According to her, Esme Witherton is seriously scary. Rumor has it, she hasn’t laughed since nineteen seventy-six.”
“Tuh, only because nobody’s told her any good jokes. She loved my one about Bill Clinton and the tea bags.” Rory looked horrified, and Suzy shrugged modestly. “I’m a genius, that’s all. So”—elaborately casual now—“any messages while I was out?”
“The agent from the Halifax wants you to call him back.” Donna consulted her notepad. “And the Ferrises want to see the house on Bell Barn Road this after—”
“I meant nice messages,” protested Suzy. “Interesting messages. Date-type messages from gorgeous men, preferably policemen. With bright blue eyes. Named Harry. Come on,” she wailed, “he must have called!”
“Ummm, no. Although, hang on.” Suzy’s heart soared for a nanosecond. “The agent from the Halifax is named Barry.” Donna’s expression was innocent. “That’s nearly the same, isn’t it?”
“No, it is not. Barry Bagshaw has acne and BO and eyebrows like a murderer. He’s about as gorgeous as a bucket of sick, and he has a very tedious one-track mind.”
“Sex?” said Donna.
“Worse. Structural subsidence.”
“Oh. So what makes you so sure this sexy policeman of yours is going to get in touch?”
Suzy looked smug.
“He will. I know he will. He has to—he’s my next boyfriend.”
Rory, who had an appointment with a desperate would-be vendor on Julian Road, picked up his briefcase and car keys and said drily, “Poor devil, he just doesn’t know it yet.”
* * *
By seven o’clock that evening Harry still hadn’t phoned.
“I don’t understand it,” she told Fee, hurt. “He knows he likes me. How could he not like me? What’s the matter with him? Why doesn’t he just call me up and ask me out?”
Fee had never gone back to banking. As a way of acknowledging all the hard work she’d put into the band, Jaz had insisted on continuing to support her financially while she did all the things she most wanted to do. And there were so many things Fee wanted to do, from charity work to part-time education, that she was always busy, making the most of her new life.
Fee was off to one of her beloved evening classes—archaeology, by the look of the books she was stuffing into her burlap haversack.
“Maybe he’s working.”
“He could still phone.”
“Why don’t you phone him?”
“Too forward. I wouldn’t want him to think I was pushy.” Suzy frowned. “Besides, he didn’t give me his number.”
“Slipping,” Fee observed, throwing her haversack over her shoulder. “So what are your plans for this evening?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Suzy thought for a moment, then brightened. “Maybe I’ll give my new sister a call.”
Chapter 5
“Hi, Lucille? It’s me, Suzy! I wondered if you’d like to meet up tonight, maybe go out for something to eat, get to know each…?”
Leaning forward with the phone balanced between her ear and her shoulder, Suzy was carefully repainting her toenails a dazzling shade of violet. She paused and listened to Lucille’s reply.
“Oh. Oh, I see. Well, that’s a shame but never mind. Another time. How about tomorrow? Oh, right, you’re busy then as well, are you? Maybe over the weekend, then. Ummm…you wouldn’t happen to know offhand what Harry’s phone number is, I suppose? Only he wrote it down for me the other week, but I lost it.”
At the other end of the phone, Suzy detected barely concealed amusement.
“No, you didn’t lose it,” said Lucille, “because he never gave it to you in the first place.” She hesitated for a second, clearly struggling with her loyalties. “Look, don’t tell him I told you this, but Harry bet me a fiver you’d ask me for his phone number.”
“You’re kidding! The nerve of the man,” Suzy exclaimed.
“Yes, well, that’s kind of the way he is with girls. He’s just so used to them hurling themselves at his feet…oh, you know how some men can get.”
Interestinger and interestinger.
“You mean he’s a good-looking bastard who treats women like dirt.” Suzy’s stomach did a quick, pleasurable squirm. Good-looking bastards had always been her big weakness, they were such a challenge.
Like Jaz, of course.
Well, who’d want a wimp?
“Harry can be a bit…arrogant, I suppose.” Lucille sounded apologetic. “I mean, he is lovely, but—”
“Ah, just give me the number.” Suzy smiled, touched by her concern. “And don’t worry, I can look after myself.”
* * *
You couldn’t blame the girls for hurling themselves at him, Suzy thought, opening the front door an hour later.
There was no getting away from it. He was gorgeous.
“I’m sorry,” she told Harry, “but I have to ask you this. Your eyes. Are they real?”
“They look it, don’t they? But they actually aren’t.” He opened them wide and rolled them from side to side. “They’re made out of papier-mâché, PVA glue, and the tops from dishwashing liquid bottles. I saw it done on the Disney Channel.”
Suzy studied his eyes closely. He wasn’t wearing colored contacts. Phew, thank goodness for that. She couldn’t be with a man who’d stoop to colored contacts.
And—double hooray—he was looking a lot more cheerful now than he had last night.
“I hope Lucille didn’t think I was only calling her for your number,” Suzy told him. “Do you think she thought that? I really did want to see her, you know. She said she was busy tonight and tomorrow night… D’you know if that’s true?”
Suzy had her doubts about this. To be honest, Lucille had sounded evasive.
But Harry nodded. “Oh yes, she’s working.”
“Well, that’s a relief. And a coincidence,” Suzy exclaimed, “because I wanted to ask you what Lucille does. Hang on, working in the evenings, let me guess…she’s a nurse?”
“Right, OK, bit of an awkward situation,” said Harry after a pause. He pushed his fingers through his dark, curly hair. “The thing is, Lucille didn’t want to tell you what she does.”
“But that’s just mad! I’m a real estate agent, for heaven’s sake.” Suzy looked amazed. “There aren’t many jobs more embarrassing than that.”
Wooop-wooop, shrilled Harry’s car as he aimed his key at it.
“What Lucille does isn’t embarrassing. She’s just terrified of you thinking she’s only latching on to you for one reason.” Taking Suzy’s hand, Harry led her across the road. “Look, she’s not going to be thrilled with me, but why don’t we pay her a visit? Doesn’t it drive you crazy,” he went on, “not being able to park in front of your own house because jerks like this leave their idiotic cars blocking your drive?” As he spoke, he gestured with contempt toward the bright red Rolls carelessly parked across the entrance to the driveway. “I mean, talk about sad. What kind of poser would want to drive around in a car like that anyway?”
The Silver Shadow had been a present from Jaz on her nineteenth birthday—even though for the life of him he couldn’t remember buying it.
Suzy, who loved her car like a baby, said, “I know, pathetic isn’t it! Actually, it’s mine.”
“Oh well, occupational hazard,” said Harry, his blue eyes twinkling as he gestured down at his shoes. “When your feet are
this big, every now and again, they’re bound to end up in your mouth.”
Big feet, eh? Suzy looked innocent. She’d heard all about men with big feet.
* * *
The Pineapple Bar, on the waterfront, wasn’t one of Suzy’s regular haunts. A drastically renovated old building of many levels, overlooking the Baltic Wharf, its ground-floor bar heaved with teenagers and reverberated to the sound of club music. Nightmare, thought Suzy, feeling incredibly ancient—at twenty-four—as she followed Harry up the staircase.
“Does Lucille work behind the bar? I don’t understand why she didn’t want me to know that. Nothing wrong with bar jobs.”
“Stop talking,” said Harry over his shoulder. “And keep up.”
The second floor was even busier, the smoky air filled with the shrieks of fifty or so overexcited girls out on a hen night mobbing a male stripper. A rhinestone-studded G-string went sailing through the air, to a roar of encouragement.
“Don’t look,” Harry said bossily.
“I really hope Lucille isn’t a male stripper in her spare time. How many more stairs?” complained Suzy as he led her toward the next flight.
“Sorry. This place used to be a warehouse.”
She was starting to pant like a Saint Bernard.
“Is Lucille really up there, or is this a cruel joke?”
“Oh, she’s there. I can hear her.”
All Suzy could hear were the deafening screeches below them of the girls having a bachelorette party, yelling, “Get ’em off off off !” at the stripper. And he’d done that already, surely?
How many rhinestone G-strings could one man wear?
Onward and upward they went. Heavens, thought Suzy giddily. I could do with crampons and oxygen. Not to mention a couple of Sherpas.
“There she is,” said Harry at last, pointing to a lone figure at the far end of the room. And he was right. There was Lucille, perched on a stool with a guitar, playing and singing some Sheryl Crow–type song.
She wasn’t exactly causing a stir. Nobody else on the fourth floor of the Pineapple Bar was taking any notice. When Lucille reached the end of the song, Suzy and Harry were the only ones who clapped.