Jill Mansell - Chapter 1

‘Oh, the Jeannie you went off with to Majorca! How lovely to meet you at last,’ Blythe exclaimed. ‘And what a coincidence – fancy bumping into you like this!’

As things had turned out, Lola hadn’t ended up spending more than a few days with Jeannie.

Shortly after her arrival in Alcudia, Jeannie had hooked up with a boy called Brad who was moving on to work in a restaurant on a surfer’s beach in Lanzarote. Jeannie had gone with him the following week and that had been the last she and Lola had seen of each other. Lola, aware that her mother and Alex would have been worried sick if they’d known she was out there on her own, had discreetly glossed over that snippet in her postcards home.

‘Such a coincidence!’ echoed Jeannie. ‘I was just looking atSarah’s jacket, admiring it from a distance, then I saw who she was talking to and I was just, like, ohmigod!’ She ran her fingers over the sleeve of Sally’s caramel leather jacket and said appreciatively, ‘It’s even better close up.’

‘Sally,’ said Sally.

‘Huh? My name’s Jeannie.’

‘I know You just called me Sarah. I’m Sally, Sally Tennant.’

‘Oops, sorry! Brain like a sieve, me!’ Jeannie tapped the side of her head, then stopped and began wagging her index finger in a thoughtful way. ‘Although not always. Hang on a minute, wasn’t Tennant the name of that boyfriend of yours?’

The index finger was now pointing questioningly at Lola.

‘Doug Tennant.’ Sally gave a yelp of excitement. ‘That’s right, he’s my brother!’

Lola experienced a sensation of impending doom, like an express train roaring out of a tunnel towards

‘You’re kidding!’ Her eyes and mouth widening in delight, Jeannie looked from Sally to Lola.

‘So you and Doug got back together? My God, I don’t believe it! That’s so romantic! What happened about the money? Did his witch of a mother make you pay it all back?’

Lola’s first instinct was to clap her hands over her ears and sing loudly, ‘Lalala.’ Her second was to clap her hands over her mother’s ears and go, ‘Lalala’ But it was too late; Blythe was frowning, looking as bemused as if everyone had suddenly started babbling away in Dutch.

‘Oops, sorry!’ Jeannie smacked her forehead and turned back to Sally. ‘I just called your mother a witch!’

‘What money?’ said Blythe.

Dougie and I didn’t get back together,’ Lola blurted out. ‘Sally’s my next door neighbour.’

‘Oh crikey, I’m getting everything wrong here, aren’t I?’ Jeannie shook her head dizzily and burst out laughing. ‘Well, except for the bit about your mum being a witch.You have to admit, that was a pretty beastly thing she did. I mean, that’s messing with people’s lives, isn’t it?’

‘Excuse me.’ The bored stallholder nodded at the scarf being twisted in Blythe’s hands. ‘Are you going to be buying that or what?’

‘So did Doug ever find out about the money?’ Jeannie said avidly.

Blythe carried on twisting the scarf. ‘What money?’

Lola closed her eyes and breathed deeply; when she’d gone out to Alcudia she’d made a point of explaining to Jeannie that her mother didn’t know about the money thing. How, how could Jeannie forget something as important as that, yet remember a detail as small and irrelevant as Dougie’s surname?

‘Yes, Doug found out.’ Sally, attempting to ride to the rescue, said hastily, ‘But that’s all in the past, everyone’s moved on, it’s—’

‘Oh, don’t try and change the subject, I’ve always wanted to know what you spent all that money on. God, I wish someone would’ve given me ten grand to dump any of the loser boyfriends I’ve hooked up with over the years.’ Apologetically, Jeannie touched Sally’s arm. ‘Not that your brother was a loser. I met him a couple of times before they broke up and he was totally fit.’

He still is. Desperate to get away — although it was too late now, the cat was out of the bag —

Lola grabbed the blue and silver squiggly scarf from Blythe. ‘Mum, are you going to buy this?’

‘No she isn’t,’ Sally repeated, earning herself a glare from the stallholder.

‘Why not?’ Lola gave the scarf a flap to try and get the creases out. ‘It’s pretty!’

Useful too. She could strangle blabbermouth Jeannie with it.

It’s obscene.’ Jeannie pointed to the silver squiggles, which Lola hadn’t realised were scrawled words. ‘Rude Spanish word. Rude Spanish word.’

Sally helpfully pointed out another squiggle. ‘Very, very rude Spanish word.’

God, it was too. Lola hurriedly put down the scarf.

‘That’s disgusting.’ Rounding on the hapless stallholder, Blythe said, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, selling something like that.’

‘I don’t speak Spanish.’ The man shook his head in protest. ‘I didn’t know’

Nobody was listening to him, nobody cared. Blythe had already swung round and pointed an accusing finger at Lola. Her expression intent and her voice scarily controlled, she said, ‘But he shouldn’t be as ashamed of himself as you.’

‘I can’t believe this.’ Blythe’s cup of coffee sat in front of her untouched. She shook her head and gazed across the tiny café table at Lola. ‘I can’t believe you did something like that. In God’s name, why?’

Lola felt sick with shame. She’d never imagined her mother would find out about the money.

She wished she still had Sally here to be on her side.

‘Well?’ Blythe demanded.

‘I’ve told you. Because Dougie’s mother hated me and Dougie was moving up to Scotland. We were so young, what were the chances of us staying together? I mean, realistically?’ Lola’s coffee cup rattled as she tried to lift it from the saucer.

Her whole life, she’d loved earning praise from her mother, making her happy and proud of everything she did. Blythe’s approval was all that mattered and until today she’d known she’d always had it, unconditionally.

Until an hour ago. The coffee tasted bitter and she’d tipped in too much sugar. What were the chances of bumping into Jeannie and the whole sorry story spilling out like that?

‘And the money,’ said Blythe. ‘The ten thousand pounds. What happened to it?’

Lola shifted in her seat. She wasn’t completely stupid, she did have a plausible lie put by in case of absolute emergencies. And now appeared to be the time to drag it out.

‘OK, it wasn’t ten thousand pounds. It was twelve and a half.’ May as well get as many of the facts correct as possible. ‘And I used most of it to buy a Jeep so I could get around the island.’

‘A Jeep? Dear God! But you hadn’t even passed your test!’

‘I know. That’s why I didn’t tell you. It’s also why I couldn’t get it taxed and insured.’ Her palms growing damp, Lola forced herself to carry on with the lie she’d concocted years ago and hoarded for so long. ‘Which is why, when it was stolen a week later, I couldn’t do anything about it. I’d spent the money on a Jeep then, boom, it was all gone. I was back to square one.’

‘No you weren’t.’ Blythe was shaking her head again. ‘At square one you had Dougie. Oh Lola, what were you thinking of? I thought we’d brought you up better than that. Relationships are more important than money! Look at Alex and me, we were happy whether we had it or not. If you love someone, money’s irrelevant. You sold your chance of happiness with Dougie for a ... a Jeep! That’s a terrible thing to do.’

‘I know. I know that now.’ Lola was perilously close to tears, but she wasn’t going to cry. She forced herself to gaze aroundthe crowded, steamy café, listen to Dexy’s Midnight Runners playing on the radio, concentrate on the jaunty music.