Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets

Now she was getting in on the enlightened act by going to Colorado to the January wedding of her ex-husband. How very modern. What a pity she would be going on her own. She’d have loved to have a partner to bring along: someone to act as a personal talisman, to remind her that she was a lovable person. Her talisman would also be proof to the rest of the world that she wasn’t some lonely hasbeen who had scoured the personal ads looking for love and come up with nothing.

Mel was on a high during dinner, volubly discussing what she’d bring to the wedding.

‘Liz thinks I should go dramatic in black,’ she said, nibbling salad and chilli daintily. ‘I don’t know. Black makes me washed out; white would be good because it’ll be snowy, but it’s bad manners to wear white to weddings, isn’t it?’ she chattered away. ‘I’ll have to phone Fliss to check what she’s wearing. Or maybe a clingy shift dress would be nice. Susie’s older sister has this chiffon minidress. It sounds deadly.’

‘You’re not wearing anything clingy, white or chiffon,’ Leonie said firmly. ‘You’re fourteen, Melanie, not eighteen. If I’d wanted you to turn into Lolita, I’d have named you Lolita.’

Mel groaned but took no notice. ‘I have to look fab, Mum, that’s all. Who knows who’ll be there. All the movie stars have houses in Vail.’

‘It’s not Vail, is it?’ her mother asked, horrified.

‘Yes,’ Mel said happily.

‘God, we’ll all have to dress up,’ Leonie said, ‘won’t we, Abby? Can’t let Ireland down by turning up like a gang of down-and-outs.’

Abby was very quiet with all this talk of outfits and clingy shift dresses. Poor thing was undoubtedly fed up thinking that Mel would look like a superstar while she melted into the background yet again, put in the shade by her much prettier sister.

‘Are you not hungry?’ Leonie asked Abby, noticing she was only picking at her dinner. ‘You have been off your food lately.’

Abby shook her head quickly. ‘I’m fine,’ she said and began to load up a fork with chilli, as if to prove that she was hungry. ‘Fine, really.’

Abby closed the bathroom door quietly. It didn’t take her as long these days but it was still good to get in there quietly, before anyone realized how long she’d been gone and that she was actually in the bathroom. That had been a dodgy moment earlier when Mum had asked if she was feeling all right. Abby had been sure she’d managed to hide the fact that she’d been dieting. Over the past few weeks, she’d fed Penny surreptitiously under the table and had hidden bits of dinner in her napkin at mealtimes, anything to avoid eating too much. It had been so difficult and it hadn’t worked. She was always hungry and she wasn’t getting any thinner, she was sure of it. The ancient bathroom scales weren’t exactly accurate so it was hard to check. Nobody ever used them any more. Mum just ate what she liked and didn’t seem to worry about her figure; Mel was skinny no matter what she ate and Danny only cared about how muscular he was getting. He was always admiring his biceps in the hall mirror when he thought nobody was looking.

Abby’s only other option for weighing herself was the speak-your-weight machine in Maguire’s chemist and it was so hideously embarrassing to have to stand on that with all the other girls from school wandering in and out, buying nail varnish and spot concealer, that she never used it.

Either way, she wasn’t thinner, despite all her efforts at avoiding chips and lasagne, her favourite. Dieting had seemed hopeless until she’d come up with the perfect way to lose weight. She’d read about it two weeks ago in one of her mother’s magazines. You could eat all you wanted and still be thin. It hurt the back of her throat, though. But it would be worth it if it meant she became as thin as Mel. That was all she wanted really: to be beautiful like Mel, just for once, for Dad’s wedding. Then she’d stop. Abby tied her hair back in a scrunchie so it wouldn’t get in her way and leaned over the toilet bowl.

Only Penny’s pleading eyes made Leonie grab her anorak and brave the hideous December weather. It had rained solidly for three days, great sheets of rain that defied any raincoat, scarf or hat. No matter how well wrapped up you were, the rain insinuated itself under some hem or other, soaking clothes until the wearer was wet and freezing.

The girls were cuddled up in the sitting room with the heating on full blast, pretending to revise for their Christmas exams but really watching a crucial episode of Home and Away. In the oven, a lemon and herb basted chicken was roasting succulently for dinner. Leonie’s plan had been to read the paper and, exhausted after a busy day in the surgery, veg out until dinner. But Penny, who hadn’t been walked for the entire water-logged three days, looked so mournful that Leonie finally gave in.

‘If they gave Oscars to animals, you’d get one for sure,’ she muttered as Penny sank to the floor in abject misery, resting her nose miserably on her fat golden paws. ‘Nobody can look more depressed and abandoned than you. Skippy, Flipper and Lassie wouldn’t have a hope.’

Wearing waterproof leggings, her big waterproof anorak and with a pink knitted hat under the hood, Leonie hoped she’d stay dry.

Penny danced around her mistress’s feet, singing in her high-pitched canine voice, thrilled with herself. Shivering, Leonie trudged down the road, wondering if she was stone mad to be doing this.

It was ten days before Christmas and every house along her road had candles or small lights in their windows. The brightly coloured gleam of Christmas tree lights shone through windows and glass porches, and the atmosphere of cosy warmth inside made it feel all the more cold and wet outside. Leonie huddled into her anorak.

Even watching Penny delightedly bouncing in and out of the myriad enormous puddles didn’t make her laugh the way it usually did. Ten minutes, that was all she was doing. After ten minutes on an evening like this, she’d be a drowned rat. Once they’d left the main road, she let Penny off the lead and followed slowly, hating the sensation of needles of rain hitting her face with ferocity. She was so cold.

Penny buried her nose in a puddle and whisked it up joyfully, splashing water over her laughing face. With her rainproof fur coat, designed by nature for all kinds of weather, she didn’t mind the rain, although she always quivered when she was being hosed after a particularly dirty walk, as though the cold water she’d leapt into moments before was painfully cruel when it was coming out of a hose instead of a big puddle.

‘You’re lucky I love you, Penny,’ Leonie grumbled to her gambolling dog, ‘otherwise I’d never bring you out on an evening like this.’ She moved to the other side of the narrow road because it was more sheltered from the rain.

She was so busy trying to cover as much of her face as possible from the icy rain that she never even noticed the giant pothole beside the big forbidding black gates. As Penny bounced about the gates, sniffing excitedly and peeing, Leonie stepped on a cracked bit of asphalt, her foot in its wet wellington boot wobbled and she fell heavily, barely managing to protect her face with her hands. She was up to her knees in the water-logged pothole and her elbows ached from landing heavily on the road.

‘Ouch!’ she cried with pain, tears flooding her eyes. Penny instantly ran back and started barking. Feeling jarred and shocked by her fall, Leonie didn’t know what to do for a moment. She could feel the water seeping into her clothes, and her knees and elbows stung, but shock meant she couldn’t move.

‘Are you all right?’ said a masculine voice. She moved her head, only then noticing the car lights behind her. Suddenly someone was putting arms around her and helping her gently to her feet. She swayed in this person’s embrace, feeling unsteady and shaky. Penny hopped anxiously from paw to paw, knowing something was wrong but not able to do anything.

‘You’re in no fit state to go anywhere,’ the man said decisively. ‘Come with me and we’ll get you dried off and see whether you need the doctor.’ He half-carried her over to a big Jeep with headlights blazing.

Normally, Leonie would have resisted and said she’d be fine, really, and that Penny couldn’t get into the Jeep because she was filthy and wet, but she was too shocked and tearful to say anything. The man helped Leonie into the passenger seat as if she were light as a feather and then opened the back door for Penny to leap in.

Leonie closed her eyes wearily, still in shock. The pain in her elbows was getting worse. She felt them gingerly, sure she’d torn her anorak in the fall.

‘Don’t,’ he advised, ‘you’ll just make it worse. Wait till we’re home and then we’ll have a look at you.’ He paused. ‘Maybe I should bring you straight to the doctor’s house now.’

Leonie shook her head. ‘No,’ she mumbled tearfully, ‘don’t. I’m OK, really.’

Suddenly she realized where they were going: in the gates where she’d fallen. It was his house, he was the big bear of a man who she’d seen walking the two exuberant collies.

‘It’s my fault,’ he said. ‘That pothole’s been getting bigger all the time and I should have done something about it.’

‘It’s the council’s fault really,’ Leonie said, trying to feel if her leggings were ripped.

The Jeep bounced along a winding drive and stopped at a house that Leonie had never seen before. A small wood hid it from prying eyes on the road, which was just as well, she realized, because if people could see it, they’d want to come in and gawp. It was beautiful: an elegant Palladian villa, perfectly proportioned with big windows and graceful columns on either side of the wide front door. Painted a soft honey colour, the house was surrounded by beech trees that nestled protectively around it.

‘It’s beautiful,’ breathed Leonie, the pain receding somewhat as she gazed at the most lovely house she’d ever seen. ‘I had no idea this was here.’

‘Seclusion is one of the reasons I bought it,’ the man said, getting out of the car.

He helped Leonie to hobble to the door.

‘We shouldn’t go in the front door, Penny’s filthy,’ she said suddenly.

‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘The floors are all wood so there are no carpets to muddy.’

A cacophony of barking greeted them and two glossy black collies jumped on the man excitedly when he opened the door. They then spotted Penny and all three dogs went into a frenzy of excited tail-wagging, plumy tails competing with Penny’s damp blonde one.

‘They’re males and they’re very friendly,’ he said. ‘They never fight.’

‘Good,’ said Leonie, feeling sick. ‘Do you have a cloakroom?’ she asked weakly.

He quickly showed her to a small, pristine bathroom and, as soon as she’d locked the door, Leonie threw up. Shock and adrenaline, she diagnosed, as she sat shivering on the floor beside the toilet bowl, still in her wet, torn clothes. She sat there until the nausea passed, trying to breathe deeply. After a few minutes, she felt well enough to admire the room, which was decorated entirely in caramel Carrerra marble. It was very European and spotlessly clean. Even the white towel edged with caramel braid was as white as snow. She wished there was another bathroom in the cottage: if somebody fell into a pothole outside her house, she’d have to rush in with the bathroom cleaner and spend half an hour in there before she could let a stranger loose in it.

‘Are you all right?’ he said from outside the door.

‘I am now.’ She got to her feet and unlocked the door. There was no sign of the man, but the three dogs immediately tried to rush into the small room, tails wagging and tongues lolling happily.

‘I’ve left some dry clothes outside,’ he called.

She couldn’t get the dogs to leave the bathroom. The collies wanted to sniff her, shoving inquisitive wet noses everywhere, and Penny wanted to be petted and be assured that she was still the favourite. Furry heads jostled for attention and they banged happily into Leonie, the sink and the loo, cannoning off each other.

Leonie obliged with petting for a minute, then picked up the bundle of clothes and tried to eject her admirers. ‘Shoo,’ she said, shoving the dogs out and trying to shut the door on three disgruntled wet noses.

He’d left her a white T-shirt, a huge grey woollen jumper, a pair of men’s jeans and black socks. Gingerly, she peeled off her wet things, wincing with pain as she pulled off her anorak, which had a big rip in one elbow. Amazingly, she wasn’t cut anywhere, although her elbows were already bruising and there was an ugly dark mark on one of her legs where she’d banged her shin painfully on the asphalt.