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

She nodded.

‘Doug asked me to give you this and apologize on his behalf for not being able to bring you to the airport.’ He put a fifty-pound note on the table. ‘He’s sorry he can’t bring you, but Mademoiselle Caitlin is having hysterics and he’s calming her. “Diva” is not the word for the lady.’ The gallery man shuddered distastefully. ‘I’d slap her myself, but Doug wouldn’t like it and I’m so fond of him.’

Leonie was only half listening. She’d tuned out when she’d heard that Doug couldn’t give her a lift because he was comforting Caitlin. Doug was very reliable. He’d never let you down, not in a million years. Except for someone he really loved, someone he’d been away from for a few years and had now been reunited with.

Leonie felt her eyes brimming. She shoved the money back across the table. ‘No thanks,’ she said, as bravely as she could. ‘I don’t want it. I’ve loads of money. Doug was only doing me a favour,’ she added.

‘Really?’ The gallery man’s eyes were shrewd under their discreet coating of mascara. ‘Don’t be a fool, dearie,’ he advised. ‘I was a fool once and look at me now. Alone. Say your piece, that’s my advice.’

Leaving the money on the table, he sashayed off.

Leonie grabbed the money and her bag and rushed out the door. She ran away from the gallery, panting in the August sunshine as she passed lines of cars sitting idly at the traffic lights. Her aim was to be as far away as possible so that she didn’t have to catch sight of Doug clutching Caitlin in a loving embrace. Finally, she reached the top of the road and ran round the corner. There was a taxi rank nearby, she remembered.

She was hot and sweating when she finally fell into a taxi, foundation running down her cheeks and her amber silk shirt stuck to her body. Whatever deodorant she’d sprayed on earlier had given up the ghost. But Leonie didn’t care. She sat in the back of the car, staring out of the window morosely.

The driver attempted to talk to her but when she answered in monosyllables, he gave up. They were nearing the airport when Leonie realized that she looked a sight, and quickly pulled out her make-up kit to repair the damage. She was an hour early, so she sat in the arrivals hall, and leafed through a magazine, not really seeing the articles. Doug, oh Doug. Why didn’t I realize it earlier, she thought in despair. It was too late now.

Most of the passengers from the Boston flight had come out before Mel and Abby burst through the sliding doors, tanned, healthy and glowing, with a mountain of luggage and numerous carrier bags.

‘Mum!’ they shrieked when they saw her.

Leonie hugged them both, tears falling down her face with delight.

‘I’m so pleased to see you,’ she said, half laughing, half crying.

‘Us too,’ they chorused.

‘You both look wonderful,’ she cried. And they did.

Mel looked fantastic: gloriously brown and beautiful, long dark hair held back in a plait, smart in black nylon trousers and a swirly pink T-shirt with a lilac cardigan tied carelessly around her slim waist. But it was Abby who took her mother’s breath away. She’d shot up and was now taller than Mel. The extra height had elongated her body, making it sexily curved instead of stocky. She wore clinging faded jeans that showed off her long legs, along with a tight T-shirt in turquoise, which brought out the electric colour of her amazing eyes. Silver and turquoise American Indian bracelets rattled from her arms and she wore a silver choker round her tanned neck. Her hair, bleached by the sun, feathered around her shoulders and hung down her back. The look was relaxed, Thelma and Louise-style, and it suited her perfectly.

‘Abby, you look fantastic,’ Leonie said, standing back and admiring the beloved duckling who really had grown into a swan.

‘I feel fantastic,’ Abby said with a broad grin. ‘I feel me, not anyone else.’

‘She’s been reading those self-help books non-stop,’ giggled Mel. ‘I can’t find my inner power no matter what I do!’

‘You only find your inner power when you see a good-looking guy,’ Abby teased.

As if by magic, a group of young guys weighed down with rucksacks walked past them and shot admiring glances at both girls. Mel, used to it, pouted prettily at them. But it was Abby’s reaction that astonished Leonie. She looked at the men with a confident grin and then flicked her head away laughing, her hair shimmering round her shoulders. She exuded self-assurance, Leonie realized. Her baby had come home as an adult.

They talked non-stop in the taxi home.

‘I thought Doug was picking us up?’ Mel said.

‘He couldn’t make it,’ Leonie said brightly. ‘Now, tell me everything.’

Boston had been brilliant, Texas was better. Fliss’s father, Charlie, had a ranch in the Panhandle but also had a house near Taos in New Mexico, ‘this beautiful, cutesy little place where you can go skiing in winter,’ Mel said dreamily. ‘It was seriously amazing. Full of these New Age types, which Abby loved. She went out with one, Kurt his name was.’

Once, Abby would have gone puce if her twin had revealed such a thing. Now, she grinned and played with the suede thong that circled one tanned wrist. ‘He was a friend, that’s all, Mom. Mel wants everyone to be going out. That is so last year, Mel.’

At home, Penny went crazy with excitement, her golden body quivering with delight as she licked the twins and sniffed their suitcases ecstatically.

‘We missed you,’ Abby crooned, sitting cross-legged on the floor with the dog.

Clover ignored the welcoming party and chose to sit on top of the kitchen cupboards, watching the proceedings like a reigning monarch bored with her subjects.

Leonie had half-expected the girls to be disappointed to be home, but they seemed thrilled, delightedly exclaiming how much they’d missed the place, and how irritating it was being ultra-tidy all the time.

‘Fliss is, like, obsessed with tidiness,’ Mel said. ‘You’d hate it, Mom.’

Leonie smothered a giggle.

Mel immediately went off to phone her friends/enemies to tell them what a fabulous time she’d had, how brown she was and what incredible new clothes she’d got, clothes that you’d never be able to buy in Ireland, naturally.

Abby unpacked several small coloured boxes of herb and fruit teabags and offered to make a restorative brew for her mother. She’d given up regular tea and coffee, she told Leonie. She didn’t pollute her body with things like that any more. ‘You are what you eat,’ she said, explaining that fresh, healthy foods were so much better than any processed stuff. ‘Lemon is wonderfully revitalizing, I find,’ she said as she boiled the kettle, ‘although my favourite is cranberry and orange.’

Leonie sat on a kitchen chair and admired her tall, self-assured daughter.

‘You look beautiful, Abby,’ she said with a catch in her throat. ‘I’m so proud of you.’

‘Try this,’ Abby said, proffering a cup of cranberry tea.

‘Lovely,’ Leonie said.

‘I was abusing my body,’ Abby explained, ‘I put the wrong things into it and I didn’t listen to it. That’s why I was depressed and hated myself. But I feel wonderful now.’

Her face glowed, Leonie thought. Her eyes sparkled and she was full of life, confident and happy.

Remembering the confused, angry girl who’d gone away just three months before, Leonie said a small silent prayer of thanks. And she thanked Fliss too. Whatever Fliss had done for Abby, Leonie was truly grateful.

‘Fliss has been great, obviously,’ she said.

‘It wasn’t Fliss,’ Abby said emphatically. ‘It was you, Mom. You did it for me. You’ve always been so strong and I couldn’t be. I was lost in trying to look like someone else. I…’ she searched for the right words, ‘wanted to look like Mel and talk like Fliss but be me. And you can’t do that.’

She laughed at the stupidity of the very idea. ‘We all owe it to ourselves to be ourselves. The course taught me that. I went to the eating-disorder counsellor for a while, and it was great, but when we went to Taos, I heard about this course. It was about healing and empowering yourself. Mel thinks it’s mad, but it was just what I needed. You have to let go of all these silly notions you have of who you are and learn about who you really are. We had to talk about the people who inspired us and – ’ Abby’s eyes were shining – ‘I talked about you, Mom.’

Leonie’s eyes gleamed too, with tears.

‘I told them how you’d been brave to split up with Dad because you knew it wasn’t right, because you owed it to you, to Dad and to us, to be with the right person. And I told them all the sacrifices you make for us. I know, Mom, you buy second-hand clothes so we’ve got lovely new stuff. Don’t think I wasn’t aware of it. I just never appreciated it before, I guess. When I was away from you, I did.’

‘Oh, Abby.’ Leonie reached out and took Abby’s silver-ringed hand in hers. ‘I thought you couldn’t wait to get away from me to spend time with Fliss.’

‘I couldn’t wait to get away from myself,’ Abby admitted. ‘I was bulimic, Mom. I made myself sick, I’m sorry. I know I lied to you.’

Leonie couldn’t speak but held Abby’s hand even tighter.

‘I can’t believe how stupid I was,’ Abby continued. ‘I mean, you could have a heart attack from bulimia. It ruins your teeth and your gums, hurts your throat from vomiting all the stomach acid up, and it doesn’t even work. All it does is destroy you on the inside.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It was hard telling you that, Mom, because I lied to you. But it’s important to face these things.’