‘This music reminds me of the night we met Archie.’ Rita shook her head.
‘Oh yeah.’ Kelly’s eyes brightened. ‘If I’d have agreed to Pete the Pilch’s suggestion then my life story could have been a very different one.’
‘I’m not sure some of it was even legal.’ Rita snorted. Once she had stopped laughing, she put her hand on top of her friend’s. ‘That’s better. I needed to forget my woes for a bit. Anyway, tell me. What’s going on in fancy London, then?’
‘What isn’t going on is mine and Ron’s sex life. He only brings out the meat and two veg for birthdays, anniversaries, maybe Christmas if I’m lucky, now. I told him I was going away for a few days, and he barely looked up from his Sudoku. I’m forty-five, and like you, not over the hill. In fact, my winking pilchard is constantly wet and ready for action.’
Rita nearly fell off her chair laughing. ‘Oh my God, Kel, that is vile and hilarious in equal measure.’ Her old London twang was suddenly overriding her muted Cornish one.
Kel wasn’t finished. ‘I didn’t marry a man for warm cups of tea and reruns ofAntiques Roadshow. I need a bit of… well, life!’ She stood up. ‘Another drink?’
Rita sat lost in thought, listening to thefiddler playing as Kelly ordered their drinks and then shimmied back with two large glasses of Sauvignon Blanc.
‘There is something else.’ Rita’s face was serious.
Kelly leaned into her friend. ‘Go on.’
‘The other day Hilda insinuated that maybe Archie had written a will. I’d never thought to look because as far as I knew he hadn’t made one. So, I searched everywhere I thought it might be, but nothing. Then I called our family solicitor, who said there was one and it had gone missing.’
Kelly was wide eyed. ‘What the fuck?’
Rita grimaced. ‘I know. It’s hurting my soul.’
‘I’d be hurting the solicitor if he doesn’t get to the bottom of it.’
‘I know, I know but my trust for Archie was our golden bind.’
Kelly raised an eyebrow. ‘Wasn’t it the great Bard who said, “All that glisters is not gold”?’
‘Blimey, Kel. I thought you hated English Lit.’
Kelly shrugged. ‘I did, until that hot young English teacher started when we were in Year Eleven. Remember. Mr Hayes, wasn’t it? I’d have been his Juliet anytime.’ She took a large swig of wine. ‘Oh God, thinking of him, I so need a shag.’
They both laughed again, and Rita felt her tension loosening.
‘Look’ – Kel’s voice was full of care – ‘there will be an explanation. Archie was a good man. He loved you, Rita. If I mysteriously disappeared tomorrow, Ron wouldn’t even notice. Maybe I’ll come and live down here with you. Help with the retreat. Read crystals and pretend to know what “retrograde” means.’
‘You’d terrify the guests,’ Rita said, smiling. ‘But I’d love that.’
Kelly raised her glass in an impromptu toast. Rita followed as her friend announced, ‘To Ron’s vanishing libido, Archie’s vanishing will, and most importantly, to the Seahaven Bay Retreat.’
Rita grinned and they both said in unison, ‘The Seahaven Bay Retreat.’
THIRTEEN
In the dead of night, a furious knocking rattled the farmhouse door, jolting Rita awake. Heart hammering and feeling decidedly groggy after drinking at least a bottle of wine earlier, she reached instinctively for the shotgun that Archie had insisted should always rest beside their bed. For a moment, she froze, breath held, terrified of what she was going to be confronted with. She could hear Kelly oblivious to it all, snoring like a warthog in Thom’s old room across the corridor.
Then came a voice, muffled but unmistakable. ‘Mum! It’s me, it’s Sennen!’
Rita threw back the covers and charged down the stairs, gasping as her feet hit the cold kitchen flagstones. She unlocked and whipped open the door. There stood her beautiful daughter, tear-streaked and shaking.
‘Alex has dumped me,’ she choked, eyes red and swollen. ‘And I don’t know what to do.’
The next morning Kelly sat hunched at the kitchen table, nursing a mug of sweet black coffee, while Rita leaned against theAga, eyes half shut, her smudged eyeliner giving her the look of a panda. Sennen moved quietly around them, setting the table, her usual spark dimmed, her movements slow and mechanical. Yet, even with her long auburn hair scraped into a messy bun, her flared jeans and a baby pink WEDDINGS BY SENNEN T-shirt showing off her petite frame, she still looked like she’d stepped straight out of a magazine shoot.
‘Jesus. I come home hoping for a bit of nurturing and end up playing mum to two fully grown adults,’ she sighed. ‘And you’re getting just bacon sandwiches; I don’t have it in me to coordinate a full fry-up.’ She grabbed the ketchup from the fridge and plonked it down on the table, followed by the two plates of delicious-smelling food.
Kelly tucked in hungrily, while Rita, aware she was a delicate shade of green, didn’t move to touch hers. Sennen busied herself by washing up at the sink.
