Free Rumours and Red Roses by Patricia Fawcett Page B

that sort of thing,’ he said, looking across at his wife, his face suddenly serious. ‘Doesn’t it, Esther?’
    ‘Yes.’ She smiled brightly at them all. ‘More coffee?’
     
    Simon looked like his dad, who had kept his youthful figure and his hair and had a bit of a rakish look about him at that. At least, his eyes had certainly twinkled when he was introduced to Becky’s mum.
    Shelley and Johnny had one thing in common. They were both smokers and during the course of the evening they made a pact, with witnesses, to give it up. A small challenge, a little gauntlet thrown down by Johnny, and it had surprised Becky that her mum had responded to it so willingly. Her love affair with smoking was, like the one with Alan, an on-off thing, the giving up a little game she played now and then, not to be taken remotely seriously.
     
    ‘What that woman needs is a bit more glamour,’ Shelley told Becky when they were doing a post-mortem of the dinner party next day. No cigarette in hand, so, so far so good. ‘I told her straight when we were in the kitchen loading the dishwasher. “Just because you’re past sixty, Esther,” I told her, “it doesn’t mean you have to give up.” She’s a good-looking woman and she needs to inject a bit more pizzazz into her life for Johnny’s sake. Anyway, the upshot is, I’m taking her shopping, helping her to choose some new clothes, something a bit more exciting. And I’ve told her to get some highlights in her hair. I’ve even offered to do it for her. She’s got nice hair but she doesn’t make the best of it.’
    Johnny? The easy way she said it told Becky that her mum and MrBlundell had hit it off big time. Hadn’t he told Simon that she was a breath of fresh air? But taking Esther shopping…?
    ‘Oh, Mum, is that wise?’ Becky sighed but who was she to argue? She couldn’t hope to calm her mum down for ever in any case and the truth would out eventually. Her mum was her mum and something Simon had said had made her feel ashamed that she should be in any way ashamed of her. She had worked her fingers to the bone for Becky and it was high time she remembered the sacrifices her mum had made.
    They were getting married in a few months’ time, and this time she was determined it would be third time lucky. No cold feet, not on her part anyway, and certainly not on Simon’s. She was staying much of the time with Simon at the apartment now, an arrangement that suited everybody, not least the two of them. She knew it was quick work but neither of them needed to take any longer thinking about it and it was such a joy to spend time together, making unhurried love, waking up together, having breakfast together and laughing together and, in a great wave of optimism, Becky could see no end to it. They would be together for a very long time to come. He was her soul-mate as her dad had been to her mum and it felt wonderful.
    She had given up her job at the store about the same time as Marina. Two reasons: firstly, Simon wanted her to and secondly, so did she.
    ‘It’s all very well giving up your job but you’ll have to get something else. You won’t want to be a kept woman, will you?’ her mum asked. ‘I thought you girls liked to be independent these days.’
    ‘I might go to college,’ Becky had told her, shamefaced to be confessing it. ‘Simon will support me. I could do that arts course I should have done years ago.’
    ‘Where will you go? He won’t want you traipsing off to college, not when you’re just married. Talk sense.’
    ‘I can do a course at college here,’ Becky said, for she had checked into it. ‘Anyway, I only said I might. I might get pregnant straight off.’
    ‘Well, yes, that’s a much better idea. You’d better not hang around too long. Not at your age.’
    ‘Thanks for that, Mum.’
    ‘I think I’d quite like to be a grandma,’ Shelley said thoughtfully. ‘Although you won’t be able to rely on me to babysit all the time. I’m not