Free Times of Trouble by Victoria Rollison Page A

too exciting for her to have time to join Facebook.
Not that this was my reason for not joining, it just seemed a more
likely reason why Sophie wouldn’t be there.
    Sophie was always
surrounded by friends. When I was 10 years old, she was a grown up
13, and allowed to have a sleepover party. She told mum she was
just having ‘a few friends’. But twenty people turned up. Sophie
found somewhere for everyone to sleep, and she happily put up with
mum’s fussing about the overcrowded house. Dad laughed at mum for
suggesting Sophie was selfish for expecting me to give up my room
for some of the girls. He told mum parties should always be ‘the
more the merrier’. And Sophie said, ‘I’ll ask more people if that’s
the case’, which put mum into an even more hysterical spin. I ended
up sleeping in mum and dad's bed, my room hijacked by five guests.
Mum tossed and turned all night, fretting about the music and
laughter coming out of the living room. But dad didn’t lose any
sleep. Sophie and dad were two of a kind, breezing through life,
leaving all the worry to mum, and eventually me. I wondered if mum
and dad ever found it strange I never had sleepovers, nor went to
any. I was never good at making friends. I blamed all the piano
practice, and my complete devotion to making it as a musician. But
what could I blame now? I was 24 years old, and if I disappeared,
no one would notice. Except mum of course.

    When the two piano
removalists arrived, I cowardly hid in my room. Mum called out when
she heard them pull into the drive, and I pretended not to hear. I
didn’t want to witness them loading Picasso into their truck, and
taking him god knows where. I could just hear them discussing the
easiest way of getting the piano through the door. I closed my
eyes, wishing they would just get it over with. After a few moments
of grunting, I heard a trolley rolling across the living room
floor. Mum was fussing, asking them to be careful. And then I heard
a large crunch, and one of the men swore. Had they just dropped
Picasso? I had to find out whether he was damaged, so I raced
towards the living room. To my relief, the piano was still on the
trolley, but had tipped sideways, and the two huge removalists were
struggling to hold it upright. As they pulled, I noticed a third
man also steadying the piano, partly obscured behind it. He wasn’t
a removalist; he wasn’t dressed like someone who moved things for a
living. It had to be Liam Kingsley.
    My first thought was
that he looked much younger than I expected. He mentioned in one of
the emails to mum when he finished his law degree, and I calculated
he must be around 30. But he didn’t look much older than me. He was
wearing knee length shorts, in a conservative cream colour, a
collared light blue polo T-shirt and what looked like brown suede
thongs. Not exactly formal business attire. His hair was a light
blonde wave on top of darker curls, shaped long but neat around his
neck. His toned arms had bulging muscles, put to good use moving my
piano. I was incredibly disappointed to find myself noting he was
extremely good looking. Just what I needed. To find my arch nemesis
attractive! I reminded myself it was typical for con men to be
attractive; it was how they got away with everything, with a bat of
the eyelids and a huge row of smiling, perfect white
teeth.
    Liam noticed me just
as I saw him, and yelled across the room: ‘Hi Ellen, I’m Liam, nice
to meet you.’
    His manners weren’t
at all awkward or forced. Even with the huge weight of the piano to
contend with, he looked unflustered and cheerful. I felt suddenly
shy and ugly, wishing I had brushed my hair before I came out of my
room. Why did the fact he was good looking make me so nervous? I
reminded myself that most people made me nervous, especially when I
met them for the first time. And Liam was still potentially a con
man who had shafted my mum out of more money than she could ever
afford to repay. Why did I care if