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‘Let?’ commented Courtney, when she’d gone. ‘That’s big of her.’
Sunny rubbed his ear, that nervous gesture again, his mother noted.
‘She didn’t mean it like that so stop picking fights. Especially here, today. As if things aren’t bad enough.’
Courtney was shamed sufficiently by that to say a subdued, ‘Sorry, bro.’
‘She’s not well, Courtney. You’re lucky she made it today.’
‘She still stressed and off work?’ asked Shay.
‘Yeah. Mum, do you need me to do anything for you?’
‘No, darling, but thank you for asking.’
Sunny bent to his mum, put his arms around her, kissed her cheek. Shay held her lovely boy tight. Courtney was right, he was all bone and no flesh. She didn’t buy the ‘dieting into a suit’ line one bit but his weight had been mentioned too much already and she could tell it was starting to grate with him.
‘And me,’ said Courtney, tapping her cheek with her finger.
‘You don’t make it easy for anyone, do you, Court,’ he said, kissing her, despite his annoyance.
‘Please eat, Sunny. I might be starting to worry about you. And ring me. And ring Mum.’
Shay gave her daughter daggers when Sunny had gone to find his father to say goodbye.
‘What?’ Courtney answered the look.
‘You, that’s what.’ She suspected Courtney was a little jealous of Karoline too.
‘Can you blame me? Karoline’s still got a stick up her arse.’
‘No she hasn’t. You made that awkward for your brother. You might as well have asked him to pick a side,’ said Shay.
‘I think that’s what she’s made him do already, Mum,’ Courtney answered her. ‘Does he look like Sunny any more to you? Because he looks like a drippy weed to me. He’s withering away to nothing. I can’t get my head around the dynamics of that relationship at all. He’s changed so much since he’s been with her. It’s as if she’s sucked the essence ofhim out like some parasite and I can’t think why she’d do that. Why do people fall in love with you for what you are and then want to change you? Now, where’s Dad, because all this bear-baiting has made me thirsty.’
‘I hope you aren’t driving home.’
Courtney huffed. ‘No, of course not, I’m getting a lift from—’ A beat. A horribly telling one. ‘Someone.’
‘Oh no, Courtney. Please don’t tell me you mean Dingo.’
‘I know what you’re going to say, but hear me out. Completely fresh start. He’s finally got his act together. He’s going to be a competitive eater and set up his own YouTube channel and earn a fortune. And, he’s now on an anger management course. Oh, and he’s allowed to drive again. He’s a new man, Mum. Really.’
And with that Courtney, the daughter who could apparently see her brother’s relationship with a clarity that she couldn’t apply to her own love life, was gone to hunt her father down.
Chapter 20
‘Sure you don’t want some of this?’ asked Bruce. He’d flung two pasta packet mixes into a pan and added boiling water which was in line with his culinary expertise.
‘No thanks,’ said Shay, still in her black getup. Unlike him, she hadn’t changed into something more comfortable, as if on some subconscious level, it kept her connected to the day, to her mother.
‘You haven’t eaten anything all day, have you?’ Bruce stirred, channelling his inner Gordon Ramsay. ‘Mind you, I’m surprised anyone got near the buffet with that greedy pillock around. His plate was piled up so high there was a bloody Sherpa perched on it. His first plate, anyway. God knows how many times he went back.’
As soon as the cling film had been removed from the buffet plates, Chris, true to form, had been in like Flynn. He would have given new competitive professional eater Dingo Shaw a run for his money.
‘Yes, he likes his food, does old Chris,’ agreed Shay.
‘He likes hisfreefood. Sponging arsehole, I can’t abide him,’ Bruce declared. ‘I was standing outside and he arrivedfor a smoke, big fat Winston Churchill cigar. I knew he hadn’t come to seek me out for witty repartee, so I let him do the small-talk lead-up to wherever he was heading and guess what? He wants me to invest in his fancy water filter business. I’m at my mother-in-law’s funeral having a breather and he’s rattling on about poncy taps and guaranteed returns on my capital while polluting my airspace.’
