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‘It’s mine and I want it. Now. You will kindly transfer it to me with immediate effect.’
‘I kindly won’t.’ Flick put down her fork. The food had stopped tasting good now anyway.
‘Felicity Charlesworth, do not cross me.’
‘Mum, you told me that unless you were—’
‘GIVE ME MY MONEY.’ Cilla dropped her cutlery onto the plate with an angry clatter.
‘NO.’ Flick more than matched her mother in sound level. ‘You just want it to give to him and I’m going to make sure that you have at least something left for when you realise he’s bled you dry.’
‘How dare you.’ Cilla’s face was screwed up now and very red.
‘You’ll thank me one day.’
‘You little shit. You think you can tell me what todo. You think you’re in charge here, do you?’ Cilla was screaming now.
Flick had never seen her mother this angry before. She looked demonic.
‘Mum, I think you should calm down.’
‘Don’t you DARE tell me to calm down. Who’s put you up to this? Marielle I suppose – ha? Yes, I’ll bet. I suppose she’s been dripping poison into your ear about me, telling you I’m stupid and that I haven’t got a brain to think with, the frustrated, shrivelled-up cow.’
Flick had no idea where all this vitriol was coming from.
‘Mum, Auntie Marielle hasn’t said a—’
‘She’s NOT your auntie,’ shrieked Cilla. ‘She’s a dried-up old bag who has got no right to tell anyone else how to run their life. She’s jealous of me, she always has been, it’s coloured our whole relationship, Miss High and bloody Mighty. How can she of all people have the nerve to dictate to me? If she were such a good judge of character, she wouldn’t let people into her home – HER OWN HOME – who rob her blind. And she keeps doing it, she doesn’t learn any lessons. What sort of idiot does that make her? They keep taking advantage of her, like that bloody woman there now. Ha!’
‘Sabrina, you mean?’ said Flick. ‘She’s not like that, she’s lovely.’
‘Lovely, is she?’ snarked Cilla. ‘I bet yourAuntie Marielledidn’t tell you thatlovely Sabrinahad the barefaced cheek to steal her purse from under her noseandthen deny it when it couldn’t have been anyone else. No, I bet she didn’t and she’s so weak and pathetic that she’sstillletting her stay in the flat because she’s beyond dense, because she’s frightened what people would say if they knew. And she really thinks she knows better than me?’
The words hung in the air, long tails on them. The hush broken by a single note of disbelief, a small sound from Flick’s throat.
‘That’s not true,’ she said eventually.
Cilla realised her mistake immediately. What if Marielle hadn’t said anything to anyone about the missing purse? Cilla then couldn’t have known. But the thought was quickly dismissed, because Marielle didn’t keep anything from her friends, especially Sylvie, and she could blame the leak on them. But just in case, she should cover herself.
‘You absolutely must not say a word, I was told this in strictest confidence,’ Cilla said. ‘You must swear to me you will forget this conversation happened.’
Flick had been brought up to know that you didn’t break a holy swear. Her mother, in spite of her faults, was god-fearing at heart. Or sort of. She believed that if you went to church for the communions, believed in Christ, prayed before bedtime and always took swearing on the Bible seriously, you would glide up to heaven one day on a golden escalator.
‘Your Auntie Marielle would be destroyed if this got out.’ Cilla threw a little emotional blackmail into the mix for good measure. ‘I’m sorry if I overreacted, it’s only because I’m frustrated by her too-trusting generosity. So mean it when you swear.’
‘I swear,’ said Flick, her voice wobbly. Her heart was beating in her chest, a horrible mix of adrenaline and disappointment. She felt rocked, disorientated, as if someone had pulled the whole floor from under her.
‘Now let’s continue on a new footing without talk of money – yours, mine or otherwise. I wanted to have a pleasant lunch with my daughter and it’s taken a sour turn. I’msorry that we let other people spoil it. Have some cauliflower cheese, I don’t want any wastage.’
It would wait, thought Cilla, picking up the dish and handing it to Flick. If her money was safe with her daughter, she’d get it later. For now she had to concentrate on erasing this conversation from history.
TheDaily Trumpetwould like to apologise for a misprint that occurred in last Friday’s edition in which we misnamed Flora Exley’s floristry business as Floral Sex. We apologise for any intended error to Ms Sexy and have made a donation to a charity of her choosing.
Chapter 36
Flick wasn’t her customary sunny self the next day. She didn’t even have her morning break with everyone but took herself off into the office and then she went home rather than have lunch there. Teddy had asked her what was wrong and she’d said she hadn’t slept well, but she was the same on Tuesday and Wednesday too. Sabrina had also asked if she was okay and she’d answered in a very strange clipped tone that she was perfectly fine thank you and just had ‘things on her mind’. She obviously wasn’t fine, but Sabrina reckoned if she couldn’t offload to her uncle, whom she was close to, she wasn’t going to confide in a woman she barely knew and so she backed off.
Things on her mindwas an understatement. Flick had been stewing since that conversation with her mother where she’d revealed that Auntie Marielle’s purse had been stolen. By Sabrina.It couldn’t be. But then again, it might explain why Marielle hadn’t been in the restaurant for at least a week, which was unheard of. If people found out that Marielle had been robbed again, they really would have something to say, so it was in her interest to make sure no one knewand had a go at her for being daft enough to let someone she didn’t know stay in her house. The pieces fitted together too well, but Flick didn’t want them to. She had sworn to keep the secret but it was bursting out of her, too big to keep in because she was really hurt. And when Sabrina asked her if she was all right, she’d wanted to scream at her that sheknew. Sabrina looked different now in the light of this information. Flick had always judged her at face value but it was entirely likely that she was a practised con artist, working hard to impress them and being nicey-nicey all the time and spouting obvious crap about how to improve things so they’d really believe she was a business expert. Even more than she was angry at Sabrina, Flick was angry at herself for being taken in by someone so flaming easily. And to think she’d actually pushed Sabrina and Uncle Teddy together to go out to a Ciaoissimo, hoping a spark between them might light. She was glad it hadn’t now. And maybe the reason Sabrina was here, saying she’d lost her memory, was because she’d run off from cheating someone else and was lying low. That would also fit. Surely if she could remember what job she did, she’d remember where she came from as well? It made Flick’s brain ache to try to unravel it all.
