AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Everybody, come in here, I have an announcement to make. Come on, all of you. Sit down.’
George and Antonio wandered through; Sabrina sat, as did the waiters. Teddy stood behind Flick, his hands on her shoulders.
‘I wanted to wait until you were all here. Yesterday I found out that Flick is my sister. There, that’s it. Announcement over.’
There followed a stunned silence. Niccolo broke it speaking in Italian and Teddy replied to him in Italian.
‘If you’re going to talk about me, can you at least do it so I can understand it,’ said Flick impatiently.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Teddy. ‘He asked me how and I said that I think he could guess without all the graphic details.’
‘Oh my god,’ said Roberto, clamping his hand over his mouth. ‘That means I am also directly related to you now, Flick. As if my life couldn’t get any worse.’
‘Cristo,’ said his brother, equally horrified. Then both of them and Flick exploded into laughter. They’d handled it perfectly, lightly in a way that Teddy couldn’t have, because he was too close, his loyalties and emotions tangled. George and Antonio gave her a hug – and playful commiserations – and the tension that had been weighing down the air allmorning was gone. At least where that was concerned. Teddy, once again, had to go out and remonstrate with builders who had parked up on their private land in order to work on the property earmarked to be the new Ciaoissimo.
Flick came into the ladies’ loos when Sabrina was mopping the floors in there after the lunch customers had left.
‘You’ll be back working at your desk soon and cleaning our bogs will be a distant memory,’ she said, leaning against the sink and smiling, but it was a sad sort of smile. When Sabrina looked up at her, she thought that she seemed to look even more like Teddy Bonetti since the news broke.
‘Vital job, Flick. Do you know how important it is to have spotless toilets in restaurants?’ Sabrina said. ‘People seem to equate the state of the loos with the state of the kitchens. Also, restaurants are very much judged on their dessert offerings too. Women especially turn to the puddings on the menu before they ever look at the mains.’
‘Oh my god, I do that,’ said Flick. ‘If there’s no cheesecake on there, I just want to leave.’ She laughed but then became suddenly serious and Sabrina knew that she hadn’t come into the toilets to talk trivia.
‘Did my Auntie Marielle tell you what my mum did?’ she asked.
‘Well, it wasn’t just your mum, was it?’ replied Sabrina. It wasn’t fair that Cilla should take the entire blame. ‘How do you feel about it all?’
Flick tilted her head one way, then the other as if that would help her answer.
‘I don’t know, it keeps changing. I never knew my dad… well, the dad I thought I had. He didn’t have any relatives so I didn’t grow up with any of his family in my life, I only ever knew Mum’s side. Teddy said that his dad really lovedme, which is nice, isn’t it? I suppose I’m expecting to feel different but I don’t.’
‘You haven’t suddenly changed through this news, Flick. You are who you have always been.’
‘I don’t know what I feel about my mother though. How could she have done that to someone she thought of as a sister? But then she didn’t try and excuse it. She didn’t do her usual trick of trying to blame it on anything or anyone else which was really weird.’
‘Give yourself time to unknot your feelings, Flick.’ Sabrina snapped off some toilet roll and handed it over because Flick was sniffing.
‘Hugo’s gone. She had him arrested.’
‘I heard,’ said Sabrina.
Flick blew her nose loudly then said, ‘I don’t think I’ll ever trust a man.’
‘Yes you will, one day, when you find someone worth trusting,’ Sabrina replied, though she couldn’t say for sure if she’d ever found that person for herself.
‘Sabrina, will you stay in touch with me when you go?’ asked Flick then. Her voice was so wobbly that Sabrina dumped the mop in her bucket and went over to her, giving her a hug and, just for a minute, she let herself believe that this was what hugging Linnet would have been like. This is how a daughter felt in a mother’s arms. Cilla was a fool to have this and not recognise how special a relationship it was.
‘Of course. I promise. I’d like to know how you’re doing at university.’ Flick’s hair smelt of apples. Linnet would have used a similar shampoo, something fresh and clean. Sabrina pushed her out to arm’s length before the scent pierced her tear ducts.
‘Both of us have to leave our comfort zones and that’s going to be a bit scary, Flick. But it’s for the best.’
For Flick, Sabrina knew that for certain. She would excel at uni; she would thrive and grow. For herself, stepping back into her other existence was a necessity she couldn’t avoid. And only time would tell if it was for the best or not.
Orrible was in the best of moods. Even the fact that he’d been summoned to Billy the Donk’s gaff could not dampen his spirits because he was definitely in for brownie points. In the past four days he had delivered a top-of-the-range, brand-new Range Rover Sport SVR to Shifty Smith’s garage in Middlesbrough and had become an engaged person. Okay, he’d got a bit giddy after finding the handbag of dreams contained some nice bits of gold jewellery and a wad of money in the purse. He wasn’t usually a gambling man, but after seeing a horse called Handbags at Dawn was running in the two-thirty at York, he’d flung a ton on it and it had come in at fifty to one. He’d had too much celebratoryherband then proposed to his girlfriend Tina, but he hadn’t woken up and regretted the decision, far from it. He doubted he’d find anyone better than his Tina. He doubted he’d find anyone else really.
Also he’d had definitive proof that the fainting woman hadn’t recognised him; he was in the clear. He’d caught her when she fell and saved her from bumping her head this time, and sat with her while the ambulance came, like a good Samaritan. She’d even thanked him as she got in it.
There was a bag of brooches in the bottom of the bag, cheap tat, and the phone was prehistoric, no good forselling on. There was an envelope with documents in it: birth and death certificates, stuff like that. He supposed he could have done something with them at a push but his engagement had made him feel a bit mushy. The woman – Polly – had had a bit of a rough deal at his hands. Taking everything from her would sour the blissful state he was presently in, but a little giving back would entirely salve his conscience.
