Everything is Beautiful by Eleanor Ray (classic literature list .TXT) 📗

from it and glanced at Richard for the first time.

‘Oh,’ she said. He was wearing denim shorts, flip-flops, and that was it. She quickly looked back to the can of 7-Up.

Charles looked at her, then at his father. ‘Dad,’ he said. ‘You’re so cringe.’ He passed his father a T-shirt.

‘Sorry,’ said Richard, putting on the T-shirt. ‘Sun’s out guns out, and all that.’

‘You don’t have guns,’ said Charles.

‘It’s fine,’ said Amy, trying to swallow her blushes. ‘It’s your garden, you’ve a right to . . . I’m not an old lady, you know.’

‘I can see that,’ said Richard, then he looked down and up again. His eyes lingered for a moment on her long legs, so rarely on display. Amy caught his eye and they both looked away. She looked back. Colour was creeping up his own cheeks, only partially hidden by his beard. He made a funny sound that Amy thought was probably an awkward attempt at a laugh. ‘I mean, we’re all old to these tykes.’ He ruffled Charles’s hair.

‘I’m three and a half,’ piped up Daniel.

‘That’s almost four,’ explained Charles.

‘Indeed,’ said Amy.

‘Good maths,’ agreed Richard. He laughed, more naturally this time. ‘So what do you think of this fencing panel? I went for a plain wood.’

Amy found she had nothing much to say on the subject of fencing panels. ‘I expect my ivy will cover it in no time,’ she said.

‘You hate it,’ said Richard, with another laugh.

‘Dad, you’re being boring,’ said Charles.

Nina came into the garden wearing a little white dress and huge sunglasses. ‘Gorgeous weather,’ she said. ‘Oh, hello,’ she said, glancing at Amy’s legs. ‘Here again? Making use of the hole in the fence, I see.’

‘Amy said we can still visit whenever we like,’ Charles told her. Amy frowned. She didn’t remember saying that.

‘You too, Richard?’ asked Nina, putting an arm around Richard’s waist. She let out a small peal of laughter that was probably designed to be pleasant.

‘Dad likes Amy,’ said Charles. ‘We all do.’

‘I have to get going,’ said Amy. ‘Thank you for your hard work.’ She paused a moment. ‘And the lemonade.’ It was still unopened, and she dithered for a minute, wondering whether it was more polite to hand it back or take it with her.

‘That’s yours now,’ said Charles. ‘Next time you come there’ll be pineapple juice. I promise.’

‘Goodbye, Amy,’ encouraged Nina, waving. Amy slipped through the gap in the fence.

Amy looked at the piles of pots, lopsided now she’d given some away. She picked up a small pot that sat inside a large one near the ground, causing panic among a family of woodlice who’d been sheltering there, safe from the elements. They scurried this way and that, bumping into each other several times before fleeing down a drainage hole to the safety of the earth below.

She almost gasped with joy.

There they were. Two large fragments of her broken pot, lurking inside this one. Perhaps she had enough to fix it now. She lifted them out.

Something else was underneath.

An envelope. It was muddy and had been nibbled around the edges, probably by one of Rachel’s mice, or perhaps a snail, and there was a hole in the corner. It had clearly been wet at some point, and the ink had run. But she could still make out her own name and address, printed on the front in block capitals.

Amy sat back and ripped open the envelope. Inside was a photo. She frowned at it.

It made no sense. A bit of park, or woodland perhaps, at sunset. It could have been anywhere. She looked more closely. Some sort of big car or truck at the edge of the picture. It meant nothing to her.

There was something else in the envelope.

A letter.

The writing was smudged. It must have been hiding inside that pot for a long time. Rain had leaked in, mud was smeared over it, some sections were missing completely. She could make out very little of it.

But that handwriting.

She’d know it anywhere.

July 2003

‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’ suggested Amy, tentatively. ‘You’re on stage in five minutes.’

Tim knocked back another shot of tequila. ‘It’s just what I need,’ he replied, wiping his mouth. ‘Where’s my pint?’

Amy passed it to him, then took a sip of her white wine from a clear plastic cup and looked at the tequila bottle. They’d bought it on the way to the gig and it was already half empty.

‘It’s buzzing out there,’ said Chantel, storming into the dressing room, really a glorified closet. She turned her back and stripped off her office uniform of blazer and shirt. Underneath was a sparkly low-cut top. ‘Oh, and in here too,’ she said, turning back round and spying the bottle. ‘Some for me?’

‘Course there is,’ replied Simon. ‘Pretty thing like you.’ He refilled Tim’s shot glass and passed it in Chantel’s direction.

Chantel downed the shot, holding out her glass for more. ‘Where’s the rest of the band?’ she asked.

‘Idris and Phil couldn’t make it,’ said Tim.

‘Artistic differences?’ laughed Chantel.

‘Something like that,’ muttered Simon. ‘Twats.’

‘Oh,’ said Chantel. ‘But don’t you need a drummer and another guitar player?’

‘We’ll manage,’ said Tim. ‘We’ll have to.’

‘You’ll be brilliant,’ said Amy. ‘You always are.’

‘Come on, Tim,’ said Simon. ‘Let’s get out there. Take your pint with you. The fans are waiting.’

‘The equipment was faulty,’ said Amy, through the door of the cubicle in the men’s loos. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ She tried to peer under the door, but she could just see a pair of mucky trainers. She stood up again, keen to avoid the anonymous fluid on the toilet floor.

‘We’re shit,’ said Tim. ‘We’ve always been shit. It just didn’t show so much when Idris and Phil were being shit too.’

A man came in, and for a brief moment the open door allowed the noise of the club in. Just as suddenly the volume fell again. The man glanced at Amy then