Nothing New for Sophie Drew: a heart-warming romantic comedy - Katey Lovell (best english novels for beginners .txt) 📗

was what had been bothering her at Tawna’s party, when she’d tried to convince us that her only troubles were work-related.

“For anything in particular?”

She looked at the ground, shifting her feet in a nervous jig. “Well, I’m wanting to get my own place. I can’t stay in the house forever anyway – it’s going to have to be sold sooner or later. Sooner, actually. Mum’s care is costing more than I’d estimated but she’s adamant I stay in the house and won’t even consider selling while I’m living there. That’s why I’m trying to get enough to put down a deposit on a flat. If I move out she’ll see I’m able to stand on my own two feet and then the money from the house sale can go on her care.”

She flicked a flyaway strand of hair out of her face and planted a fake smile.

A bitter taste filled my mouth. “It makes me sick how people who’ve worked hard all their lives are expected to sell their homes when they need care.”

“It gets to me too, but there’s no other option. I was angry at first, but I’ve accepted it now. I’m fortunate, I earn a decent wage and my outgoings aren’t that bad, it’s just I’ve got used to having a disposable income. The past few months I’ve been putting aside as much as I can afford, and along with my savings I’m already halfway to a deposit.”

I put my arm around my friend’s shoulder, pulling her in close in a sideways hug.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” What amazed me most was how she’d managed to keep it to herself when anyone else’s secrets are spilled within seconds.

“I only made the decision just before your birthday, and I wanted to tell you, but I had this sense that you were distracted. I didn’t know if it was down to the milestone birthday or something else, but you weren’t your usual self. Then you went off the radar…”

“I’m sorry. I should’ve been there for you when you needed me most.” If I’d known I would have been banging her door down with a bag of her favourite sugar-coated jam doughnuts in one hand and a bottle of something strong in the other. “I had my head up my bum. New Year and my birthday made me reassess everything and when I realised how much I was spending it was a wake-up call. I’ve been trying to make cutbacks too.”

“You taking a step back from the social scene did me the world of good too, to be honest. I stopped spending as much on nights out and made more time to see Mum. If you saw her now, Sophie, well, you wouldn’t recognise her. Sometimes, rarely, she’s the same as before, but there’s an emptiness in her eyes as though she’s looking but not seeing. She knows who I am, mostly, but she talks about the past as though it’s the present. She was even talking fondly about my dad the other day.”

“No way. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her mention him without an expletive attached to it somewhere.”

Eve smiled. “I know. It’s bizarre. Although I have to admit it’s been nice in a way. I knew they must have loved each other once, but after all those years of her cursing him, it’s been good to hear her reminisce about the happy times.”

“I always imagined the two of them as being totally in love with each other, lacing daisies into each other’s hair,” I said with a fond smile. “I bet the love they had was all-consuming. A lifetime of love in one summer.”

Eve’s dad had moved to London when she was a baby, which was probably why Lucille – even with all her hippy-dippy talk about free-love – found it hard to be positive about him. It couldn’t have been easy being a young single parent.

I’d met Eve’s dad a few times over the years. We’d spent a week with him once, staying in the flat he lived in above the tattoo parlour he ran (nothing like the sterile places you see on every corner these days. This was a grim, dark shop that smelled of mould and weed, around the corner from Chalk Farm tube). He’d been friendly and laid back, with the same wide easy smile as Eve, but dressed like he ought to be at Woodstock, with a loose cheesecloth shirt, flared blue jeans and a heavy statement pendant swinging around his neck.

“They were young. Eighteen, the pair of them.”

“So young.”

“And I don’t blame Dad for leaving. Even now he’s like a kid, so imagine what he must have been like then. The way Mum’s been talking about him, I can tell she was love-struck. ‘Greg with the dimple’ she keeps calling him. I never even knew he had a dimple. He’s had that bushy beard for as long as I can remember, well before the hipsters brought them back into fashion.”

“Any fashion comes back round if you wait long enough.”

“Very true.”

We drifted into the car boot sale as we talked. The amount of unwanted stuff was insane, especially kids’ toys. Every car seemed to be selling a plastic dolls house or two-storey garage and the tables were piled high with jigsaws (probably with half the pieces missing) and assorted board games. There were also indiscriminate items, like a glitter lava lamp, a mug tree, a set of oversized cushions… anything people had bought and then regretted, or more likely been given for Christmas by someone who didn’t know them especially well.

Nothing grabbed my attention, but Eve made a beeline for the back of a black 4x4, eagerly grabbing my arm to pull me towards whatever it was she’d spotted.

When we reached the trestle table, I knew immediately why she’d dragged me to this car. There, slap-bang in the centre of the other life detritus, was a serving bowl I’d seen many times before. Not the exact one – that would’ve been