Always You Read Online Free PDF Page B

absorbed by something in the seaweed which Molly was poking with a big stick. ‘Hey,’ she called out. ‘Time to go.’ She peeled back the sleeve of her coat to consult her watch and said to Becky, ‘We’d better make tracks. If we don’t hurry up we’ll be late meeting Dad and Aunt Vi for lunch.’
    ‘And we’ll never hear the end of it if we are,’ said Becky, rolling her eyes.
    Lewis came over and held up fingers, as red and stiff as a cooked lobster. ‘My hands are cold, Mum.’
    Sarah smiled indulgently. ‘No wonder, sweetheart, when you refuse to wear gloves.’ She put her arm around him and kissed his coarse hair.
    ‘Last one back to the car’s the loser,’ cried Becky and she set off across the shingle followed by the children.
    By the time they’d all made it back to the car and driven the short distance to the Londonderry Arms Hotel in the middle of Carnlough village – where good home cooking was the order of the day and attracted clientele from the length and breadth of County Antrim – they found Aunt Vi and Dad already seated at a table by the window.
    ‘Thank goodness, you’re here at last,’ was the first thing Aunt Vi said from behind steel-rimmed glasses, her right hand splayed on her sternum like a starfish, her lined face full of anxiety. ‘We were getting worried.’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ said Sarah, peeling off her scarf. ‘Lewis, don’t leave your coat lying there on the floor. Put it on the back of a chair. That’s a good boy.’
    ‘Come and sit by me,’ Dad said to the boy, patting the seat beside him. ‘Molly, pet, you sit on the other side.’
    Sarah and Becky shed their outdoor things and filled the two remaining seats beside their aunt, who was still bristling with annoyance.
    ‘Sorry Aunt Vi,’ said Sarah again. ‘We didn’t mean to be late. We were on the beach. We lost track of time.’
    ‘That’s okay, love,’ said Dad, staring wistfully out the window, with eyes the palest shade of sky blue. ‘Your Mum used to love walking on the beach here.’
    Sarah smiled at him warmly, taking in his white dentures and thinning white-grey hair. His gnarled hands lay motionless on the table – the skin across his knuckles was wrinkled and papery. An old man’s hands.
    Becky said softly, ‘Yes, Dad, I remember. We used to take a run up the coast most Sundays in the summer. We’d get an ice cream and eat it over there, on the harbour wall.’ She pointed through the window to the limestone harbour constructed in the 1850s. The white stone had weathered, tinged now with a golden yellow, reminding Sarah of another childhood treat.
    ‘Do you remember Yellow Man?’ she said, referring to the brittle honeycomb toffee that had been one of the highlights of ‘a day up the coast’.
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said Becky. ‘I loved that stuff when I was little.’
    Aunt Vi jumped into the brief lull in the conversation. ‘All I’m saying is that you should’ve phoned.’ She glanced at the mobile phone poised squarely on the table in front of her, like a reproach. ‘Or texted.’ Despite the fact that she cut a decidedly old-fashioned figure with her steel grey hair scraped back in a bun and a stern black roll-neck, adorned only with a simple gold locket, she was surprisingly up to speed when it came to cutting-edge technology.
    Becky said, ‘Who’s for a drink?’ and caught the eye of a waiter.
    Sarah lowered her voice and said patiently, ‘We were only ten minutes late, Aunt Vi.’
    The children chattered excitedly to Dad and Aunt Vi said, folding her arms across her chest, ‘Ten minutes is a long time when you’re waiting for someone. Anything could’ve happened for all we knew.’
    Dad looked up sharply. ‘That’s enough, now, Vi,’ he said gently.
    Aunt Vi unfolded her arms and pushed up the bridge of her glasses and soon everyone was distracted by ordering drinks and food.
    ‘Well, Molly, you’ll be moving up to the high school after the summer,’ said Becky, when