Chloe Read Online Free PDF Page B

ages!).
    Jocelyn wrote weekly, came to parents’ evenings, sports days and school plays. When Chloë’s maths teacher chastised Jocelyn over Chloë’s general apathy and incompetence, the visits and the picnics and the chocolate truffles became more frequent. Not as a bribe, but as support.
    â€˜I’m not surprised your mind wanders off in maths, it’s insufferably boring,’ Jocelyn had said over shandy at a pub near Avebury. ‘But just think, if you pass your O level you’ll never,
ever
, have to do maths again! And just think, if you pass your O level you can turn your back on mental arithmetic and formulae and daft equations, to add things up on your fingers forever more! That’s why we’ve got ten of them after all!’
    Chloë gained a ‘B’ for her maths O level and has used her fingers to count ever since.
    It was watching the Queen’s Speech on the television (Chloë remained upstanding with sherry and a mince pie) that decided her what to do.
    â€˜Velvet, Your Majesty!’ she cooed with reverence and gratitude. ‘Jocelyn said I may have “anything of velvet” so I shall go directly and have my pick. First, though,’ she announced, ‘I shall pack!’
    Chloë, her belongings and Mr and Mrs Andrews crossed London for Notting Hill by taxi and her sudden Christmas cheer ensured an extravagant tip on top of the seasonally quadrupled fare. Chloë grinned and waved at the familiar front door; darkly glossed hunter green, brass fittings gleaming. Hullo, hullo, hullo, she chanted, skipping up the wide steps two at a time. She had her own set of keys, of course she did. But the locks had been changed, of course they had. Feeling tearful and bewildered, she sat down on the front steps, surrounded by bags that were suddenly too heavy and bulky, wondering what to do. She thought of all the velvet items inside that were now rightfully hers, she wondered about the Chilean Mr and Mrs Andrews hoping they were still where they should be, presiding over matters in the drawing-room. Her own Mr and Mrs Andrews were too cold and cross to talk. Or was that her? She hoped nothing had been removed or even moved inside the house and yet how could she check? With her bottom numbing against the cold stone, and her lower lip jutting in bewilderment tinged with self-pity, she felt at once trapped and yet barred. Christmas Day was closing around her. It was cold.
    Wales, suddenly, did not seem a good idea at all.
    â€˜Wales,’ declared Peregrine, flinging his arm out in a roughly westerly direction, ‘is an absolutely splendid idea!’
    â€˜Good old Jocelyn Jo!’ agreed Jasper, thrusting a mug of mulled wine into Chloë’s chilled hands.
    Jasper and Peregrine had found her, huddled and sleepy, on their return from a promenade along the Serpentine. Their keys fitted the locks on Jocelyn’s door perfectly for it was they who had had them changed. Jocelyn had left the house to them on that very condition: ‘To prevent my nearest and not so dearest trespassing and traipsing through.’ So Chloë had been rescued and was once again ensconced in a familiar armchair, looked down upon by the benevolent, if surreptitiously Latin, smiles of Mr and Mrs Andrews.
    â€˜Your phone,’ said Jasper, ‘is perpetually engaged. We’ve been trying you for yonks.’
    â€˜If the Sins weren’t using it,’ Chloë explained, ‘I left it off the hook. Knowing that it would never again be Jocelyn, I can’t bear to hear it ring.’
    Chloë cradled a chipped cup that she knew well and nibbled biscuits from the lucky dip of Jocelyn’s old Foxes’ tin. Wardrobes full of velvet were just up the stairs and off the landing, and there would undoubtedly be a bottle of Mitsuko in the bathroom, one in the bedroom. And yet it seemed strange to be there, half asleep, freezing cold, sitting amongst all the