Losing You Read Online Free PDF

wallet. I wrote a note for the milkman, cancelling the milk for the next two weeks, rolled it up and put it into the neck of an empty bottle, which I placed outside the front door. I washed the dishes in the sink, dried and cleared them away, and swept the kitchen floor thoroughly – I wanted Renata to arrive at a tidy house. I stripped the sheets off our beds and threw them into the kitchen to deal with. At eleven thirteen by the clock on the oven, I rang Charlie again, and once more got a message.
    I decided I would wash my hair before she got home and took over the bathroom: she’s the only person I know who can single-handedly empty a water tank with one shower. I was half-way through rinsing off the conditioner when I heard a knock at the door. I groaned, assuming it must be the man who called round every Saturday morning, selling fish from the back of a van. This was particularly irritating because a fresher and cheaper selection was available at a fishmonger’s three minutes’ walk along the waterfront. But occasionally I took pity on him, which gave him just enough encouragement to keep coming.
    The knock sounded again, louder this time. Charlie, I thought. She’s lost her keys again. I stepped out of the shower, pulled on the ratty grey dressing-gown that Rory hadn’t taken with him when he left, and ran down the stairs, rubbing my hair as I went. I opened the door starting to say something like ‘The prodigal daughter returns,’ but stopped, because it wasn’t Charlie and it wasn’t the fish man.
    Someone was singing loudly. Several people were singing loudly. I could see at least a dozen faces at the door. I felt a flash of horror of the kind you experience when you know you’re about to have an accident and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. When you have elbowed the vase off the shelf and it hasn’t yet hit the floor. When you have put the brake on too late and feel your car skidding unstoppably into the one in front. I realized that I was the victim of a surprise birthday party.
    At the front was Joel, head and shoulders taller than anyone else and dressed in his working clothes of jeans and a heavy green jacket. He was smiling at me apologetically. At least he wasn’t singing. He’d promised never to come to the house again, yet there he was and there – right behind him, not grinning and not singing – was his wife Alix. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, there was the vicar. He was certainly singing. He was leading it, as if he was in church, trying to rouse a sluggish congregation. Behind me, Sludge was moaning in panic. She was never much of a guard dog.
    ‘Happy birthday to you-ou-ou-ou!’ they finished.
    ‘Surprise,’ said Joel.
    For one moment, I thought I would slam the door in their faces and lock it. But I couldn’t. These were my neighbours, my fellow islanders, my friends. I made an effort to change my expression of dazed shock into a smile.
    ‘Charlie arranged it,’ piped up Ashleigh, who was standing beside the vicar, dressed in a trailing black velvet coat over a small, flouncy green skirt. Her face was glossy and fresh: full red lips, arched brows and smooth, peachy skin. Tendrils of dark hair snaked artfully down her neck. Ashleigh is Charlie’s best friend. Sometimes I worried about what they might get up to together.
    ‘Oh, did she?’ I said. ‘Is that why she’s not here?’
    ‘She said eleven, but we thought that was a bit early.’
    ‘Eleven fifteen seems a bit early for a party to me,’ I said weakly. Maybe this was the way they did things in the countryside.
    ‘Not when it’s your birthday!’
    ‘Not when it’s Christmas!’
    ‘Anyway, I think we can be certain it really is a surprise,’ said Alix, drily, as I tugged the belt of Rory’s oversized dressing-gown tighter and tried to look nonchalant.
    ‘Let us in, then, Nina. We’re getting cold out here.’
    I looked at the man who was brandishing a bottle of sparkling wine. Had I met him