Love Always Read Online Free PDF Page B

couldn’t have it any later, some people –’ he raises his eyebrows – ‘ some
    people came down last night and are going back to London this evening.’ I nod politely.
    ‘We’ll meet the others there, then?’ Jay says. ‘Yes, yes,’ Archie says briskly, as though he’s got it all under control and supplementary questions are ridiculous. ‘Father’s going with Miranda – with your mother, Natasha – to the church. Then we’re all off back to Summercove afterwards, for some food.’
    ‘I know Mum’s done an awful lot of cooking,’ Octavia says slowly. ‘She’s been flat out all week, poor thing. It’s been pretty stressful for her.’ She sighs. ‘And clearing out the house, getting poor Great-Uncle Arvind settled somewhere new – I mean, we all know he’s a brilliant man, but he’s not exactly easy, is he!’ She laughs.
    Don’t let Octavia wind you up , I chant to myself. She signed up for an Oxbridge-graduates-only online dating service and she fancies George Osborne. That is the kind of person she is .
    I would still quite like to smack her though. I hope the feeling doesn’t stay with me all day. I wish I could. I wish I could get really drunk at the wake and start a fight, EastEnders style. Perhaps I should. Archie and Jay are silent. I make a non-committal sound.
    ‘Your mum’s been wonderful,’ I force myself to say instead because it’s the truth, despite being annoying to admit. Louisa is the one who gets things done, she always has been. She is the one who’d take me into Truro to buy me new socks and shoes for the autumn term at school, muttering all the while about how someone had to do it, mind you, but still. ‘Oh, Louisa, she is wonderful,’ is sort of her shoutline. That’s what you say about her, in the absence of anything else to say.
    We are climbing up and out of Penzance. Below us, the sea is frothing and churning. There are dark, restless clouds on the horizon. We drive in silence for a while, going further inland. Here on the south coast the country is wild, but lush, greener than the rest of the country, even though it’s February. We pass Celtic crosses, their intricate decorations long worn away by the wind from the sea, and soon we are driving past the Merry Maidens, the ten girls who were turned to stone for dancing on a Sunday. They’re all so familiar. It is so strange to be here when it’s not high summer, but it is so wonderful all the same, and then I remember why I’m here. Granny would have loved a day like today, walking through the winding lanes and over the high exposed fields, a silk head-scarf covering her hair, her eyes alight with the joy of it all.
    In the front, Archie turns to Julius. ‘So, Julius, how are the markets?’
    ‘Weulllll –’ Julius begins, in his low, blubbery voice. ‘Patchy, Archie. Patchy . . .’
    I am spared the rest of his answer by Octavia turning to me.
    ‘How’s your jewellery stuff going then?’ she asks, curiously. As ever I grit my teeth at this question, which makes it sound as though I’ve been to the Bead Shop and threaded a few plastic hearts onto a string for a friend’s birthday, rather than that it’s my job.
    ‘Fine, thanks,’ I say. ‘I’m just finishing a new collection.’
    ‘Wow, how great,’ Octavia says. ‘Where will you sell that, on a stall, or . . . ?’ She trails off, almost embarrassed.
    It has been about two years since I sold my jewellery on a stall, first in Spitalfields Market, then at the Truman Brewery nearby. I got lucky when one of my pieces, a gold chain made of tiny interconnected flowers, was featured in Vogue a couple of years ago, and a minor but quite trendy pop star wore it in a magazine, after which a boutique in Notting Hill and one just off Brick Lane started stocking my stuff. That’s how it works these days. Someone I’d never heard of wore a necklace of mine and I ended up hiring a PR to promote myself and paying someone to set up a website. Now I sell