Lucy in the Sky Read Online Free PDF Page B

street full of houses with red-tiled roofs. Before I know it we’re pulling up in front of a two-storey wood-panelled green and cream house. A hammock hangs out on the porch and a fragrant frangipani tree is in full bloom in the front garden.
    I’ve been to Sam and Molly’s house plenty of times, back when it was Sam’s family home. Shortly after I left Australia, Sam’s parents, Joan and Michael, died in a boating accident. Their bodieswere never found. Sam and his younger brother, Nathan, alerted the authorities when their parents still hadn’t returned late at night after a whole day sailing. The boat was eventually discovered empty a couple of days later, drifting way out in the Pacific Ocean. The most popular theory was that Joan had fallen overboard and Michael had jumped in trying to rescue her, forgetting to put the anchor down. The boat had drifted and they’d both drowned or had been taken by sharks. Some speculated that they’d done a runner or been kidnapped. And there were even terrible whisperings that maybe Michael had murdered his wife and then killed himself. But anyone who’d ever met them knew that wasn’t true. They were a wonderful, warm couple, their house always filled with Joan’s infectious laughter. I was devastated when I found out. They’d always joined in with us ‘kids’ and we felt comfortable around them. Michael was a good-looking man with slightly-too-long-for-his-age dark hair and rough stubble, while Joan was tall, slim and elegant with short blonde hair. I always wanted to be like her when I grew up. But at five foot six, curvy and brunette, the most I can hope for now is having Joan’s sense of humour.
    After their parents’ disappearance the boys moved in with their aunt, Katherine, in the city. When it was eventually accepted that Joan and Michael were never coming back, Katherine–Joan’s sister–agreed to take them on permanently, rather than unsettle them even more by forcing them to move all the way to Perth in Western Australia to live with their grandparents. At almost eighteen, Sam would soon be old enough to move out and go to university, so it didn’t seem worthwhile uprooting him and his brother. Neither of the boys could bear to sell the family home and as Michael had been a successfularchitect and, together with Joan, had run his own property development business, Sam and Nathan found they could afford to keep the house and rent it out.
    Eighteen months ago, Sam and Molly finally moved back in and turned it into a B&B. They now run the place together and are kindly letting me stay in one of their two guest bedrooms for the next fortnight. There’s a sign out at the front saying NO VACANCIES and Molly explains that they’re not taking on anymore visitors in the lead-up to the wedding. I’m secretly overjoyed that we’ll have the house to ourselves, although I feel bad that I’m not a paying guest. I hope they don’t mind but the cost of the flight has almost wiped me out as it is.
    Sam unlocks the front door and stands back to let Molly and me pass. The house smells familiar–sort of woody and even a little damp, but not in an unpleasant way. The kitchen, which I soon see has been newly modernised, has been moved to the front of the house off the hall, and the brand-new light, airy living room is straight ahead, opening onto the garden. Sam leads the way through to the kitchen and then carries on down the corridor where the downstairs bedrooms always were, lugging my suitcase with him. ‘I’m just going to plonk this in your room, Lucy,’ he calls back to me cheerfully. ‘You’re in my old room!’
    Sleeping in Sam’s room at last after all these years. How ironic.
    ‘So how’s the wedding planning going?’ I turn to Molly.
    ‘There’s just so much to do,’ she groans.
    ‘I’ll be able to help now I’m here.’
    ‘You’re going to regret saying that, you know,’ she warns, as Sam reappears.
    ‘No, I’m not. I can’t