The Saint Zita Society Read Online Free PDF Page B

finish. She removed the ice cream from Thomas’s mouth with a cleansing wipe, took another to clean his hands, and kissed the top of his head before she answered. In a calm, quiet voice she said, ‘I cannot go through that again, Father. You are right about the suffering and I can’t go through it again. As for living with you, you are so kind, you always are, but it won’t do. I am best with children, I love these children, and you are best on your own with your nice friends and your good neighbours.’
    ‘Come then,’ he said, and she knew he had given up – but only for now. It would begin again next time she saw him. ‘I have customers to attend to.’
    They were mostly women. The older ones wore Knightsbridge clothes and Bond Street jewellery, their hair dyed the colour of freshly squeezed orange juice or like the mahogany in Lucy’s drawing room. The young women all looked like Lucy Still in tight jeans made for teenagers, white T-shirts and shoes with four-inch heels. One had taken hers off, put them in the trolley she was pushing towards ‘Bulbs and Corms’ and was hobbling along barefoot. Thomas had fallen asleep, thumb in mouth. Rabia pushed him home, walking slowly, enjoying the sunshine.
    Montserrat was outside the house, standing beside her car, talking to Henry. On the ground between them was an object that looked to Rabia like a cross between a boat and a coffin. Henry told her it was his and neither a coffin nor a boat but a box to go on a car roof rack and contain extra baggage or camping equipment.
    ‘Montsy’s going to buy it.’
    ‘Wait a minute,’ said Montserrat. ‘That depends if the price is right. Why you want to get rid of it is another thing.’
    ‘Because I had to get rid of my car.’
    ‘You fasten it to the roof rack on your car and put stuff in it and drive off somewhere,’ said Rabia. ‘Where are you going, Montsy? You go to your mother in Spain?’
    ‘Not this time. I’ll be skiing in France and I’ll put my skis in it and all the gear I’ve bought. You wait till you see my new ski pants.’
    Bought with the money Lucy gave her and Rad Sothern gave her, Rabia thought uncomfortably. A twenty-pound note here and a fifty-pound note there. Of course she said nothing. It wasn’t her business – unless it was her business and her moral duty to say something to someone. Back to that again. It always came back to that, however much she argued with herself.
    ‘You want to come to a lunchtime meeting of the Saint Zita Society?’ said Montserrat. ‘It’s an extraordinary general meeting and it’s to be in the Dugong’s garden so you can bring Thomas and when Henry starts asking an inflated price like he’s bound to, you can take my side and support me.’
    ‘Lucy would be angry.’
    ‘Lucy won’t know.’
    Rabia smiled and began dragging the heavy pushchair up the steps of number 7. Henry ran up to give her a hand, calling back to Montserrat that he couldn’t take less than seventy-five pounds.
    ‘You’re joking. It’s about a hundred years old.’
    ‘
If
you don’t mind, I paid two hundred for it in 2005.’
    ‘Fifty,’ said Monserrat.
    ‘Seventy.’
    ‘Fifty-five.’
    ‘Now look who’s joking.’
    June appeared at the front door of number 6 and, in spite of the rheumatism, tripped down the steps like someone half her age. ‘You two are making as much noise as a gang of yobs in Brixton. This is supposed to be one of the most select neighbourhoods not just in the UK but in the Western world. HSH has got a headache.’
    ‘I can give you a couple of paracetamol for her but it’ll cost you,’ said Henry, laughing.
    June ignored him. ‘We shall have to raise this question of street noise at the meeting. I’ll put it on the agenda.’
    Henry put the roof box inside the basement door of number 11 and then they all trooped off to the Dugong. Thea, Jimmy and Beacon, both once more on the wagon because Mr Still would want fetching from the City at four and Dr