Twenties Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

fire in a garden in Clapham that belonged to a girl I knew at university. Josh was handing out sparklers to everyone. He lit one for me and asked me what my name was and wrote
Lara
in the darkness with his sparkler, and I laughed and asked his name. We wrote each other’s names in the air until the sparklers went dead, then edged closer to the fire and sipped mulled wine and reminisced about fireworks parties of our childhoods. Everything we said chimed. We laughed at the same things. I’d never met anyone so easygoing. Or with such a cute smile. I can’t imagine him being with anyone else. I just can’t…
    “All right, Lara?” Dad is glancing over at me.
    “Yes!” I say brightly, and jab off the phone before he can see the screen. As organ Muzak begins, I sink back in my chair, consumed with misery. I should never have come today. I should have made up an excuse. I hate my family and I hate funerals and there isn’t even any good coffee and—
    “Where’s my necklace?” A girl’s distant voice interrupts my thoughts.
    I glance around to see who it is, but there’s no one behind me. Who was that?
    “Where’s my
necklace?”
the faint voice comes again. It’s high and imperious and quite posh-sounding. Is it coming from the phone? Didn’t I turn it off properly? I pull my phone out of my bag—but the screen is dead.
    Weird.
    “Where’s my
necklace?”
Now the voice sounds as though it’s right in my ear. I flinch and look all around in bewilderment.
    What’s even weirder is, no one else seems to have noticed.
    “Mum.” I lean over. “Did you hear something just now? Like … a voice?”
    “A voice?” Mum looks puzzled. “No, darling. What kind of voice?”
    “It was a girl’s voice, just a moment ago …” I stop as I see a familiar look of anxiety coming over Mum’s face. I can almost see her thoughts, in a bubble:
Dear God, my daughter’s hearing voices in her head
.
    “I must have misheard,” I say hastily, and thrust my phone away, just as the vicar appears.
    “Please rise,” she intones. “And let us all bow our heads. Dear Lord, we commend to you the soul of our sister, Sadie. …”
    I’m not being prejudiced, but this vicar has the most monotonous voice in the existence of mankind. We’re five minutes in and I’ve already given up trying to pay attention. It’s like school assembly; your mind just goes numb. I lean back and stare up at the ceiling and tune out. I’m just letting my eyelids close when I hear the voice again, right in my ear.
    “Where’s my necklace?”
    That made me jump. I swivel my head around from side to side—but, again, there’s nothing. What’s wrong with me?
    “Lara!” Mum whispers in alarm. “Are you OK?”
    “I’ve just got a bit of a headache,” I hiss back. “I might go and sit by the window. Get some air.”
    Gesturing apologetically, I get up and head to a chair near theback of the room. The vicar barely notices; she’s too engrossed in her speech.
    “The end of life is the beginning of life … for as we came from earth, so we return to earth. …”
    “Where’s my
necklace?
I
need
it.”
    Sharply, I turn my head from side to side, hoping to catch the voice this time. And then suddenly I see it. A hand.
    A slim, manicured hand, resting on the chair back in front of me.
    I move my eyes along, incredulously. The hand belongs to a long, pale, sinuous arm. Which belongs to a girl about my age. Who’s lounging on a chair in front of me, her fingers drumming impatiently. She has dark bobbed hair and a silky sleeveless pale-green dress, and I can just glimpse a pale, jutting chin.
    I’m too astonished to do anything except gape.
    Who the hell is that?
    As I watch, she swings herself off her chair as though she can’t bear to sit still and starts to pace up and down. Her dress falls straight to the knee, with little pleats at the bottom, which swish about as she walks.
    “I need it,” she’s muttering in agitation. “Where is it?