Two Weddings and a Baby Read Online Free PDF Page B

not.’
    ‘So,’ Laura said, ‘you can forget this silly feud?’
    ‘It’s not a feud and it’s not silly,’ Tamsyn said.
    ‘What is it then?’
    Tamsyn shook her head. ‘I’m going to the loo,’ she said, getting up. ‘I’d love a large gin and tonic if anyone is offering.’
    How could she explain to her mother, to anyone, especially Ruan, that it was her fault? It was her fault that Merryn went out to sea and never came back.

Chapter Three
    Tamsyn grimaced as she stood in front of the mirror in the chilly ladies’ loo, and eyed the windows that had been so cruelly secured with iron bars. As she had made her way towards Poldore, she had had a vision of how things would be between her and Ruan. How they’d see each other and embrace, and he’d apologise (first) and she’d apologise and then everything would be the way it had been once before. Why couldn’t she bring the poise and professionalism she carried off so well in Paris across the ocean to Cornwall? She blamed her hair; it was like it had a personality of its own. When it was straight and sleek she could keep the worst aspects of her personality in check, but when the frizz got out, it was like the stylistic version of the incredible hulk: there was no telling what would happen next, and before you knew it she’d be walking down a road to melancholy music, hitching a lift.
    Because, unlike the vicar, the soaking-wet look did not suit her. Her hair had already begun its inevitable contraction into a frenzied mass about her blurred and pinched-looking face, that was smeared with diluted make-up.
    Collecting a bunch of paper towels, she damped them down and scrubbed her face, rather painfully, until her cheeks glowed pink, and dragged her fingers through her hair, for all the good it did.
    ‘You have to do better than this, Tamsyn,’ she told her reflection sternly. ‘You have to stop being accidentally bitchy, putting your foot in it with vicars and offending your brother’s wife-to-be. You have to put your best foot forward, you have to be …’ Tamsyn struggled to find a word that would fit her face. ‘Well, you have to try and be nice. Like you know you are, deep down. A really, really stupid-haired nice person.’
    ‘Only nice?’ A young woman appeared in the mirror behind her. ‘I always thought you were much more of a lovely.’
    Tamsyn spun round and took in a familiar oval face.
    ‘Luke Godolphin! I mean … Oh God, I’m so sorry … Lucy, wow!’ Tamsyn couldn’t stop staring at the woman who stood before her. ‘I mean, wow. Mum told me you are a girl now. And you are gorgeous, you bitch, look at your hair! I always was jealous of your lovely smooth blond hair, even when you were a boy.’
    Lucy laughed. ‘I think I was always actually a girl. Now I’ve just made the outside fit the inside.’
    It was true. Back in the old days, Luke/Lucy had been the quietest of their group of friends, always hanging back even then, her long hair falling in her eyes, covering her face, keeping secrets. The boy … the human being she had known back then had worn black skinny jeans and pixie boots, used eyeliner and made friends with the girls instead of making out with them. Although there had been that one time, at a party, when Tamsyn had come across her friend hiding outside in the garden, silently crying. When Tamsyn had asked what was wrong, she had been grabbed and kissed with determination, if not exactly enjoyment. After the kiss had finished, the two of them had looked at each other for a moment, and then burst out laughing.
    ‘Let’s ditch this party,’ Tamsyn had said. ‘It’s full of dicks.’
    And they’d gone to the woods instead, got drunk, stared at the moon flitting between the trees and talked about how one day the whole world would know who they were. That person, that lost ghost boy who’d never really been there, was entirely gone now.
    Tamsyn paused for a moment to take her old friend in. There was the familiar