‘Really horrible,’ Lola confirmed.
‘At least they’re new. Ooh, how about this?’ Excitedly Blythe waved a peacock-blue scarf adorned with silver squiggles. ‘Seven pounds!’
Lola nodded. What harm could a scarf do? The sooner her mother bought something, the sooner she’d stop going on about the coat. ‘Yes, buy it.’
‘No, don’t buy it!’ Sally let out a snort of laughter and waggled her hands in a bid to draw Lola’s attention to something on the scarf.
‘Honestly, you two,’ Blythe grumbled. ‘It’s like going shopping with Trinny and Susannah.
What’s wrong with—’
‘My God! Lola!’
Everyone turned in unison at the sound of the girl’s voice. Next moment Lola found herself having the breath hugged out of her lungs as market-goers swirled around them on the pavement.
At last Jeannie put her down and Lola said, ‘I don’t believe it. Look at you! You’re so brown.’
‘That’s because I’m living in Marbella now! We’re just back for a few days visiting my mum.’
Jeannie’s hair was sunbleached, her skin was the colour of a hazelnut and she was wearing faded, hippyish clothes and flip-flops. ‘And you aren’t brown: she said cheerfully, ‘so that must mean you live in unsunny Britain.’
‘I do. I live right here in Notting Hill. And this is my mum.’ Lola indicated Blythe. ‘And my friend Sally. Mum, this is Jeannie from school.’
‘Oh, the Jeannie you went off with to Majorca! How lovely to meet you at last,’ Blythe exclaimed. ‘And what a coincidence – fancy bumping into you like this!’
As things had turned out, Lola hadn’t ended up spending more than a few days with Jeannie.
Shortly after her arrival in Alcudia, Jeannie had hooked up with a boy called Brad who was moving on to work in a restaurant on a surfer’s beach in Lanzarote. Jeannie had gone with him the following week and that had been the last she and Lola had seen of each other. Lola, aware that her mother and Alex would have been worried sick if they’d known she was out there on her own, had discreetly glossed over that snippet in her postcards home.
‘Such a coincidence!’ echoed Jeannie. ‘I was just looking atSarah’s jacket, admiring it from a distance, then I saw who she was talking to and I was just, like, ohmigod!’ She ran her fingers over the sleeve of Sally’s caramel leather jacket and said appreciatively, ‘It’s even better close up.’
‘Sally,’ said Sally.
‘Huh? My name’s Jeannie.’
‘I know You just called me Sarah. I’m Sally, Sally Tennant.’
‘Oops, sorry! Brain like a sieve, me!’ Jeannie tapped the side of her head, then stopped and began wagging her index finger in a thoughtful way. ‘Although not always. Hang on a minute, wasn’t Tennant the name of that boyfriend of yours?’
The index finger was now pointing questioningly at Lola.
‘Doug Tennant.’ Sally gave a yelp of excitement. ‘That’s right, he’s my brother!’
Lola experienced a sensation of impending doom, like an express train roaring out of a tunnel towards
‘You’re kidding!’ Her eyes and mouth widening in delight, Jeannie looked from Sally to Lola.
‘So you and Doug got back together? My God, I don’t believe it! That’s so romantic! What happened about the money? Did his witch of a mother make you pay it all back?’
Lola’s first instinct was to clap her hands over her ears and sing loudly, ‘Lalala.’ Her second was to clap her hands over her mother’s ears and go, ‘Lalala’ But it was too late; Blythe was frowning, looking as bemused as if everyone had suddenly started babbling away in Dutch.
‘Oops, sorry!’ Jeannie smacked her forehead and turned back to Sally. ‘I just called your mother a witch!’
‘What money?’ said Blythe.
Dougie and I didn’t get back together,’ Lola blurted out. ‘Sally’s my next door neighbour.’
‘Oh crikey, I’m getting everything wrong here, aren’t I?’ Jeannie shook her head dizzily and burst out laughing. ‘Well, except for the bit about your mum being a witch.You have to admit, that was a pretty beastly thing she did. I mean, that’s messing with people’s lives, isn’t it?’
‘Excuse me.’ The bored stallholder nodded at the scarf being twisted in Blythe’s hands. ‘Are you going to be buying that or what?’
‘So did Doug ever find out about the money?’ Jeannie said avidly.
Blythe carried on twisting the scarf. ‘What money?’
Lola closed her eyes and breathed deeply; when she’d gone out to Alcudia she’d made a point of explaining to Jeannie that her mother didn’t know about the money thing. How, how could Jeannie forget something as important as that, yet remember a detail as small and irrelevant as Dougie’s surname?
‘Yes, Doug found out.’ Sally, attempting to ride to the rescue, said hastily, ‘But that’s all in the past, everyone’s moved on, it’s—’
‘Oh, don’t try and change the subject, I’ve always wanted to know what you spent all that money on. God, I wish someone would’ve given me ten grand to dump any of the loser boyfriends I’ve hooked up with over the years.’ Apologetically, Jeannie touched Sally’s arm. ‘Not that your brother was a loser. I met him a couple of times before they broke up and he was totally fit.’
He still is. Desperate to get away — although it was too late now, the cat was out of the bag —
