Read Online Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend by Jenny Colgan - Free Book Online Page B

and never come back? Would I even have noticed?
     
    I felt really ashamed of myself.
     
    ‘So, em. I wondered. Where I’m going . . . I’m going to need to do some cleaning. You know, look after things. And I wondered if you could help . . . show me what to do.’
     
    At first she looked like she didn’t quite believe it. Then her whole face crumpled - but with delight.
     
    ‘Miss Sophie! You need me to show you what to do? You want my help?’
     
    ‘Yes,’ I said, finding myself blush.
     
    ‘But of course Esperanza can help you! Come with me.’ And she grabbed me by the hand like I was four years old and dragged me into the kitchen. As she did so, I had a sudden sense memory of her hand on my arm. But as far as I could recall she’d never touched me before. Yet there was certainly something very familiar about her touch.
     
    ‘When you were small,’ she said, ‘you used to love to help Esperanza. Always when I was working you would come downstairs. “What doing, Espraza?” all day long. I had to give you your own duster and brush.’
     
    That couldn’t be true, could it?
     
    ‘Then you went to school, and after that, pffff. You don’t want to help Esperanza any more. You want to buy shoes.’
     
    ‘I do like shoes,’ I said, as Esperanza opened a large cupboard I’d never been into before. There were rows of cleaning materials lined up neatly - bleaches and sprays and powders, each with corresponding cloths and buckets.
     
    We went through everything. It took hours, but it wasn’t like I had anything else to do. How to clean mirrors without streaking them. How to remove limescale (when I thought of the flat on the Old Kent Road, my heart sank. The only way to remove their limescale would be a medium-range nuclear missile). How to empty the Hoover. By the end of it I was grubby and exhausted. We collapsed down to share a pot of builder’s tea. Esperanza fussed over me and chatted and was so completely unlike herself I couldn’t believe who I was talking to. She told me about her daughter in Guatemala - who was about my age, which, I realised, meant that all these years Esperanza was looking after our family, she hadn’t been looking after her own. I couldn’t believe I’d never really thought about that.
     
    ‘She’s teacher now,’ said Esperanza proudly. ‘I send home all my money from here and she goes to school and now she’s teacher.’
     
    I was genuinely impressed. Maybe if I’d gone and done something useful like be a teacher I wouldn’t be here right now . . . Oh, who was I kidding? I didn’t have anything like the patience and dedication. Plus, I thought ruefully, I’d spent my life dealing with kids anyway, everyone I knew had a mental age of about eight and a half.
     
    I had to go. I’d packed my suitcases. I’d learned a couple of useful things. I wandered up one last time to look at my dad’s room. There was no trace now, nothing left at all. I wondered how long it would be before Gail redecorated, and every last bit of him would be gone. I wondered what she was doing with all his Jermyn Street suits - he liked going to get tailored, used to take me with him. The tailors would give me lollipops and warn me sternly against playing with pins. I played with the pins anyway and my dad laughed, ruffled my hair and told me I had a taste for danger.
     
    I hadn’t. But it felt like I no longer had a choice.
     
    ‘I think I’ll see you soon,’ I said to Esperanza. ‘And . . . I know I’ve never . . .’ Suddenly I found it hard to get the words out. ‘I know I’ve never said it. Not properly,’ I said. My bottom lip was wobbling a bit. ‘But . . . thank you.’
     
    Esperanza clasped me to her large bosom and gave me a huge hug.
     
    ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘That’s all you ever had to say.’
     
     
     
    If I thought the Old Kent Road looked bad in morning light, it wasn’t in the least bit improved by a dank, heavy overcast day.
     
    I wondered