Read Online Gucci Gucci Coo by Sue Margolis - Free Book Online Page A

fidgeting in her seat. She was desperate to get the conversation off chiropractors and thongs and back to whatever it was her mum and dad wanted to tell her. “So, come on, you two. When are you going to let us in on the big secret?”
    “Big secret?” Aunty Sylvia said. “What big secret? I didn’t know about any big secret.”
    “We’d planned to tell Ruby first,” Ronnie said, “but I’m sure she won’t mind you being here.”
    Phil went over to the dining table on which there stood an unopened bottle of champagne and some glasses.
    “Ooh, so it’s good news, then,” Aunty Sylvia said, clocking the bubbly.
    “None for me,” Ronnie called after Phil. “Water’s fine.”
    “How come you’re not drinking?” asked Sylvia. “It’s me who has to watch the calories, not you. You have a husband. Me, I’m starting to think I’m never going to find a man and fulfill my dream of buying a double burial plot…. Come on, have a drink.”
    “No, I really don’t fancy alcohol at the moment.”
    “Gawd,” Aunty Sylvia snorted, adjusting the cushions behind her back, “anyone would think you were pregnant.”
    The champagne cork popped. Ronnie’s face broke into a huge grin. “Actually, I am…that is, we are,” she said.
    “Yeah, right,” Aunty Sylvia came back. “So, come on, what’s the real reason you’re not drinking?”
    “I told you. I’m expecting a baby.”
    There was a few seconds’ silence while Ruby and Aunty Sylvia waited for Ronnie to say: “Aha, gotcha. Had you going for a minute there, didn’t I?” But she didn’t. In fact she didn’t say anything. While Phil poured the champagne, she just sat smiling.
    “God, you’re not joking, are you?” Ruby said, her voice little more than a whisper. She swallowed hard. “You really are pregnant.” She and Aunty Sylvia exchanged bewildered glances. “Are you sure? I mean, can you even have a baby at fifty? OK, Cherie Blair did it at forty-five, but even that was pushing it.”
    At this point Sylvia got up and went to sit next to Ronnie. “Rhona, darling,” she said gently, putting an arm around her sister. Sylvia always called Ronnie by her proper name when she had something serious to say. “This is just the menopause. It’s your body playing tricks on you. And don’t forget you have blocked tubes. It’s highly unlikely that you really are pregnant.”
    “Well, I am,” Ronnie said. “Over four months. I’ve had two scans. I’ll show you the pictures in a moment. I hated waiting this long to tell you. It’s been awful, but we wanted to hang on until we got the results of the amnio. They’ve just come through and everything’s fine.”
    “But what about your tubes?”
    Ronnie shrugged. “My doctor says one of them may have spontaneously unblocked itself. It’s more likely that the original diagnosis was wrong.”
    Ruby felt herself sink back into the sofa. How many times in her life had she uttered the phrase “I don’t believe it” and not really meant it? Well, this time she meant it. She couldn’t take it in. She literally couldn’t believe it.
    By now Phil was handing round champagne glasses. “So, aren’t either of you going to congratulate us?” he said.
    Ruby put down her glass and leaped from the sofa. “Oh, God. Sorry. It was the last thing I’d imagined, that’s all, and I’m still in shock.” Despite this she managed to put an arm around each of her parents and kiss them in turn. “Wow, I’m going to have a baby brother or sister!”
    “Thirty-two years—it’s the perfect age gap,” Aunty Sylvia piped up.
    “OK,” Ruby said, giggling at the age gap remark, “here’s the deal.”
    “What?” Ronnie came back.
    “First, we don’t share a room. Second, we get the same amount of pocket money and third, as the eldest I get to go to bed when I like.”
    Ronnie burst out laughing. “Oh, I think we can manage that.”
    Instead of joining in with the levity, Aunty Sylvia was suddenly looking