Read Online Last Kiss by Louise Phillips - Free Book Online

wine glasses. She holds them upside-down between her fingers. I can hear them clink against one another, and for an instant I remember seeing broken glass on the floor earlier but I can’t recall why.
    ‘Be careful,’ I say. ‘I think there might be some glass on the floor.’
    ‘Where?’ asks Lori. ‘I’ll clear it up.’
    ‘I’m not sure. My head is all over the place today.’
    ‘Don’t worry about it,’ says Alice, sounding confident and in charge. ‘It’s not like we’re going to kick off our heels out here in the hall.’
    ‘No, probably not,’ I say, but inside my head, I hear that voiceagain,
Get it together
. ‘What would you all like to drink? I’ve three bottles of wine cooling in the fridge.’
    ‘I’m sticking to red,’ says Lori. ‘White gives me heartburn.’
    ‘I thought that was only Chardonnay,’ pipes Karen, as she places the four glasses on the coffee table in the lounge.
    ‘She’s moved on,’ says Alice, ‘dismissing all the world’s wines unless they’re blood red. Isn’t that right, Lori?’
    ‘Stop it.’ Then, more tentatively, Lori says, ‘You do have red, don’t you, Sandra? It’s okay if you don’t.’
    ‘Of course I do. Edgar always has a good supply.’
    ‘Good old Edgar.’ Alice slips in a mocking dig.
    ‘Give it a rest, Alice,’ says Karen. ‘You’re just jealous you don’t have a husband like Edgar.’ Her tone is more teasing than critical.
    ‘Having a husband is overrated. I keep telling you that. You fall in love, get married, fall out of love, get married again or have an affair. It’s a vicious circle, reliving the same old Greek tragedy.’ She looks coyly at Karen. ‘Most people lumber their way through life without knowing why they do things.’ Then, remembering Lori’s recent separation, she adds, ‘I don’t mean you, Lori.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘He didn’t deserve you,’ Karen pipes in again.
    ‘As Alice says,’ musters Lori, ‘having a husband is overrated.’
    ‘Good,’ replies Alice. ‘I’d hate us to fall out before we have the wine.’
    I had managed to put out a display of canapés, olives and a large cheeseboard with grapes in the kitchen. I ask Karen togive me a hand carrying things through. She likes being busy, and is happy to oblige. She is standing beside me when I look down at the cheeseboard and see the large carving knife. Why did I put it there? It’s not suitable for cheese. Then I remember the eggs dropping from the fridge – did I take out the knife after that?
    ‘What the matter?’ she asks. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
    ‘I could have sworn …’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Nothing. Will you get the cheese knives from the utility?’
    ‘Sure.’ But as she opens the door of the utility, she calls, ‘Have you moved them, Sandra? I don’t see them in the usual place.’
    ‘I don’t think so.’ I follow her inside.
    ‘They have to be in here somewhere,’ she says.
    ‘They must be.’ My hands are shaking. I want to say: They’re not the only things I’ve noticed being moved.
    ‘There they are,’ she roars, pointing to the counter where I usually store the extra spices. ‘You shouldn’t leave them out like that,’ she scolds. ‘They’ll get dusty, and you’ll have to keep rinsing them before you use them.’
    ‘Yes, stupid of me. Give them here and I’ll clean them.’
    It’s not long before we’re all chatting in the lounge. The conversation is free-flowing, just as it is every time we meet, even back in the day when we shared a dingy flat in the centre of town. I have candles lighting the room, half a dozen at the fireplace. The house is warm with the under-floor heating on, now the evenings are getting chillier. Lori kicks off her shoes, moving her feet backwards and forwards on the travertine tiles.
    ‘I love the heat coming from the floor,’ she says.
    ‘It’s only a floor, Lori. Don’t get too excited,’ Alice barks.
    ‘Why do you always need to criticise?’