Read Online Ten Years On by Alice Peterson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alice Peterson
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birthday.He’d taken me to our local bistro, where our friendly waiter had iced in chocolate around my pudding plate, ‘Will you marry me?’ It was perfect. Todd proposed to Pippa the following week during their Caribbean holiday. They were on the beach when a light aircraft flew overhead, high in the sky, a streamer trailing the words ‘MARRY ME!’
‘I always knew I’d fall for an older man,’ she’d said when she brandished her eye-boggling diamond-and-sapphire engagement ring in front of us, before saying, ‘Let’s see yours, Becca.’
I can still see her squinting at my finger as she said, ‘Oh, isn’t it sweet!’
Olly never truly forgave them for casting our engagement into their shadow.
After becoming Mrs Todd Carter, Pippa worked at the sports agency for a couple more years until she became pregnant at twenty-six. After the birth of the twins, they moved down to Winchester to be close to Mum and Dad. Pippa had never really liked London, not like me. She didn’t have a strong network of friends, didn’t like hanging out in the pub or going to nightclubs, and what with Todd away so often on business, she felt it would be a lonely place to push a pram.
*
I park the car in the gravelled driveway, next to Todd’s convertible BMW. I notice how part of the garden is now enclosed, with a trampoline, climbing frame and what looks like a rabbit hutch in one corner.
‘Hello!’ I call out when I enter through the back door. Todd greets me, dressed in a jacket and tie, glossy brown hair with flecks of silvery grey, kept out of his eyes by designer shades, and teeth as white as snow.
He leads me into the kitchen, the soles of his smart shoes clicking against the stone-tiled floor, opens the fridge, which is almost as large as their front door, and offers me a selection of beverages, from fruit juices to champagne. ‘Or I can make you a coffee.’ He gestures to the slick silver coffee machine on the breakfast counter. I opt for water.
‘Ice and lemon?’ He presses a button and ice cubes drop into the glass like magic.
I ask Todd how his recent business trip went. The truth is, I don’t really know what Todd does. Nor do Mum and Dad, but they say it’s too late to ask him now. We all know he turns companies around, shakes up their finances, but I can’t imagine the detail of his life. ‘It’s a mystery,’ Dad says wryly.
‘Great,’ Todd replies, and that’s the end of that conversation, the mystery remaining unsolved.
*
‘Uh-oh,’ Todd grins, when we hear running along the corridor that sounds like the beginning of an earthquake. ‘Here comes trouble! Now, Rebecca, we don’t allow them in the sitting room, and bedtime is in’ – he looks at his gold watch – ‘approximately twenty minutes.’
When Pippa kisses me goodbye I inhale a waft of honeysuckle perfume. She looks incredible, in a pale-pink evening dress. Pippa is impossibly pretty, with her china-blue eyes, plump cheeks, natural blonde hair and heart-shaped mouth, all features inherited from Mum. I’ve seen the family albums and she was an angelic-looking baby too, with blonde ringlets. I’m more like my father, with my sharper cheekbones and English-rose skin. ‘Have fun!’ I call out.
‘We won’t be late,’ she says over her shoulder. ‘They can play for another half-hour before bed …’
‘Twenty minutes,’ corrects Todd.
‘Oh, and I did promise they could eat the fruit kebabs they made at nursery today.’
‘OK!’
‘Any trouble, call me.’
‘We won’t have any trouble, will we?’ I say, expecting to turn round to two innocent-looking boys modelling Superman and Spiderman dressing gowns, feet encasedin fluffy slippers. They were behind me a minute ago, but …
Oscar has plonked himself in his racing car with a Union Jack flag attached to the aerial. He pedals furiously round the kitchen table, screaming and laughing and tooting the horn. Plump Theo is waddling behind, trying to catch him
‘I always knew I’d fall for an older man,’ she’d said when she brandished her eye-boggling diamond-and-sapphire engagement ring in front of us, before saying, ‘Let’s see yours, Becca.’
I can still see her squinting at my finger as she said, ‘Oh, isn’t it sweet!’
Olly never truly forgave them for casting our engagement into their shadow.
After becoming Mrs Todd Carter, Pippa worked at the sports agency for a couple more years until she became pregnant at twenty-six. After the birth of the twins, they moved down to Winchester to be close to Mum and Dad. Pippa had never really liked London, not like me. She didn’t have a strong network of friends, didn’t like hanging out in the pub or going to nightclubs, and what with Todd away so often on business, she felt it would be a lonely place to push a pram.
*
I park the car in the gravelled driveway, next to Todd’s convertible BMW. I notice how part of the garden is now enclosed, with a trampoline, climbing frame and what looks like a rabbit hutch in one corner.
‘Hello!’ I call out when I enter through the back door. Todd greets me, dressed in a jacket and tie, glossy brown hair with flecks of silvery grey, kept out of his eyes by designer shades, and teeth as white as snow.
He leads me into the kitchen, the soles of his smart shoes clicking against the stone-tiled floor, opens the fridge, which is almost as large as their front door, and offers me a selection of beverages, from fruit juices to champagne. ‘Or I can make you a coffee.’ He gestures to the slick silver coffee machine on the breakfast counter. I opt for water.
‘Ice and lemon?’ He presses a button and ice cubes drop into the glass like magic.
I ask Todd how his recent business trip went. The truth is, I don’t really know what Todd does. Nor do Mum and Dad, but they say it’s too late to ask him now. We all know he turns companies around, shakes up their finances, but I can’t imagine the detail of his life. ‘It’s a mystery,’ Dad says wryly.
‘Great,’ Todd replies, and that’s the end of that conversation, the mystery remaining unsolved.
*
‘Uh-oh,’ Todd grins, when we hear running along the corridor that sounds like the beginning of an earthquake. ‘Here comes trouble! Now, Rebecca, we don’t allow them in the sitting room, and bedtime is in’ – he looks at his gold watch – ‘approximately twenty minutes.’
When Pippa kisses me goodbye I inhale a waft of honeysuckle perfume. She looks incredible, in a pale-pink evening dress. Pippa is impossibly pretty, with her china-blue eyes, plump cheeks, natural blonde hair and heart-shaped mouth, all features inherited from Mum. I’ve seen the family albums and she was an angelic-looking baby too, with blonde ringlets. I’m more like my father, with my sharper cheekbones and English-rose skin. ‘Have fun!’ I call out.
‘We won’t be late,’ she says over her shoulder. ‘They can play for another half-hour before bed …’
‘Twenty minutes,’ corrects Todd.
‘Oh, and I did promise they could eat the fruit kebabs they made at nursery today.’
‘OK!’
‘Any trouble, call me.’
‘We won’t have any trouble, will we?’ I say, expecting to turn round to two innocent-looking boys modelling Superman and Spiderman dressing gowns, feet encasedin fluffy slippers. They were behind me a minute ago, but …
Oscar has plonked himself in his racing car with a Union Jack flag attached to the aerial. He pedals furiously round the kitchen table, screaming and laughing and tooting the horn. Plump Theo is waddling behind, trying to catch him
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