Read Online The Best of Times by Penny Vincenzi - Free Book Online
Authors: Penny Vincenzi
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it’s the last meal that’ll be cooked for you in this house. Because I’ll have gone, left you for good. I’m sick of it—sick to the death of looking after the kids alone, and sleeping alone, and coping alone, and I don’t want to hear any excuses about how we’ll soon have a great house and a fine car. So is that clear, Patrick, because if it isn’t I’ll say it all again, just so there’s no doubt in your mind whatsoever …”
Patrick had told her it was quite clear, and that of course he’d be back in Kilburn, and in good time for the birthday dinner. “And I have a great gift for your mother as well; just wait till you see it. So kiss the boys for me and tell them I’ll see them tonight. Now I have to go,or I’ll get pulled over for using the phone and then I’ll never arrive in time. Bye, darling. See you later.”
He snapped off his mobile, pulled over into the middle lane, and moved up to the fifty-six miles an hour that was his top speed.
He was dead tired. But he should be home by seven at this rate. If only it wasn’t quite so hot …
• • •
Georgia looked at her watch again. Twelve fifteen now; it was hopeless, completely hopeless. She gave up praying, gave up smiling at every car that came along, gave up hope, sank onto the grass verge by the lay-by, buried her head in her arms, and started to cry.
• • •
Rick Thompson was in a foul mood.
He was supposed to be getting home early; he’d got up at bloody dawn to finish a job in Stroud—some silly cow had decided at the beginning of the week she wanted the fence he’d put up for her painted white instead of stained brown, and it had meant an extra day and a half’s work. He wouldn’t have minded so much—it was all work, after all, all money—but she liked to chat, and it was, well, boring, mostly about her husband who was away “on business, in Japan actually,” and his views on life in general and how he liked her garden to look in particular. When she was through with that, she moved on to her children, who were all very musical, especially her eldest …
Anyway, he’d finished that morning in record time, mostly because she’d gone to Waitrose in Cirencester—“I know it’s a bit of a trek, and terribly wrong of me, environmentally, but it’s just so much better quality”—and he was waiting for her to get back so he could hand her the invoice, when his boss phoned and said he wanted him to pick up a load of timber from a yard outside Stroud and drop it off with him before the end of the day.
Since the boss lived outside Marlow and Rick lived in Reading,this was not too great an imposition, but the yard had been closed when he got there, bit of paper pinned on the door saying, “Back by one thirty,” but it was nearer two when the lumber yard guy arrived.
“Sorry, mate, got caught up with something.”
“Yeah, well,” Rick said, his face assuming the expression that sent his wife diving for cover, “some of us like to get home before midnight, specially on a Friday, OK? Let’s have it, PDQ.”
There was still some wood from the last job lying around in the bottom of his van; the man suggested he clear it out before putting his new timber in.
“Yeah, well, I’ll leave it with you, then; you can dispose of it for me.”
“Oh, no,” said the man, looking at the assortment of dusty, split planks, some of them still stuck with rusty nails, “you dispose of your own rubbish, mate. Sign here, please.”
Swearing under his breath, Rick signed, and then found the back doors of the van no longer shut properly.
“This is all I need. Got any rope? I’ll have to tie the fucking doors together.”
“You ought to tie those old planks down, mate. Not have them rattling around like that.”
“Look,” said Rick, “when I need your advice, I’ll ask for it. Right now I don’t, all right?”
And he pulled out of the yard, with Rudi, the black German shepherd dog that was his constant companion, on
Patrick had told her it was quite clear, and that of course he’d be back in Kilburn, and in good time for the birthday dinner. “And I have a great gift for your mother as well; just wait till you see it. So kiss the boys for me and tell them I’ll see them tonight. Now I have to go,or I’ll get pulled over for using the phone and then I’ll never arrive in time. Bye, darling. See you later.”
He snapped off his mobile, pulled over into the middle lane, and moved up to the fifty-six miles an hour that was his top speed.
He was dead tired. But he should be home by seven at this rate. If only it wasn’t quite so hot …
• • •
Georgia looked at her watch again. Twelve fifteen now; it was hopeless, completely hopeless. She gave up praying, gave up smiling at every car that came along, gave up hope, sank onto the grass verge by the lay-by, buried her head in her arms, and started to cry.
• • •
Rick Thompson was in a foul mood.
He was supposed to be getting home early; he’d got up at bloody dawn to finish a job in Stroud—some silly cow had decided at the beginning of the week she wanted the fence he’d put up for her painted white instead of stained brown, and it had meant an extra day and a half’s work. He wouldn’t have minded so much—it was all work, after all, all money—but she liked to chat, and it was, well, boring, mostly about her husband who was away “on business, in Japan actually,” and his views on life in general and how he liked her garden to look in particular. When she was through with that, she moved on to her children, who were all very musical, especially her eldest …
Anyway, he’d finished that morning in record time, mostly because she’d gone to Waitrose in Cirencester—“I know it’s a bit of a trek, and terribly wrong of me, environmentally, but it’s just so much better quality”—and he was waiting for her to get back so he could hand her the invoice, when his boss phoned and said he wanted him to pick up a load of timber from a yard outside Stroud and drop it off with him before the end of the day.
Since the boss lived outside Marlow and Rick lived in Reading,this was not too great an imposition, but the yard had been closed when he got there, bit of paper pinned on the door saying, “Back by one thirty,” but it was nearer two when the lumber yard guy arrived.
“Sorry, mate, got caught up with something.”
“Yeah, well,” Rick said, his face assuming the expression that sent his wife diving for cover, “some of us like to get home before midnight, specially on a Friday, OK? Let’s have it, PDQ.”
There was still some wood from the last job lying around in the bottom of his van; the man suggested he clear it out before putting his new timber in.
“Yeah, well, I’ll leave it with you, then; you can dispose of it for me.”
“Oh, no,” said the man, looking at the assortment of dusty, split planks, some of them still stuck with rusty nails, “you dispose of your own rubbish, mate. Sign here, please.”
Swearing under his breath, Rick signed, and then found the back doors of the van no longer shut properly.
“This is all I need. Got any rope? I’ll have to tie the fucking doors together.”
“You ought to tie those old planks down, mate. Not have them rattling around like that.”
“Look,” said Rick, “when I need your advice, I’ll ask for it. Right now I don’t, all right?”
And he pulled out of the yard, with Rudi, the black German shepherd dog that was his constant companion, on
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