Written in Blood(102)

‘It’s to share around the play group really. After all, if it wasn’t for them there’d be no Hector.’

‘Poor little mites. They’ll be paralytic.’

‘The mothers, silly. There’s squash for the kids.’ Sue reached out for a knife.

‘Not that one. It’s still got polish on.’

Amy assembled a bread knife, two plates and two forks and fetched a couple of wine glasses from a cabinet in the drawing room. They were thick with dust so she rinsed them in tepid water under the tap.

The village store did not go in for top-flight patisserie. The cake tasted pretty synthetic and the wine slightly warm, yet every mouthful was ambrosial. Amy, chasing a final flaked almond around the margin of her plate, said, ‘That was wonderful. I hope it all didn’t cost too much.’

‘Nearly six pounds.’

‘Sue.’ Horrified, Amy laid down her fork. She understood only too well the gaping hole such an amount would leave in a skin-tight budget. ‘How are you going to manage?’

‘Don’t know. Don’t care actually.’

‘But it’s your Sainsbury’s shop tomorrow. Look.’ She laid slightly chocolately fingers on Sue’s arm. ‘Let me treat you. I’ve still got some money left from—’

‘No, Amy. Why should you?’

‘Because I’m your friend.’ Sue stubbornly shook her head. ‘A loan then. And when you’re R and F you can pay me back.’

‘I don’t think it’s an unreasonable amount to spend. Not to celebrate such a brilliant piece of news.’

‘Of course it isn’t.’

‘Some men would have taken their wives out for champagne and a slap-up meal.’

‘Indeed.’ Amy hesitated as to how to continue. She had no wish to carry on a conversation along unhappy lines. On the other hand Sue seemed to be, quite justifiably in Amy’s opinion, somewhat aggrieved. She also sensed a wish to dwell further on the subject of domestic injustice.

‘What did Brian say when you told him?’

‘That they had no intention of publishing. They had perhaps seen some slight merit in my sketches and were keeping vague tabs in case I came up with something worthwhile in the future.’

‘What absolute and utter rubbish!’ Amy was so angry her face had gone bright red.

‘It is,’ said Sue. Then, after a slight pause, ‘Isn’t it?’

‘The mean-spirited little toad.’

‘I didn’t believe him.’

‘I should jolly well hope not. If that was all, they’d have sent the drawings back with an encouraging letter asking you to keep in touch.’ Sensing a slight diminution of the radiance opposite she followed through with an interrogative clincher. ‘Right?’

‘Right.’

‘That’s settled then. Now - what are you going to wear?’

‘God knows. Everything I’ve got’s held together with Sellotape and willpower.’

‘We’ll go round the charity shops. They have some lovely things. And this time it’s a loan and no argument. You must look nice.’

‘Thank you.’

‘After all, she might take you to the Ritz.’

‘W-e-l-l.’ Unaccustomed as she was to literary lunches this did strike Sue as flying a trifle high. ‘Probably not the first time.’

‘You must tell me every single thing about it. From the minute you set foot in the restaurant till the minute you leave. What the place is like, everything you eat and drink, what the waiters are like and the other diners—’

Sue started laughing again. ‘I’ll never remember all that.’

‘Right up to the time you help her into a taxi.’

‘Why will I have to do that?’

‘Oh, she’ll be well away by then,’ explained Amy airily. ‘They all drink like whales.’

Sue regarded Amy’s amused, animated, totally involved expression and warm brown eyes with feelings of deep affection and gratitude. The old saw which promised that when in trouble you soon found out who your friends were had never struck her as all that profound. Of course, in a crisis, people rallied round, sometimes out of genuine concern, more often perhaps because they welcomed the opportunity to become briefly involved in lives crammed with more dramatic incident than their own. But how much harder was it to truly rejoice in another’s good fortune, especially when your own had been so savagely cut short.

‘It’ll be you next time.’ Sue stretched out her hand, slipping it, for comfort, into Amy’s. ‘Once you’ve finished Rompers they’ll all be fighting over it.’

For a moment Amy did not reply. She appeared withdrawn and a little sad. Sue wondered if Ralph had come into her mind. If Amy was thinking how pleased he would be to know that she was writing a book. She went on quickly, ‘And I’ll be able to help. I’ll get an agent - you always can once you’ve signed a contract - and I shall insist they take you on as well.’