After the One, Cass Lester [top romance novels .txt] 📗

her new bike, the first one she’d had without stabilisers.

‘Mummy, Mummy, watch me!’ she’d called, wobbling away in front of them along the path between the trees, putting her foot down every now and again to stop herself toppling off. The bike was bright pink, with glittery streamers fluttering on its handlebars and a tacky white plastic basket stuck on the front.

‘Ghastly, isn’t it?’ Tara said.

‘Yup,’ agreed Charley. ‘Did Monnie choose it?’

‘Yup!’ echoed Tara.

They’d both laughed, then Tara said, out of the blue, ‘I’m going to hold a coffee morning on Mum’s birthday. You know, a fundraiser, like a Macmillan’s one.’

‘What, for cancer research?’

‘No, for the hospice.’

‘That’s a nice idea,’ said Charley, with a hint of caution in her voice. ‘But…’

‘But? What do you mean, but?’ cut in Tara good-humouredly. ‘I think you mean: “What a brilliant idea, Tara, how can I help?!”’

Charley smiled at her mate. ‘A fundraiser is a lovely idea, Tara, but people have jobs, so are they going to get to a coffee morning? Unless you do it on a Saturday?’

‘Monnie goes to mini gym on Saturday mornings,’ replied Tara shortly.

‘Ah,’ said Charley.

They drifted on in silence for a while, the rhythmic rattling of Monnie’s bike trundling along the path ahead mingling with the soft rustle of the dry leaves swirling in the autumn breeze and the distant sound of dogs and children playing.

Then Tara sighed, ‘Okay, so not a coffee morning then. But I don’t want to let her birthday pass without… without, anyone knowing or caring.’

Hearing the catch in her friend’s voice, Charley moved over to tuck her arm through Tara’s, completely understanding her sense of loss and hurt bewilderment. Josh’s birthday, coming only weeks after he’d died, had loomed so monstrously and raw to Charley, yet it had slipped by unnoticed by anyone else, other than his family, as if it were just another day.

‘You absolutely should do something to remember Kim on her birthday. Maybe something in the evening, when everyone’s around. Actually, why not have a party? Kim was a real party girl!’

‘Wasn’t she just!’ laughed Tara. ‘Oh my God, Charley, you should have seen her at my wedding reception! She wasn’t off the dance floor for a second. At one point she was drinking fizz and doing the twist with the vicar!’

‘Oh my God, that’s so Kim!’ Charley could vividly imagine the scene.

‘The only woman I know who could dance with a man of God in one hand and a glass of Prosecco in the other!’ exclaimed Tara.

‘Well, that’s it then,’ said Charley, as a flash of inspiration stopped her in her tracks. ‘Don’t have a coffee morning, have a Prosecco night!’

And so The Annual Kim Henderson Memorial Prosecco Night was born.

Charley had organised the fundraiser in her flat because Tara hadn’t wanted to hold the event at her place, with her five-year-old daughter trying to sleep upstairs. And Charley had hosted it every year since. She could have stepped aside and let Tara do it as time went on, but Tara had never asked her to, and besides, it was her idea, her baby, and Charley looked forward to it every year.

However, much as Charley loved it, she couldn’t exactly make a career out of running a Prosecco night, even Tara had to admit that. Dropping the pens on the coffee table, Tara sank down next to Charley, before helping herself to a chocolate, momentarily deflated.

‘Look, the pub job is only until I can get something better,’ Charly assured her.

Tara clearly wasn’t convinced, but it was equally obvious she didn’t have an alternative to offer, so, much to Charley’s relief, she accepted defeat.

As it turned out, growing up in a pub did count for something and Charley got the first job she applied for, which was a shame because, whilst there are undoubtedly some exceptionally good pubs in Bristol, this job wasn’t at one of them. Bang in the centre of the city, it was part of a new local chain, aggressively out to soak up the salaries of young office workers, binge-drinkers and party-goers. It was the sort of pub to attract lads who had an intimate knowledge of the meaning of the phrases ‘legless’, ‘wasted’ and ‘rat-arsed’, but who were baffled by the term ‘drink responsibly’, and young women who knew precisely how many calories there are in tonic water, but had no idea how many units of alcohol there are in a large gin and tonic, or more worryingly, how many units of alcohol were inside them at the end of a night.

Charley hated it. She hated the noise and the drunkenness, the sour smell of stale alcohol soaked into the carpet and steeped in the woodwork of the bar, and she hated going home with her clothes and hair reeking of garlic, lager and chips. Above all, she hated herself for being such a failure.

She had opted for evening shifts so she could spend the daytime looking for a proper job, which had seemed like a good idea at the time. Except she’d forgotten to factor in the all-too-critical alcohol per punter ratio, which at lunchtimes was reasonable, but in the evenings was off the scale, and tonight didn’t look like it was going to be any different. A bunch of lairy lads, all smart suits and Amex cards, apparently hellbent on getting onto the office leader board for who could get pissed the quickest, managed to drop an entire tray of lagers on the outside patio. They cheered wildly as the bottles smashed onto the paving slabs, splinters of green glass exploding everywhere. Charley wouldn’t have minded if they had at least apologised, or tried to help by moving their damn feet out of the way as she crouched on her hands and knees to clear it up, trying to avoid kneeling on the razor-sharp shards of glass surrounding her.

On top of that, the last half hour of the shift was particularly gross, featuring a mop and a bucket and an improbable amount of