The Legacy: Trouble Comes Disguised As Family (Unspoken Book 2) T. Belshaw (management books to read .txt) 📖

ushered her daughter inside. ‘Hurry, don’t let her know I’m home.’

Jess stepped quickly inside and Nicola shut the door behind her.

‘Is that why you’re sitting in the dark?’ she asked.

‘No, I’m out of electric,’ her mother replied. ‘I was going to get some this evening, but with Mandy not turning up, I decided not to go over there in case she insists that I work.’

‘Just tell her you’re going out with me,’ said Jess.

‘That wouldn’t stop her putting pressure on me to do Mandy’s shift,’ said Nicola. She grimaced. ‘I owe her a few hours for being late and for knocking off early when I felt ill the other day.’

‘Give me your electricity key and gas card, Mum,’ Jessica demanded. ‘I’ll go over and buy some credit for you.’

Five minutes later, Jessica was back with the fifty pounds on the electricity key and the same on the gas card. She looked on sadly as Nicola inserted them into the meters and the living room lights came on.

‘Mum, please let me know when you’re running low again. You can’t be without light and heating in winter.’

‘Jeanie Desmond has a fake card, or so she claims. She never seems to run out. I might ask her to get me one.’

‘MUM! Don’t even think about it. With your luck the bloody thing would set off an alarm at the EDF engineer’s office.’ She looked around the untidy room. ‘Did you sort through your mail?’

Nicola picked up a thick pile of letters and handed them to Jessica. ‘I don’t know what they say, I daren’t look.’

Jess stuffed them into her shoulder bag. ‘I’ll sort them all out in the morning, but listen, Mum. You have to look after yourself better than this.’

‘No lectures, please, Jessica. I’ll get enough of those from my mother tonight.’

‘I wasn’t going to lecture you, Mum. I worry about you that’s all.’

‘If you’re that worried you could send a bit of money my way.’

Jessica sighed. ‘I may as well give it straight to the off licence and save you the bother of handing it over.’

Nicola sniffed. ‘If my circumstances were better, I might not feel the need for alcohol. It’s the only way I have of forgetting about how bad things are.’

Jess shook her head. ‘You start wallowing in self-pity when you drink. It makes it worse.’

Surprisingly, Nicola didn’t take offence. She pulled her best coat from a hook on the back of the front door and slipped it over the freshly ironed, floral print dress.

‘I’ve always liked you in that dress,’ said Jessica with a smile, pleased that her mother had at least made an effort. Her speech wasn’t slurred and her eyes looked relatively bright.

‘It’s the only decent thing I’ve got left,’ Nicola replied.

Jess patted her on the back. ‘Shall we have a girlie day out soon, do the sales? They seem to be on all year round.’

As Nicola smiled, it seemed to wipe away ten years of aging.

‘I’d like that,’ she said.

She was still an attractive woman, Jess thought. She could easily find another man if she wanted to. The problem was, she only had room in her heart for one man, and he had walked out a few years ago.

They arrived at the Café Blanc at six-fifty to find Martha and Marjorie waiting for them in the foyer. Martha glowered at them as they entered.

‘About time too. We’ve been here for twenty minutes; I was beginning to think you had called it off.’

‘Hello, Grandma. Hello, Aunt Marjorie.’ Jess smiled and stepped forward to offer a hug. Martha pushed her hands in front of her to stop any such attempt. Marjorie, who had already held her arms open to accept one, suddenly stepped back behind her sister as if for protection.

‘Twenty minutes,’ she tutted and shook her head.

Nicola undid her coat and stepped out from behind Jessica.

‘Hello, Mum,’ she said quietly.

Martha looked her up and down with a look of distaste.

‘I see you’re wearing that dress again. Still, it appears that you are relatively sober, so we shouldn’t be too critical.’

Jess bit her tongue as Nicola looked down at her feet.

‘Come on,’ she said, trying to sound as jovial as she could. ‘Let’s go in. Our table should be ready.’

She pushed open the spring-loaded, panelled door and held it while the others came though. A suited, bow-tied host stepped towards them; Jess smiled at him.

‘I booked a table for four. Griffiths.’

‘Ah yes,’ the host smiled and led them to a table in a nook on the far side of the restaurant.

‘Are you trying to hide us away,’ snapped Martha looking around the room.

The host smiled. ‘No, Madam. Ms Griffith’s requested a more secluded table for a quiet family meal.’

Martha tightened her lips and waited for him to pull out her chair. To her annoyance, he didn’t.

‘The waitress will be with you shortly.’ He placed a menu and a wine list on the table in front of all four seats, then smiling again at Jessica, he walked back the way he had come.

Nicola picked up the wine list as soon as she was seated.

‘Don’t go ordering a bottle for yourself,’ said Martha curtly. ‘We don’t want any drunken dramas tonight.’ She looked around from the confines of the nook. ‘Isolated as we are.’

Jessica looked up as the waitress appeared.

‘White, red or pink?’

‘White,’ said Martha, ‘and don’t go spending a fortune on it.’

‘White,’ agreed Marjorie, who didn’t like white wine that much.

‘I prefer red, but I’ll go with white if that’s what everyone else wants,’ said Nicola.

Jessica, sitting next to her, patted her hand.

‘We’ll have a bottle of the house red and a bottle of the house white,’ she said.

Before the waitress could turn away, Marjorie piped up.

‘What’s pink?’

‘Rosé,’ said Jessica, ‘would you like to try some?’

‘She’ll have the same as me,’ said Martha, giving her younger sister a glare.

‘Do you have those miniature bottles of rosé?’ asked Jessica.

The waitress nodded. ‘Yes but,’ she leaned forwards to whisper. ‘They cost the same as a half-bottle, you’re better off getting