The Best of Friends Alex Day (best short novels .TXT) 📖

a new identity, like they do for people who turn in South American drug barons or Mafia bosses. But I’m not sure even that would put off those who are after me. They’re cleverer than that, and a whole lot more determined.

They say someone’s past always catches up with them. But I’m sprinting like the wind to outrun mine.

Chapter 16

Susannah

The time had to come and now it’s here: I’m out on my first forage. There’s a fresh breeze in the air that blows away the cobwebs and invigorates the blood, and I have to say that I actually feel really, genuinely, positively enthusiastic about being here, not to mention about my new life in the country in general. I’ve got a job, a friend, a fascinating hobby to participate in – it’s all a bit too good to be true. I stop myself there. This is a theme in my life and I’m not going to jinx my current happiness with thoughts of what’s gone wrong in the past.

Instead, I look around me, taking in the bucolic surroundings, the silvery leaves of oaks and sycamores rippling in the wind. Behind them is a bank that drops precipitously down to a babbling brook that could have come straight out of child’s picture book. Although, somewhat marring the idyll is the rather incongruous form of Miriam, floundering at the water’s edge, clutching at a clump of some kind of plant life.

‘Now, let’s see what we’ve got here!’

Her voice wafts up towards me as she pulls and tugs at various strands of greenery. She gave me a lecture on how important plant identification is when we were making the cordial and now is obviously time for the practical.

‘This is my secret spot of chickweed!’ she calls. ‘Quite rare down here in the south, much more common in Scotland.’

She plucks a bunch of the plant that looks, from my perspective, identical to cow parsley.

‘Come on, dear, what’s the hold-up?’ she barks at me as I teeter on the brink of the bank. ‘I need you to get really close, so that you can make a positive identification on your own.’

‘Right,’ I reply, glancing down at my pristine tennis shoes. With a pang of regret, I register that they’re not going to stay that way for long. I shouldn’t have worn them but I don’t really have anything else; I didn’t have the kind of footwear in London that easily lends itself to mucking around in water-logged ditches. I can’t for a moment imagine why that is, I think, uttering an internal ironic laugh. And I haven’t bought anything new for months, not even a pair of wellies, though I can see now that this is something I definitely need to invest in.

Slithering down to where Miriam is waiting, I catch sight of Charlotte. She’s busy selecting tender young dandelion leaves to make a salad. I’m eager to get some of those for myself; consulting the internet, I’ve discovered that they are far more nutritious than lettuce. No wonder rabbits are so healthy. I remember as a child spending hours collecting for my pet bunny, whom I had named Roberta, and enjoying watching her guzzle through a pile of greenery as big as she was. It had never occurred to me that humans could eat them and if I’d suggested such a thing to Marjorie, she’d probably have fainted in horror.

‘So, pay attention now,’ Miriam is saying. ‘You know it’s sweet cicely – or chervil – by the smell of aniseed. That’s the first thing. Here …’ Miriam squeezes the bunch of stems and fern-like leaves she has in her hand and thrusts it towards my face, causing me to take a sudden step backwards that results in me crashing down onto my bottom. At the top of the bank, Jamie and Luke burst out into bellows of laughter.

Hauling myself upright, I turn to them and shake my fist in mock threat. As I move, the sharp pain in my ankle causes me to yelp. Jamie’s laughter turns immediately to concern.

‘Are you all right, Mum?’

I hate to hear the note of panic in his voice. He has been so sensitive to the slightest sign of anything going wrong, to me being ill, to our parlous financial situation worsening, since our lives imploded. His need to take care of me is simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking. He’s far too young to have such a burden in his life.

I smile to mask the pain and shout up to him that I’m fine. The ankle hurts but I’m sure it’s only temporary and I determine to ignore it. Anyway, what with work, tennis with Dan, and my new fitness regime of running and weight-training in the club gym (now I have a free membership, courtesy of the job), I can’t possibly allow for an injury – I simply don’t have time.

I reach out and take the bunch of leaves that Miriam is proffering towards me. Inhaling deeply, a strong aroma of aniseed fills my nostrils.

‘It smells good.’ I can’t suppress my surprise that a bunch of weeds could have an appetising scent rather than the whiff of damp grass and earth that I had been expecting.

‘Of course!’ exclaims Miriam, coming right up close to me. ‘Now, if you look here,’ she explains, intent on educating me, ‘you see the white splashes?’

She straightens up and wipes her hand across her brow, leaving a brown streak of mud behind. ‘That and the smell are how you identify it.’

‘Right.’ I peer forward to take a closer look.

‘We’ll pick a nice handful of this and you can make a lovely salad with it,’ she burbles on. ‘How much do you pay for a packet of leaves from the supermarket? When this is here, plentiful – and free!’ Miriam is on a roll, gathering leaves and uttering exhortations with equal vigour. ‘Come on, dear, there’s a lovely clump right next to you!’

Only minimally aided by my contribution, her carrier bag is soon