Mixed doubles

Начало книги

Pru was getting hassle from her spaghetti. It was playing her up. Twirling away valiantly, willing the stuff to stay on her fork, she wondered enviously what it must be like to be Liza, who seldom bothered to even glance down at her plate, yet whose spaghetti miraculously stayed put.

It was New Year’s Eve, four o’clock in the afternoon and already dark outside. In Liza Lawson’s Provençal-style kitchen, around the scrubbed pine kitchen table, sat Dulcie, Liza and Pru, lining their stomachs in preparation for the long night ahead.

Far too impatient to bother with Le Twirl, Dulcie had used the edge of her fork as a knife and hacked her spaghetti to bits. It might not be the done thing but it was efficient; her stomach was no longer empty and her plate was clear. Anyway, if you couldn’t do the undone thing in Liza’s kitchen, amongst friends, where could you do it?

Having finished eating, Dulcie pulled a battered exercise book from her bag. ‘Look what my mother found the other week during a clear-out.’ She held it up for them to see. Emblazoned across the cover, in loopy, eighties-style lettering, were the words PRIVATE, KEEP OUT and TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSTITUTED.

Читать дальше →