Greetings

Greetings

E MMELINE WASN’T EXAGGERATING

about the big hat.

It’s huge.

‘ Winston and Williams

,’ her sign reads in neon-pink highlighter. With a little drawing of a pirate beside it. She has very nice swirly, swoopy writing. Her nails peeping out in the front of the sign are incredibly long. Like those of a sloth, except they’re painted in pink and each finger has a gemstone stuck on it. Her tan might be real, but it looks very fake, and her hair can’t decide if it’s bright blonde or white with a bit of yellow, but it’s shining all the same.

‘You came!’ she says, dropping the sign to the floor and hugging a surprised Bella in a tight embrace and then pulling me in too. She smells incredible. Expensive. The kind of perfume that probably costs hundreds of pounds a bottle. We don’t get anything that nice donated to the shop. It’s mostly half-used Britney Spears perfumes.

‘I’m so thrilled you’re here!’ Emmeline says.

I reach into my pocket to return Elsie’s letters, but Emmeline puts her hand on my hand. ‘Oh, let’s wait,’ she

says. ‘We ought to do it with a little ceremony, don’t you think?’

I duly return Mr McGlew’s words to my pocket.

Emmeline takes my suitcase for me. ‘We shall!’ she says, even though nobody has said ‘Shall we?’ And Emmeline sets off at a swift pace ahead of us.

‘Oh, wait,’ Bella says, just before we reach the automatic doors, through which we can see Emmeline making haste towards the car park. ‘I have a present for you.’ She tips her heavy shell suitcase on to the floor with a thud and opens it. Her clothes are all smooshed and mixed around, but from within the chaos she pulls out her red love-heart-shaped sunglasses that I have been admiring for weeks and then pulls out another pair, exactly the same as hers, and places them in my palm. They are fantastic.

Walking through the airport doors out into the blinding sunshine, wearing heart-shaped sunglasses with Bella by my side, is wholeheartedly the coolest I’ve ever felt. And probably will ever feel. We walk as though an incredibly funky soundtrack is playing, though there is never any music playing when you want there to be.

‘Wow,’ Bella says as we pull up in front of Emmeline’s house in her yellow VW Beetle (‘I like other road users to see me,’ she’d said). And I agree. Emmeline’s home is audacious. There’s an infinity pool at the front and, behind that, a patio with an awning covered in purple wisteria which is being attended to by a group of diligent bumblebees. The house is two storeys and made of old stone, and each window has its shutters flung wide open.

It is certainly an upgrade on our usual lunches in Pigeon Park, sitting beside Emmeline’s glistening pool under a gigantic sun umbrella that must have been made by the same designer who created Emmeline’s huge hat, the table laid out with Greek salad, breads and meats.

‘I wasn’t sure what you’d like,’ Emmeline says, ‘so I got a little of everything. If you haven’t had Greek salad before, you simply must.’ She offers me the pitcher of frozen Margarita.

‘This is amazing,’ Bella says, holding out her glass towards Emmeline’s pitcher.

‘You’re of age, aren’t you?’ Emmeline asks her, frowning.

Bella laughs. ‘I’m twenty-four.’

‘It’s your skin, dear. Makes you look like a newborn baby. You must cherish it.’

Emmeline pours Bella a Margarita right to the top and then settles into her chair. ‘To new friends.’ She raises her glass.

‘New friends,’ we agree.

‘Seriously though, this house,’ Bella says.

‘I have been very blessed with my work,’ Emmeline replies. ‘When we bought this place, it was nothing like what you see now – no pool, no second floor. Once my husband had left me for his business partner, and my son, Mikey, went back to the UK for university, all I had was time, and I decided I wanted to live somewhere suitably fantastic.’

‘Well, it is certainly that,’ I agree.

‘So now I spend most of my days writing and have the occasional visit from Mikey and his fiancée. She’s Swedish. The legs on her. You wouldn’t believe.’

‘And what do you write?’ Bella asks.

‘It’s mostly Mills and Boon.’

Bella illuminates. ‘Anything we’d have read?’

‘Oh, I doubt it. My most recent novel was about a countess who falls in love with a stable hand.’

I nearly spit my Margarita out. ‘I’ve read it!’ I cry.

‘No, you haven’t,’ Emmeline says.

‘ Saddle of Desire!

’ I tell her. ‘It ends with the showdown between the stable hand and the lord of the manor in the hot tub!’

Bella pulls a face that seems to exclaim, What?

Emmeline laughs. ‘Well, then, Eddie, it seems that you and I were destined to meet.’

Bella gives me a knowing look over the top of her heart-shaped sunglasses.