The Honey Queen Read Free Page A

their chores and pursuits. Viletta, the oldest of the trio at sixty-nine, was a yoga buff and nobody seeing her in her walking sweats and simple T-shirt would imagine she was a grandmother of five. Her hair, she liked to joke, was the giveaway – pure white and falling poker straight down her back; she kept it tied in a knot for the walk. Doris, tall with salt-and-pepper hair and a tendency to roundness, regularly complained she wasn’t as fit as Viletta, who set the pace.
    ‘You get toned blokes in yoga classes and I get knee injections in the surgery,’ Doris would say in mock outrage. And Viletta would smile at the notion. She hadn’t looked at a man since her husband had died more than fifteen years before, for all her talk of cougars.
    Lillie liked to amuse herself considering how the three of them must appear to strangers on their rambles: Viletta would appear to be the trainer, a lean, tanned woman urging her two more curvy friends on.
    Though she didn’t have Viletta’s toned muscles, she didn’t look like a woman in her mid-sixties. That was most likely down to the hair, she reckoned: even a few greys in her thick strawberry blonde curls couldn’t diminish its warmth. Her Irish inheritance coming through. In the mirror she saw her face had become thinner since Sam’s death and underneath her iris-blue eyes were faint violet shadows. She hadn’t used make-up to hide them: vanity seemed so futile in the wake of her loss.
    They were halfway into the walk and had settled into their regular rhythm when Doris managed to get herself beside Lillie, a few paces behind Viletta, who was storming ahead as usual.
    ‘You look a bit down, Lillie,’ she said conversationally. ‘Everything OK?’
    Doris had known Lillie long enough to realize the effort required to maintain a smile on her face, a smile that would disintegrate the moment somebody put on their
Poor dear, lost her husband
voice or showed pity. Which was why Doris talked to her friend the way she’d always talked to her, in the same warm, vibrant tones.
    ‘I’ve been thinking about my brother in Ireland …’ began Lillie.
    Beside her, she could sense Doris relax.
    ‘I’m going to Ireland to visit him and to find out about my birth mother,’ she said. There, it was done: she’d decided.
    When Doris grabbed her and hugged her tightly, Lillie was so surprised she almost lost her balance.
    ‘I’m so glad!’ shrieked Doris, never one for volume control. ‘It’s exactly what you need. Oh, honey, I’m so glad!’
    Lillie relaxed into her friend’s embrace. It felt lovely to be held. There were fewer people to do that these days. Her sons weren’t huggers, not the way Sam had been. Her hugs now came from her grandchildren. From Martin’s daughter, Dyanne, and from Shane, Evan’s seven-year-old, who held her tight and told her she was the best nanny in the world.
    ‘If I’d known you wanted to be rid of me that much, I’d have gone ages ago,’ she teased Doris when they separated.
    ‘Witch!’ said Doris, wiping her eyes. ‘I’m happy for you, Lillie. There’s no secret recipe for getting through what you’re getting through, but doing something different might add another ingredient to the pot, so to speak.’
    Lillie nodded. ‘I’ve been thinking it over and over. Sam and I had talked about visiting Ireland, but I don’t think I’d ever have done it by myself at my age. But now Martin’s so excited about finding Seth and Dyanne’s desperately hoping the Irish relatives are rich so she can stay with them when she goes off on her big trip.’
    Both women smiled. Dyanne was the same age as Doris’s grandson, Lloyd. Many amused conversations were had about their grandchildren, who were both going through an ‘I want to be famous’ phase, when they weren’t too preoccupied with ‘Can I have an advance on my pocket money?’
    ‘Are you stopping for a rest?’ Viletta called back to them.
    ‘No,’ yelled Doris, and they started