Read Nearest Thing to Crazy for Free Online Page B

jar and tie it up with a piece of coloured twine in a pretty little bow, like they were bonnets on her little girls. But I’m getting off the subject, aren’t I? I suppose I’m describing it so carefully because she was always so meticulous about it. And, yes, if I’m honest I was jealous. What was I saying? Oh yes, the garden tour. I suppose that’s why I didn’t really want to spend time with those people. They reminded me so much of my mother. It was unreasonable of me to take it out on her, and I’m sorry for that. But to be honest she did spend quite a lot of time talking about herself, and her daughter . . . and gardening . . . I realized that she was a tiny bit dull, I’m afraid. And provincial. And yes, a bit touchy, too.

    I didn’t hear anything from Ellie after our trip. It was weird. Really weird. I kept going over what I’d said, trying to work out if I’d offended her in some way. I kept wondering if I had imagined the change in her; perhaps I had been over-sensitive, or just plain unsophisticated and unable to enter into her idea of fun. Maybe I was losing my sense of humour. I told myself that I needed to chill out about it, that I was becoming too set in my country ways, that I couldn’t appreciate her metropolitan edginess. I was genuinely happy at the prospect of having a glamorous new friend. I was confused, because we had bonded, hadn’t we, otherwise why would she have chosen to confide in me? And I’d been pretty open with her on the bus about Dan and me. The more I thought about it, the more I thought perhaps I had sounded prissy and priggish and why would she want to spend a day with a bunch of geriatrics? No, I should never have asked her. It had been a stupid thing to do. She’d be more a champagne and oysters in Selfridges kind of girl. She’d been a proverbial fish out of water, an exotic hothouse orchid placed in the centre of a staid old herbaceous border. And then I finally remembered what she’d said about her mother preferring plants to her. Maybe that was it. I cursed myself for being so stupid and insensitive. Of course she would have hated the whole garden tour thing, and the oldies. It must have brought it all painfully back to her.
    With all of that on top of the boyfriend problem I felt really worried about her, and so I called her mobile and left a message saying I was sorry about dragging her on the trip, and that I hoped she was all right. But I didn’t hear anything back. So the next day I called her landline and left another message saying, ‘Pop in for coffee if you feel bored . . .’ but again I got no response. A couple of days after that I picked her a bunch of sweet peas and took them round to her house, and although her car was there and the dog barked, she didn’t come to the door. Perhaps she was working and didn’t want to be disturbed. I scribbled a note on a scrap of paper saying:
    Hope you,re okay. Call and see me when you feel like it. C.x
    I didn’t want to become a pest, and I reasoned she’d come and see me when she was ready, and besides I had things to do, such as getting my stuff ready for the farmers’ market in the local village hall.

    I was always up at six on the Saturday market mornings, and I loved the mixture of peace and promise of the unwritten day. I loved the taint of ozone as the veil of mist dissolved, exposing the new morning; the dew-soaked grass washing my rose-printed rubber over-shoes as I paced around the garden clutching my mug of tea. The hens were always waiting for me, clucking their annoyance, impatient to be released. This was my world.
Dan, however, liked to lie in at the weekends. Monday to Friday, he was showered, dressed and out of the door by 6.45, ready to catch the 7.30 train to his office in Birmingham, and so at weekends it seemed only fair that he should rebel. He liked to slob around, not shave, drink his coffee at his leisure and catch up with the newspapers.
    This morning, by the time he appeared in