The Last Goodbye by Caroline Finnerty Page A

Ben.”
“Oh yes, you are.”
“Mum – tell him!”
“Well, let’s just say you were the only child that was asked not to sing during the school concert.”
“Mum!”
“It’s true, Laura – the other children complained that they found it off-putting.” Edwina started to laugh heartily at the memory.
“Well, I must say – I have a jolly lovely family!” Laura said in mock indignation.
We chatted easily for a while until it was time to go and change for dinner. Ben’s family were very traditional in many respects – everyone still changed for dinner and reconvened back in the drawing room for an aperitif before going into the formal dining room to eat. The first time I had come to meet them, I had panicked because I hadn’t brought any clothes to change into. The only other clothes that I had brought with me were jeans and jumper for the next day. But if she had noticed, his mother had never said anything to me, which I was grateful for.
I got changed into a forest-green jersey dress, another one of my new maternity-wear collection. That was another thing that I had noticed: all of the maternity clothes in the shops were made from jersey fabric. I mean everything. I looked at myself in the mirror. I had recently had my blonde hair chopped into a bob and I still got a fright whenever I saw my reflection. I needed something to brighten up the outfit so I wrapped a burnt-orange patterned silk scarf around my neck. We were just about to leave the room when I decided to grab a cardigan to put on over the dress because, once you left the kitchen, which had the Aga to keep it cosy, the house was bloody freezing. Even at the height of summer.
We went into the drawing room where Ben’s parents were seated on the Chesterfield sofa. Candles filled the room with a soft glow as the light illuminated the dark age-spots on the mirror. Laura was seated on a wing-backed armchair. Edwina hopped up when we entered the room and offered us an aperitif of Dubonnet. I abstained but Ben took one of the crystal glasses from her and we sat down on the four-legged sofa across from them. I hated this sofa – it was perched up high on four castors and was so deep that when I sat back into it properly a short-arse like me felt like a child whose feet were dangling over the edge.
We chatted for a while and then went through to the parquet-floored dining room and took our seats at the polished mahogany table. It could comfortably seat twenty people and Ben told me stories of fabulous dinner parties his parents used to throw when he was a child. These days Edwina was lucky to have five people around her table. The walls were papered in Chinese hand-painted wallpaper, which Ben’s parents went to great lengths to preserve. Gilded paintings of Ben’s forebears stared down sternly on us all.
“I wonder what they would think of your career choice?” I muttered to him. “They’re probably turning in their graves right now.”
He gave me a dig in the ribs.
“ Ouch! Watch the baby!” I said in mock anger.
After we had eaten our goat’s cheese starter, Ben’s mum served up a goose and roast potatoes dripping in its fat.
“Bloody hell, Edwina – there’s only five of us!” said Geoff. “We’ll be eating the leftovers of that bird for weeks to come yet.”
“Nonsense, Geoffrey – you know I like to cook a special meal whenever the children return. I had Rob kill it for me yesterday.”
Rob was the farmhand who had been working with the family for over fifty years now.
“How is he doing?” Ben asked as he helped himself to some peas. He served me some before passing the dish to Laura. “We used to have such fun with him – hey, Laura, remember that time we took the tractor out but we didn’t know how to stop it and he had to run after it and jump on?” Ben turned to her and laughed.
“I never knew that!” Edwina said in shock. “My Lord, you could have both been killed!”
“Eh, that’s why we didn’t tell you,” Ben