The Honey Queen. Cathy Kelly

whom she could see arranging a big batch of bread on the shelves. Opal loved the bread in the shop, especially all of the different fancy ones with olives and rosemary in them. There hadn’t been anything like that when she was a kid. But it was expensive. She walked on by and went into the dry cleaner’s. Moyra was sitting there as usual, head in a book. She looked up with a smile when Opal came to the counter to hand over her things – a bag that included a pair of good navy trousers belonging to Brian. She’d had to smuggle them out of the house without Freya seeing, because there’d have been war if Freya spotted the contents of the bag.

      ‘Aunt Opal, what are you doing, taking Brian’s things to the dry cleaner’s?’ Freya would have demanded. ‘He’s well able to do it himself. And if he can’t for some mad reason, there’s always Liz. Doesn’t she have hands, legs and a car? What’s wrong with her?’ Freya liked Liz, though she didn’t think it was right the way she let Miranda get away with being rude to Brian’s family. Since the organization of the wedding had begun to gather pace, it was getting harder for Freya to hide her dislike of Brian’s future mother-in-law.

      Opal had also brought a couple of ties belonging to Ned and a jacket that Steve had somehow managed to get curry sauce on. Lord knows, that was never going to come out, but Moyra said she’d do her best.

      After the dry cleaner’s, Opal got the paper and some milk in the corner store. Then she crossed the road to the gleaming peony pink and chocolate façade of Bobbi’s Beauty Salon. She hadn’t planned to drop in, but she wanted to share her upset over the gold envelopes with someone who’d put it all in perspective. If anyone could do that, it was Bobbi.

      She and Bobbi had been friends since they were four-year-olds in pigtails, shocked by the harsh world of junior infants – or ‘low babies’ as they used to call it in those days. Fifty-five years had flown by since then. Bobbi had built up her empire to the beautiful salon she now ran with her daughter, Shari.

      ‘It’s not an empire, Opal,’ Bobbi would say fondly and yet proudly whenever Opal used the term.

      ‘’Course it’s an empire,’ Opal would respond on the rare occasions when she went in to have something done. ‘Look at it, it’s beautiful.’

      And it was. Lovingly decorated by Shari’s husband, the salon was a haven of loveliness.

      Bobbi’s husband Richard hadn’t turned out to be as solid as Opal’s Ned. He’d run off with one of the junior stylists many years ago. But Bobbi hadn’t flinched, she’d held her head high. A small woman, like Opal, there was steel behind the platinum curls that framed her face.

      ‘He’s not getting a ha’penny out of this business,’ Bobbi had insisted – and he hadn’t.

      Richard still turned up from time to time, normally to borrow money, and occasionally, Bobbi lent him some.

      ‘He is Shari’s father, after all,’ was all she’d say.

      Today, Bobbi was at the front desk with her glasses on, scanning the appointment book when Opal walked in.

      ‘Hello!’ said Bobbi, looking up delightedly. Then, with a canny look at her friend’s face, she added: ‘What’s up?’

      Bobbi could read Opal’s face like a map.

      ‘Well …’ began Opal.

      ‘Come through.’ Bobbi abandoned the appointment book. ‘Let’s have tea. You can tell me what’s happening in private. Caroline,’ she called to a stylist, ‘take over the desk.’

      The back room was decorated in the same pretty pink brocade wallpaper as the rest of the salon. Bobbi had seen the inside of too many places where the staffroom looked as if the owner didn’t care about where the workers had to sit for their breaks.

      ‘Let’s make it pretty,’ she’d said. ‘I want the staff to see how important they are to the business.’

      Three years previously, when the salon had last been redecorated, the staffroom had undergone a complete transformation too. There was a big couch in one corner. One of the young beauty therapists was sitting there now, muttering on the phone in a language Opal didn’t understand.

      ‘Right, pet, how are you?’ Bobbi went straight to the kettle while Opal put down her handbag and sank into one of the chairs at the table. ‘Didn’t think I’d see you today. What’s happened?’

      Opal found the gold envelopes in her handbag and handed them over.

      ‘This is what’s wrong,’ she said. ‘I don’t know, I just have a bad feeling about the wedding. Not about Liz – she’s a lovely girl, no question of that – but the wedding itself …’ Opal sighed. ‘I’m not sure I’m able for it. Miranda’s making it into such a production that you’d swear nobody ever got married before. We had “hold-the-date” cards in December, then there was weeks of discussion about bridesmaids. According to Brian, Miranda flew herself and Liz to London for their dresses – I haven’t even looked for one, and the wedding’s just round the corner. Now this. Gold envelopes that cost a fortune.’

      Bobbi placed a cup of steaming tea in front of her friend and passed her the milk and sugar. ‘We’re down to custard creams,’ she said, handing over the packet of biscuits. ‘The chocolate ones have all run out. There was a bit of a crisis early on this morning.’

      She looked in the direction of the distressed girl on the phone.

      ‘Boyfriend trouble.’

      Bobbi always knew what was going on in her staff’s lives. She lowered her voice so the girl on the phone in the corner couldn’t hear. ‘Poor Magda, she’s been going out with this dreadful, dreadful lout who treats her like muck. She gave him the boot yesterday and this morning she’s in floods of tears because he turned up outside the flat last night roaring drunk and yelling, “Take me back, I promise I’ll change.”’

      ‘Oh no,’ said Opal, feeling the girl’s pain as if it were her own.

      All her life, people had told Opal to stop being so sensitive to everyone else’s problems. Freya was the only one who said: ‘Opal, stay exactly as you are – it’s what makes you so special.’

      ‘Here I am complaining about a silly wedding and that poor thing’s miles away from home—’

      ‘Now, Opal, there’s nothing you can do for Magda. I had a pot of tea with her. I opened the chocolate biscuits and I told her what her mother would tell her if she was here instead of in the Czech Republic: that man will bring her nothing but trouble. But despite all of that, she’s on the phone to him now. Going back to him. You can only tell a girl so much. I don’t know why the loveliest girls always find the worst men, but they do. Anyway, between the jigs and the reels, the chocolate biscuits went. The custard creams aren’t bad, though.’

      Bobbi sat down with her own tea, took a bite of biscuit then set it aside to examine the gold envelopes. ‘Oh hello,’ she said, examining the copperplate writing on the front. ‘These must have cost a bob or two. Clearly they’re not skimping on anything.’

      ‘They have the money,’ Opal said.

      ‘Just because you have the money doesn’t mean you have to let everyone know you have the money.’ Bobbi’s tone was scathing.

      She looked at the third envelope and got it in an instant. ‘Even Meredith’s one is addressed to your house,’ she said. She kept flicking. ‘And David’s and Steve’s. That was a low blow.’

      ‘I thought so too,’ said Opal. ‘It’s as if—’

      ‘—as if she’s saying, You lot are common, low-class muck and all of you come from the wrong end of the city. I get it,’ said Bobbi grimly.

      ‘I shouldn’t let it upset me so much,’ Opal went on, ‘but it did. I thought I’d come down and tell you and you’d make me feel better. Because I’m so angry and it’s wrong to be like that. If you’re angry, you put anger out into the