Still Me (Me Before You #3) - Jojo Moyes Page 0,166

the furniture, the lamps, the curtains could go. Her son’s and daughter-in-law’s cards were in the envelope, should I wish to reach them for further clarification.

And now to the important things. Louisa, I didn’t thank you in person for finding Vincent – the act of civil disobedience that has brought me so much unexpected happiness – but I’d like to thank you now. And for looking after Dean Martin. There are few people I would trust to do as I ask, and love him as I do, but you are one of them.

Louisa, you are a treasure. You were always too discreet to tell me the details but do not let whatever happened with that foolish family next door dim your light. You are a courageous, gorgeous, tremendously kind little creature and I shall be for ever grateful that their loss has been my gain. Thank you.

It is in the spirit of thanks that I’d like to offer you my wardrobe. To anyone else – except perhaps your rather mercenary friends at that disgusting clothes store – this would be junk. I am well aware of that. But you see my clothes for what they are. Do with them what you want – keep some, sell some, whatever. But I know you will take pleasure in them.

Here are my thoughts – though I’m well aware nobody really wants the thoughts of an old woman. Set up your own agency. Hire them out, or sell them. Those girls seemed to think there was money in it – well, it strikes me that this would be the perfect career for you. There should be enough there for you to start some sort of enterprise. Though, of course, you may have other ideas for your future, far better ones. Will you let me know what you decide?

Anyway, dear roommate, I will look forward to receiving news. Please kiss that little dog for me. I miss him so terribly already.

With fondest regards,

Margot

I put down the letter and sat motionless in the kitchen for a while, then walked through to Margot’s bedroom and the dressing room beyond it, surveying the bulging racks, outfit after outfit.

A clothes agency? I knew nothing about business, nothing about premises or accounts or dealing with the public. I was living in a city whose rules I didn’t entirely understand, with no permanent address, and I had failed in pretty much every job I had ever held. Why on earth would Margot believe that I could set up a whole new enterprise?

I ran my fingers down a midnight blue velvet sleeve, then pulled out the garment: Halston, a jumpsuit, slashed almost to the waist, with a mesh insert. I put it back carefully and took out a dress – white broderie anglaise, its skirts a mass of ruffles. I walked along that first rail, stunned, daunted. I had only just begun to absorb the responsibility of owning a dog. What was I supposed to do with three rooms full of clothes?

That night I sat in Margot’s apartment and turned on Wheel of Fortune. I ate the remains of a chicken I had roasted for her last dinner (I suspect she had sneaked most of hers under the table to the dog). I didn’t hear what Vanna White said, or shout out letters at the Mystery Wedges. I thought about what Margot had said to me, and wondered about the person she had seen.

Who was Louisa Clark, anyway?

I was a daughter, a sister, a kind of surrogate mother for a time. I was a woman who cared for others but who seemed to have little idea, even now, how to care for herself. As the glittering wheel spun in front of me, I tried to think about what I really wanted, rather than what everyone else seemed to want for me. I thought about what Will had really been telling me – not to live some vicarious idea of a full life but to live my own dream. The problem was, I don’t think I’d ever really worked out what that dream was.

I thought of Agnes across the corridor, a woman trying to convince everyone that she could shoehorn herself into a new life while some fundamental part of her refused to stop mourning the role she had left behind. I thought of my sister, her new-found contentment once she had taken the step of understanding who she really was. The way she had stepped so easily into love once she allowed