The Honey Queen by Cathy Kelly

might come out to do a bit of pottering in the garden and Molly would make him tea, too.
    Not everyone was as lucky with their neighbours, Opal knew.
    St Brigid’s Terrace had changed a lot over the years. During the boom, property prices had gone up wildly on the terrace and in Redstone in general. Several new housing estates had been built on the fields beside the old lightbulb factory, which had been turned into an apartment complex with electric gates. And the crossroads in the centre of Redstone no longer boasted four pubs, two chippers and a bookie’s. Instead, there was her friend Bobbi’s beauty salon, a delicatessen, the bakery, a mini-market that sold expensive ready-meals, two cafés, a bank, a boutique that sold outrageously priced clothes, and the wool and craft supplies shop that was due to open soon. Opal was thrilled about that because she loved knitting.
    Opal’s mother wouldn’t have recognized the place. She wouldn’t have recognized Opal either, now that she had highlights in her hair every few months.
    Freya had made her do that.
    ‘Aunt Opal, I can see bits of grey. It’s not a good look,’ Freya had said kindly the year before.
    It was funny, Opal thought, that after raising three sons and one daughter, it was the niece she’d taken into her home who was lighting her life up now that she was within striking distance of sixty.
    Freya brought her home the first daffodils of February; it wouldn’t have occurred to the boys to do such a thing. Freya was the one who noticed when Opal’s ankles were swollen on Sundays and made whoever was over for Sunday lunch pitch in and help out so their mother could sit down.
    Meredith would have noticed too, Opal thought loyally, but she was always too busy to drop in to see them at weekends. The boys were different. They liked a good feed on a Sunday. She invited Meredith to these lunches but Meredith rarely came. When she did, she barely ate. She was so slim that Opal worried her daughter wasn’t eating properly.
    Opal was quite sure that cooking wasn’t Meredith’s strong point. She’d refused to do Home Economics in school. Even back then, her mind had been set on loftier things. Whenever she thought about Meredith, Opal felt a sense of failure. They didn’t have mother-and-daughter days out the way some of her friends did. Meredith had never suggested they go away for a weekend to one of those spa places, though she knew Meredith liked those stone treatments and suchlike. Opal had never been herself and, to be honest, she wouldn’t have cared for it. But she’d have gone if Meredith asked her. Except Meredith didn’t ask.
    Opal grinned as she thought of her niece. Freya was a different kettle of fish altogether. She probably knew how to do all sorts of mud baths at home herself. There was nothing Freya didn’t know. Opal thought of herself at fifteen and what a naive, bewildered young thing she’d been. And look at Freya, clever as anything and kind with it. Lord, she’d better not show the wedding invitations to Freya. Freya would instantly understand the insulting code behind Miranda’s addressing of the envelopes. She’d probably phone Miranda and say something. Above all else, Opal hated people
saying
things.
    By now, she was nearing the crossroads. She walked past the bus stop with a nod and a brief ‘hello’ to the two old fellas sitting there, Seanie and Ronnie. They were always sitting there. Freya joked that they never actually got a bus anywhere. They just liked to watch the workings of the village carry on around them, smoking Woodbines and commenting on life, the universe and everything.
    ‘Grand day, isn’t it, Opal?’ said Ronnie. ‘Aren’t we blessed with the fine weather?’
    ‘We are indeed,’ agreed Opal.
    ‘And isn’t it a lovely day to be sitting here taking it all in?’ said Seanie happily, with an expansive wave of his hand as though sitting on a seat at a bus stop at the side of the road in a small suburb