Loving Susie (28 page)
Enjoying Archie’s success.
She stands, feels her dress settle luxuriously round her ankles, makes her way to the microphone, faces the audience.
‘First Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, friends and family,’ she starts, smiling around her, ‘I am, as you know, a person of passionate beliefs and fierce loyalties. And tonight, I am delighted to say, I am able to bring together all the things that are important in my life. As I bring you news of the new Bursary and the charitable Foundation we are launching here, I feel prouder than I can tell you about my cherished causes and about my family.
‘My happiness is complete.’
She means what she says, but after she has finished her speech, after the applause, after Maitland has spoken and been lauded and applauded and much photographed, after she has posed with Joyce Henderson and there have been more photographs and more filming and – inevitably – yet another session of photographs at which the First Minister has smoothly and graciously taken centre stage, Archie appears again.
‘Thank you, folks, thank you.’ He holds up a hand to dampen down the applause. ‘There’s one song that’s missing off Celtic Rock’s new album.’
Susie looks at him, puzzled. Archie is holding his oldest guitar, the one she bought him when she came back to him after ‘Calgary Bay’. To her eyes, he looks as boyish as he did then. His hair might be white and his skin no longer youthful, but his eyes shine with love just as they did all those years ago.
‘I couldn’t find the words for it, that was the problem. You all know about the various twists and turns Susie’s life has taken this year. It’s been a journey of discovery and along the way there have been many thorns as well, thankfully, as roses.
‘To most of you, Susie is an actress, or a lobbyist, a passionate believer in the arts, or education, or a daughter, or a mother, or a friend. To me she is, quite simply, the most wonderful person in the world and this song is an all too inadequate expression of my love for her.’
He plugs in his guitar, swings one foot onto a chair, pulls the microphone closer to his mouth and begins to sing.
Only one thing I’m good for – Loving Susie.
One thing I’d die for – Loving Susie.
Beginning to end, my friend
I’ll always be – Loving Susie ...
Susie smiles, closes her eyes and lets the music fill her heart and top up her happiness to overflowing.
Archie, she thinks, you’re not bad for an old rocker.
THE END
Author’s note:
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Loving Susie
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The Heartlands Series
Jenny Harper
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Published by Accent Press Ltd 2014
ISBN 9781783753345
Copyright ©
Jenny Harper
2014
Previously published 2013
The right of
Jenny Harper
to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, Ty Cynon House, Navigation Park, Abercynon, CF45 4SN