Rose shrugs, wondering what on earth she’s about to hear; she feels a mixture of excitement and, inexplicably, trepidation. ‘Whatever you think’s best,’ she says in a quiet voice, nodding and raising her eyebrows.
‘So, I was an only child and my parents were both junkies,’ Cassie says, which is absolutely not what Rose was expecting to hear. ‘Heroin mainly, but whatever they could get their hands on, truth be told.’
Rose gasps without meaning to. Drug addicts have never really existed in her sheltered existence. She’s read about them in books. Watched them in films and TV shows. At uni, she knew a few people who dabbled occasionally in so-called recreational drugs – but she steered clear. The idea of Cassie being brought up by heroin users sounds absolutely terrifying to her ears.
‘I don’t remember a huge amount about my dad,’ Cassie says. ‘He died when I was nine and wasn’t around much beforehand. He drowned in the sea in Blackpool, where we were living at the time. Who knows exactly what happened? His veins were brimming with smack, by all accounts, so it was written up as an accident. Mum always suspected foul play, as he owed money to a lot of people, apparently. She was quite paranoid, though. I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t really care either. He was a nasty piece of work. That’s probably why I don’t recall much about him: he wasn’t worth the effort.
‘He didn’t live with us; he used to turn up from time to time, usually looking for cash. He’d be all nice to start with, but it was an act, to try to get what he wanted. If he didn’t – and often even if he did – he’d turn on Mum, shouting at her … or worse. I saw him hit her a number of times. He never did that to me, which was something, I suppose. But he probably would have eventually, if he hadn’t been killed.
‘As for Mum, I do have some fond memories of her, mainly from when I was little. She didn’t do drugs then. Not that I know of. If she did, she hid it well, or I’d never have been allowed to stay with her. We didn’t have much. The various houses and flats we lived in together were grotty. But I remember her playing hide-and-seek and various make-believe games with me: goblins and fairies; charades; pretending to run our own little café. The kind of thing that required little more than a good imagination. She’d take me to build sandcastles on the beach, eat ice cream and pink candyfloss. Occasionally, especially when there were cheap showings on, we went to the cinema. Mum loved her movies almost as much as her discount vouchers and special offers, so it was the perfect combination.
‘She was fun originally. It was only after Dad died that things started to change. I’m not sure why that made such a difference. I suppose she must have loved him, although he didn’t deserve it. Anyway, whatever the reason, she ended up falling in with some of his old crowd and getting into the drugs herself. It started small, but before long she went full downward spiral. Social services came knocking and I started a long tour of temporary homes, mainly in foster care.
‘I grew used to only seeing Mum occasionally, as part of supervised visits, which she didn’t always show up for. And when she did, she always looked gaunt, listless and on edge – a shadow of her old self. Her once sparkling eyes were permanently glazed over and she was forever making promises I knew she wouldn’t keep. Then, a few weeks after my fifteenth birthday – which she’d forgotten about – my social worker turned up unannounced to break the news to me that she’d died. It was an overdose, no surprise. And so there I was … an orphan.’
‘Oh no, how awful,’ Rose says. She’s about to reiterate the fact that her late mother was an orphan too when a waiter appears at the side of the table to take their order. Flustered, Rose looks to Cassie. ‘Have you decided yet? I haven’t even had a proper look at the menu.’
‘Could you give us a few minutes, please?’ Cassie says. Her voice sounds far calmer and steadier than Rose feels in light of what she’s just been told. Beaming at the waiter – a short-haired woman around Rose’s age – she adds, with a wrinkle of her nose. ‘Sorry. We’ve been too busy gossiping.’
The waiter nods and returns the smile. ‘Not a problem. Can I get you any bread or olives in the meantime?’
Cassie looks at me across the table, eyebrows raised.
‘Not for me, thanks,’ I say.
‘No, we’re fine for now,’ Cassie adds. ‘Thank you.’
Once the woman is out of earshot, Cassie says: ‘Thank goodness it’s not the guy from lunch. I’ve had a good look around, but I haven’t seen him. Hopefully he’s not working tonight.’ She raises her palms. ‘Not that he was in the wrong. It was all me. But it’ll save a few blushes if he’s not around.’
Rose can’t believe Cassie is talking so casually about such insignificant things, while her own mind continues to reel from the shock of what she’s heard. Mind you, Cassie’s had her whole life to get her head around these heartbreaking facts. She lived through them, poor thing. You wouldn’t guess it to look at her now. Until a moment ago, Rose assumed, naively perhaps, that Cassie came from a similar background to herself. How could she have been so wrong?
She’s already looking at the older woman in a new light, wondering what kinds of hell she must have experienced as a child. How did she end up so normal? She seems incredibly balanced, well mannered and comfortable in her own skin. What strength of character she must have!
And to think Rose spent so long talking about her own largely shielded life: her supposed problems, which already seem utterly insignificant. How mortifying. And how gracious of Cassie to allow her the space to do so. It no longer feels appropriate to bring up her mother being an orphan, particularly since she’s already mentioned it to Cassie. Rather than coming across as empathetic, it could end up sounding as if she wants to turn the spotlight back on herself.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ she mutters, barely able to look her dinner companion in the eye. ‘That all sounds so dreadful. I had no idea. I feel—’
‘You don’t need to say anything, Rose,’ Cassie says in a near whisper. ‘It’s my turn to do the talking. How could you know any of this? It’s fine. I’m not looking for sympathy. It was a long time ago – a world away from my life today. It often feels like a half-remembered dream or something that happened to another person. I arguably am a different person now, for all manner of reasons, although moving on from my childhood was a gradual process. It wasn’t something I did easily or quickly. But as I say, this isn’t the part of my story that I want to focus on.’
‘Right.’
‘And first, before I continue, we both need to make our meal choices. Agreed?’
‘Yes, absolutely.’ Rose blinks as she picks up the menu and tries to focus on the choices available. ‘Are we having starters?’
‘Yes, let’s. I like the sound of the minty pea soup on the specials.’
When the waiter returns, Rose orders a halloumi salad to start, followed by seafood risotto. For her main course, Cassie opts for grilled seabass. And they agree to share a bottle of rosé with the meal.
‘I nearly went for the risotto,’ Cassie says once they’re alone again. ‘It was a toss-up between the two, but I thought it would be boring if we both ordered the same, so I went for the fish. Anyhow, I’d better continue with my story. After Mum died, it was just me.’
‘Didn’t you have any other family?’ Rose asks. ‘Wasn’t there a grandparent, an aunt or uncle, someone?’
‘Nobody that cared or wanted anything to do with me,’ Cassie replies.
‘That’s awful. I can’t begin to imagine.’
Her mother would have been able to, though, Rose reflects. It does seem a little odd that Cassie hasn’t acknowledged this. Hasn’t made the link. Or didn’t pipe up to say that she was also an orphan when Rose mentioned it earlier. Unless … what if there’s a reason for that?
It occurs to Rose that Cassie might have actually known her mother. What if she was a childhood friend of hers back in the day or, God forbid, an enemy even? Maybe the two of them shared a foster home for a while. It’s a heck of a leap to make, wit
h little justification, and yet once the thought has entered Rose’s mind, she struggles to contain it. Cassie is around the right age to have been in care at a similar time. And clearly something specific has brought her back to Lancashire. Could that be to track down Rose or her father? The logistics of this wild theory are dizzying. Rose reminds herself it’s irrational – probably more to do with her own hang-ups about growing up without a mother than anything else – but it’s too late to stem the tide.
‘Is everything all right, Rose? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Cassie’s words jolt her back into the moment.
‘Sorry, yes, I’m fine.’ Blurting out the first excuse she can think of, Rose adds: ‘I just felt a bit weird for a second there. I guess I need to eat soon. I’ll be okay, though, honestly.’
‘Should we order some bread?’
‘No, no. Really. The starters will be here before long. Please continue.’
‘Okay, if you’re sure.’ Cassie clasps her hands together and squints across the table at Rose. ‘I won’t pretend it was a good time for me. Those final years before I became an adult were hard. There was the odd happy moment, but it was tough. I thought I was used to being alone after years of not living with Mum, but knowing she was gone for good, that was far harder. I suppose, before that, a tiny part of me hoped she might miraculously change one day, holding on to the old happy memories from when I was little. After she died, there was no hope. Then and only then, I knew true loneliness. I hated her so much for leaving me behind. For not caring enough or finding the strength to survive her addiction for my sake. That particular wound took a long, long time to heal.
‘My focus from that point forward was reaching adulthood. I longed for the day when I could finally become my own person – out of the care system and free from the shackles of my miserable past. I bided my time, keeping my head down at school; avoiding trouble wherever possible. And I started to dream of travelling: making my way around the world, free as a bird. I bought a battered old atlas from a second-hand bookshop and studied it from cover to cover, over and over again, planning in my head where I’d like to go. I borrowed guidebooks and travelogues from the library. Fantasising about the amazing places I’d visit one day kept me sane.’
‘And you made that happen, didn’t you? The travelling, I mean.’ Rose recalls Cassie saying she’d lived ‘all around the world’.
‘Absolutely. I’m settled now and very happy. But it took me years to reach that position. Everything was temporary before that – how I liked it. I was a drifter. I stayed in a place for as long as I was enjoying it, or while I felt welcome, and then I moved on. Sometimes that meant being somewhere for a few days or weeks, maybe a month or two; other times, I stayed longer, still knowing in the back of my head that one day I’d move on. It was liberating. No ties, no real consequences. Plus I got to see all kinds of amazing places and to meet people I otherwise never would have met.’
Despite doing her utmost to focus on Cassie’s words, Rose can’t quite manage to put her fresh concerns to bed. Pull yourself together, she thinks, fearing another query about her wellbeing. She presses her fingers into her knees under the table and tries to sit still, to look calm, while attempting to shove these intrusive thoughts to the back of her mind. She needs to concentrate on what Cassie’s finally telling her about herself, rather than wasting her time on self-absorbed flights of fantasy.
She reminds herself of her previous fear about Cassie being a journalist, which now seems ridiculous. Surely this is more of the same: the result of an overactive imagination, having no basis in fact.
And yet a nagging doubt remains.
‘You must have some stories,’ Rose says, trying to look suitably engaged.
‘Oh, I do – and nowhere near enough time to tell them all to you today, I’m afraid. But there’s plenty I will tell you. Hopefully, by the end of our chat, you’ll feel like you know the essence of me. That’s how your story made me feel about you.’
Rose smiles and nods as a waiter appears with their wine bottle. ‘Would you like to try it first, madam?’ he asks, automatically looking at Cassie rather than Rose, which grates. She almost says something to him but bites her tongue, realising he probably assumes they’re mother and daughter and that Cassie is paying. It’s not like she’d mind if he did the same when Dad was taking her out for a meal. Still, he shouldn’t make assumptions. It’s unprofessional.
‘Just pour it, thank you,’ Cassie says to him with a smile. ‘I’m sure it will be fine.’
‘Why do they still ask that?’ Cassie says once he’s gone. ‘It’s totally unnecessary with a screwtop bottle. Old habits really do die hard, don’t they?’
Rose scratches the side of her neck. ‘I guess. Did you go travelling as soon as you turned eighteen?’
‘No, not straight away. I needed to find work and save up a bit of money first.’
‘Was university an option?’ Rose says – and then worries how this question might be perceived. ‘Sorry, I don’t mean in terms of whether you were clever enough. It’s obvious to me that you’re very intelligent. I mean, um—’
‘Relax, Rose. I know what you’re asking. I did okay at school, despite everything. Against the odds I got decent GCSEs and A levels, but no, university was never on my radar. Some of my teachers tried to talk me into it, but the financial practicalities concerned me. It wasn’t something I really wanted either. My focus was on working hard for a couple of years, doing whatever jobs I could find, and saving up enough to get me started on my travels. Things didn’t quite go to plan, though.’
‘How do you mean?’
Cassie takes a deep breath before she continues. ‘I met someone. Someone special.’
Rose’s ears prick up at this. Could Cassie be about to reveal that she knew her mother?
Mind racing again, Rose can’t stop herself trying to fill in the blanks, chasing yet more speculative theories. She feels bewitched by the idea of potentially being able to forge some kind of new connection with her late mother, whom she knows so little about.
She revises her earlier guess about how and when the two orphans could have come across each other. Perhaps they didn’t meet as children but as young adults, some time before Rose’s parents got together. It might have been totally unrelated to living in care, only for them to discover how much they had in common and develop a powerful bond.
That must be what she means by ‘someone special’, right? A really close friend. Or could it have been something more than that between them?
Could they have once been … lovers?
CHAPTER 21
CASSIE
Meeting someone I really liked at that stage wasn’t part of the masterplan. However, life has a habit of doing that, I’ve found over the years, particularly when you try to plan things in too much detail. Almost like it’s urging you not to bother.
This was something I learned to accept once I did manage to get away on my travels. I became less of a forward-thinker and more impulsive: living for the moment and dealing with issues one at a time. Travelling is much more relaxing that way. Most things are, actually.
Anyhow, I fell head over heels in love. It happened when I least expected it … at work. We totally clicked, and things between us got serious really quickly. The travel bug was too ingrained in me by that stage to put off my plans for long, but they did take a back seat for a while. I even asked this special person to consider joining me.
I’ll come back to this relationship in a bit. As you may have guessed, it’s a key part of the reason I’ve returned to Lancashire. It makes most sense to tie these matters up together at the end of my story.
For the time being, all I’ll say is that things got far more complicated and confusing than I expected; I had some really tough decisions to make. I did what felt right at the time, based on who I was at that point and everything I’d been through leading up to it.
Would the woman I am today do the same? I don’t think so, t
o be honest. But that’s a moot point. You could also argue that I wouldn’t be who I am now if I hadn’t made the decisions I did, no matter how hard.
I was barely an adult, with none of the family support structure that most people have. I’d been putting myself first for a long time, because I’d grown to realise that if I didn’t, no one else would. That was my default state before falling in love so unexpectedly. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that I returned to it when things got tricky.
Anyway, we’ll deal with that soon enough.
What you need to know for now is that I headed off on my long-awaited travels a little later than intended and with a heavy heart.
I started in Europe, mainly because of the proximity, the ease of being able to work in so many different countries at that time, and the lower initial cost of getting there, as opposed to making a long-haul trip.
Greece was my first stop. I went island hopping in the Aegean, staying in budget accommodation, picking up casual work here and there to keep my funds topped up, but mainly enjoying the weather, the gorgeous beaches, the azure sea, so many stunning views, the water sports and, of course, the food. I largely avoided the nightlife side of things. I only made the odd casual acquaintance outside of any work I took on. Considering how I’d left things in the UK, I wasn’t in the right headspace to go partying or make loads of new friends. I read a lot. I thought a lot. I took up yoga, which I still enjoy to this day and have always found hugely beneficial to body and mind. Crucially, I tried to get to know myself better, making my first tentative steps on the long journey towards accepting my challenging early years; working to forgive others, as well as myself, for past mistakes, in a quest to find inner peace.
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