by Harper Bliss
Ash finished her espresso, then texted her mother that she was coming home this weekend.
Ash woke up to unfamiliar sounds—or was it to the complete absence of any sound? Her flat in London was in a brand new building with triple glazing, but despite the quality of the insulation, it was never really quiet in her bedroom. More often than not, she woke to the loud blare of an ambulance or the invasive roar of a too-fast motorcycle.
She hadn’t searched long for her new digs. She’d picked the building because it was walking distance from work. She’d had to make a swift decision. Flats in that building, because it was fancy and new and made a peculiar shape in the skyline, weren’t available very often. Truth be told, she’d also taken it because if Charlotte had cast even one eye on it, she would have declared it utterly soulless.
Ash could hear Charlotte’s voice in her head, “This is not a place to be lived in, Ash. Can’t you feel that?” But Ash was very much living in her soulless flat, or at least spending the time there when she wasn’t at work or out and about, which, most days, really only amounted to sleeping there. And being woken up by the incessant sounds of the city.
But not this morning. This morning, she stretched her limbs in her old bed, in her old room. Adrian’s old bedroom had long been converted to a guest room, most often used by his own children, but Ash’s room had remained pretty much intact, which she was grateful for. She and Charlotte had slept—and done plenty of other things—in this bed. Still, it was easy enough to replace the memories she’d made here with Charlotte with older ones, from when Ash was a teenager.
Ash was glad she’d taken the train last night, so she could wake up here this morning. Because weekend mornings were still the hardest when she had no one to wake up with any more, no one who turned towards her and automatically put a smile on her face. It had been a very long time since that had happened. The absence of that kind of warmth, a warmth she had long taken for granted, was easier to deal with in the bedroom of her youth. And all she had to do was go downstairs and she’d be greeted with all the warmth she needed. It was exactly what Ash had made the journey from London for—albeit not necessarily the one bestowed upon her by her family.
She put on socks and pulled a sweater over her pyjamas before padding down the stairs, into the kitchen. She was greeted by the smell of toast and eggs and coffee. Even though it would make her feel sluggish all day, Ash knew trying to fast would be futile this morning. Her mum wouldn’t have it. She’d want to feed her. That was absolutely fine with Ash.
“Morning, darling.” Her mum looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. “I heard you rumble upstairs so I popped in some toast.”
Ash followed her mum’s gaze. It was almost ten. She must have been really knackered.
“I slept so well.”
“It must be the air here. It makes you sleep much deeper.” Her mum put a steaming mug of coffee in front of her. “I’m so glad you’re here, darling. Let’s take the opportunity to plan our night out in London together.”
Ash smiled at her mum and sipped from the coffee. It was nowhere near the strength of the double espressos she was used to, but she enjoyed the mildness of it, as she did the mildness of the entire morning. No alarm clocks. No work. No busy city streets. She didn’t even have to shower. She could just hang out at the house all day and have her mother dote on her—Ash knew she loved it.
“Here’s some toast,” her mum said. “Eggs coming right up, just the way you like them.”
“This is better than any hotel I’ve ever been to.” Ash flashed her mum a wide smile. “Best watch it, Mum. I might come home every weekend if you keep this up.”
“I wouldn’t mind that one bit.” Both their attention was drawn to the sounds of a car on the driveway, followed by a door slamming shut.
“Are you expecting a visitor?” Ash didn’t really care that she was in her pyjamas. She was pretty sure that whoever was stopping by would be able to deal with her relaxed appearance.
Her mum had already walked to the kitchen door to peer through the glass. “It’s Gloria. Lucky I just made a fresh pot of coffee.”
Chapter Twelve
Gloria had wanted to stop at Mary and Alan’s earlier in the week, but something had always come up. And then she and Ash had stopped texting—because what else was there to say, really?—and she no longer needed to get a brutal reality check. Until this morning. Now, she wasn’t sure if she was here for a reality check or for something else entirely, like a small thread of connection with Ash. She could casually ask Mary how Ash was doing and, in the process, find out if Ash had mentioned their outing at all, and if so, if she’d said anything nice about her.
It was borderline childish behaviour, Gloria knew this, but there she stood, knocking on Mary and Alan’s kitchen door. It wasn’t that unusual for her to drop by. Mary always seemed to have a pot of coffee on—and she kept plenty of biscuits in the house for when her grandchildren visited.
Mary opened the door and, instantly, Gloria’s gaze was drawn to the person sitting behind her at the kitchen table.
Ash was home.
Gloria hadn’t banked on that. She wasn’t prepared for it, but it didn’t matter. She could handle herself. She pecked Mary on the cheek and gave Ash a quick wave.
“We have a surprise guest this weekend,” Mary said.
“I can see that.” Gloria couldn’t help a full-on smile forming on her lips, as though they’d developed a mind of their own at the sight of Ash. She’d obviously only just got up. It made her look ten years younger than she was, in that jumper that was way too big for her, and with her very unkempt hair. “How are you, Ash?”
Gloria had no way of knowing if Ash had told Mary about their dinner. In theory, there was no reason at all why Ash wouldn’t tell her parents. But in reality, if Gloria was being very honest with herself, there might be a very good reason to keep it hidden. Not just because of the flirting, which could easily be catalogued as harmless enough, as two single people just having a bit of innocent banter, but because of what it could imply. But maybe Ash didn’t feel so self-conscious about any of this at all. After all, she was the one who had stopped replying to Gloria’s messages. If it had been up to Gloria, they would have texted like that for the rest of the week. Every time her phone had buzzed since Wednesday evening, she’d hoped it was Ash. But it had always been someone else.
“Chuffed to be treated like a proper princess at Hotel Mummy.” Ash held Gloria’s gaze for an instant. If she was taken aback by Gloria’s sudden appearance in her mother’s kitchen, she didn’t let on.
“I don’t get to spoil you nearly enough.” Mary gave her daughter’s shoulder a quick squeeze. “Would you like some coffee, Gloria?” She pointed at the chair next to Ash. “Sit with us for a minute.”
Gloria did as she was told and gladly accepted the offer of coffee. As Mary was busy fetching a cup, Gloria looked at Ash. Ash’s reply was to just grin at her.
“Just a social call then?” Mary asked as she poured Gloria and herself some coffee. She also planted a plate of eggs in front of Ash. Gloria guessed she wasn’t fasting on weekend days then—knowledge that pleased her.
“I was just driving past and though I’d pop in. See how you’re settling into retirement.”
“Alan has fled the house already,” Mary joked. “He’s spending the morning working in Adrian’s vegetable patch, with two young helpers by his side. He’ll be exhausted when he gets back.”
Gloria and Mary continued their conversation about this and that and while doing so, Gloria was very much aware of Ash’s presence at the table. Ash didn’t say anything. She piled eggs on a slice of toast, ate them, and drank coffee.
Gloria had been coming to the Cooper house for as long as she could remember—since Ash and Adrian had been children. Sitting there now it sort of felt like she had gone back in time, with the way Ash was being mothered by Mary, and how she silently observed their conversation, as if they were the grown-ups in the r
oom and she the child who’d been told not to bother the adults.
Then Mary’s phone started ringing.
“Guess who,” she just said, then picked up.
Gloria took the opportunity to look at Ash again. She had finished her late breakfast and was sitting with one leg pulled up onto her chair.
“Are you okay?” Gloria whispered. “You’re awfully quiet.”
“Still waking up, I guess.”
Mary ended her call. “Your father asks if you can drop by Adrian’s before lunch and bring him that special kind of Super Glue he uses,” Mary said to Ash.
“What does he need glue for? I thought they were working in the garden?” Ash even sounded a bit like a petulant teenager.
“One of the kids broke something,” Mary said matter-of-factly.
Gloria remembered what it was like to have two children below the age of ten. Objects had a nasty habit of breaking all the time.
“Okay,” Ash said.
Without thinking, Gloria said, “I’ll give you a ride. Adrian lives around the corner from me.”
“That’s ever so nice of you, Gloria,” Mary said. “You can get a ride back with your dad, Ash.”
“I’d best put some clothes on then.” Ash placed her dirty plate in the dishwasher and disappeared from the kitchen.
It was barely a ten-minute drive to Adrian’s house, and Gloria had spent three of those minutes wondering what to say to Ash. She didn’t really know where all of this sudden tension was coming from. She certainly hadn’t banked on it when she’d offered Ash the ride.
“Do we… need to talk or something?” she finally asked.
Ash nodded. “Yeah, um…”
Gloria glanced at her. Ash was looking straight ahead.
“Do you still want to have dinner again?” Ash asked. “Or lunch. Or coffee.” She turned to face Gloria.
Gloria concentrated as she overtook a cyclist and had to pay extra attention to the road, but she could feel the intensity of Ash’s gaze on her. Gloria huffed out a nervous giggle. Every cell in her body wanted to scream yes.
“Do you want me to come to London again next week?” she asked.
“I’m here all weekend.”
Gloria glanced at Ash. She was about to drive past her house. She made a quick decision. Before dropping Ash off at her brother’s, she wanted to have a proper conversation with her. She pulled up in front of her house.
“Meaning?” Gloria asked, turning to Ash.
“We could meet up tomorrow,” Ash said. “Or did you want to invite me in right now?” She sat there grinning.
“I’ll drop you at Adrian’s in a minute… I just, I don’t really know what to think of any of this.”
Ash sunk her teeth into her bottom lip for a moment, while she regarded Gloria intently. “I was hoping to run into you this weekend.”
That didn’t really ease Gloria’s confusion, but she was pleased to hear it nonetheless. “Well, you did.”
“I don’t really know what’s going on here either, Gloria. But I do know that I very much enjoyed your company on Wednesday. And that it was an experience worth repeating. Maybe we can talk about it when we see each other tomorrow?”
Ash wasn’t going to take no for an answer—and it was also the very last answer Gloria wanted to give her. She mentally scanned her calendar for any activities tomorrow. It came up empty.
“I’m free tomorrow,” she said. “Any time you can make it.”
“How about I stop by on my way to the train station and then just take a later train back to London?”
“What time were you planning to go back?”
“After the Chelsea game,” Ash said. “But I’ll try to get out of that without disappointing my dad too much. I’ll text you.” Ash already had her hand on the door handle.
“Okay,” Gloria said. “Don’t you need a lift?”
“I’ll walk. I need some time to process,” Ash said.
Gloria needed some time to process as well, although she would never admit that out loud to anyone, contrary to what people of Ash’s age did these days.
Chapter Thirteen
Ash almost had to physically fight off her brother, so dead set was he on driving her to the train station. She could have just told him that she was dropping by Gloria’s before returning home, but something stopped her. She didn’t want to have to deflect her brother’s dozen questions about that. Moreover, Ash had an inkling that Adrian might put something together that she herself wasn’t ready to admit to yet—most certainly not out loud.
She walked down the street. She’d reach the corner soon. Once there, she could still decide to go in the direction of the station. She could hop on a train and go home, the way she had told her family she would. Her dad hadn’t seemed too disappointed when she’d told him she was going to see Adrian and the kids first and then head home from there. Spouting half-truths to her family wasn’t as hard as she had expected. Maybe because of all the times she had told them in the not too distant past—straight-faced but dying a little inside—that she and Charlotte were doing just dandy.
She could even have told her mother about her little outing with Gloria. On the face of it, there was really nothing to it. They’d chatted—and danced!—at the party. Gloria had told Ash she was planning a visit to London. They’d had dinner together. It sounded perfectly acceptable. There was nothing to it. Yet, Ash hadn’t said a word to her mother. Because there was something to it. Something as of yet undefinable. Or no, if she was being truly honest with herself, and a moment of truth would soon be presenting itself when she came to the fork in the road, she knew exactly what was going on.
She liked Gloria. Not merely as an old friend of her mother’s, but as something else. But none of this was all down to Ash. Granted, she could be misreading things spectacularly, but she knew in her gut that she wasn’t. Her instinct told her that Gloria had felt something too. It had started at the party, maybe when they’d danced, and had continued on their night out. Ash had let the text messages between them peter out because she felt that she had no choice, no matter how alive a bit of flirting made her feel—it really didn’t take much these days. But she had been the one to get on the train home on Friday. She was the one who had got herself invited over to Gloria’s house this afternoon.
She reached the corner of the street and her legs just kept walking. Going straight to the station wasn’t even an option. Gloria was expecting her. They had to talk about this. Surely, Gloria would make her see sense. She just needed a dose of reality. She was probably only getting sucked into this because she was so desperate for a distraction.
There loomed Gloria’s house. Ash didn’t recall ever having been inside. She’d never had any reason to. Gloria was a friend of her mother’s. They’d known each other for decades. Ash focused on that. That would snap her out of it.
She went straight for the back door. An acquaintance of Adrian’s might recognise her ringing the front doorbell and Ash didn’t need anyone questioning her brother about that. She knocked and ran a hand through her hair while she waited to be let in. Her hair was getting long. She needed to make an appointment with her hairdresser this week. She made a mental note. Then the door swung open.
The smile on Gloria’s lips was welcoming and warm. It felt like such a long time since someone had smiled at Ash like that, with so much possibility and kindness.
Gloria ushered her in. Ash looked around the kitchen. She noticed the typical country-style wooden cabinets she always disliked so much when she caught an episode of Escape to the Country.
“Come through.” Gloria led them to the living room. “I made tea.” They sat and Gloria poured tea and pushed the tray of biscuits in Ash’s direction, but Ash ignored them. This all felt very formal. Ash pictured her mother sitting in this exact same spot, holding the same teacup—not ignoring the biscuits.
“How was the rest of your weekend?” Gloria asked.
“Fine. Mum really spoils me when I come ho
me.” She peered at Gloria over the rim of her cup. She was wearing the same shade of deep red lipstick she’d worn on Wednesday, but her attire was much more relaxed. She was dressed in jeans and a loose-fitting sweater.
“It’s what mothers do when their daughters come home,” Gloria said.
This reminded Ash of Gloria’s daughters. The thought was another nail in the coffin of her desire—because wasn’t that all it was? Just a silly bout of desire, ludicrously aimed at the first person who’d flirted with her in a while. Then magnified by the sheer surprise of it all. And here Ash sat, a slave to her own whim. The atmosphere that had slowly built between them at the restaurant was nowhere to be found. Not a flicker of it. So, in that respect, Ash was glad she’d come. It was working. Reality was hitting her around the head enough to snap her right out of it.
“Do they come home often? Your daughters?” Ash heard herself ask even though she wasn’t very interested in the answer.
“I don’t think you came here to discuss my daughters’ schedules,” Gloria said.
“No.” Ash shuffled around in the over-stuffed chair she was sitting in. “Um, yeah. I’m not sure I should have come. Yesterday, in the car, things got intense for a minute…”
“You said you were hoping to run into me this weekend.” Gloria flashed that smile again. “And you did.” When she said it like that, Ash had no trouble tapping into that feeling again.
Ash nodded. “I had also hoped it wouldn’t have been at my mother’s breakfast table.” She put her teacup on its saucer.
“You looked adorable, Ash. You were awfully quiet, though.” Gloria leaned back in her chair and slung one leg over the other.
“You’d come to see Mum. I didn’t want to butt in.”
“Hm.” Gloria just nodded. “Did you tell anyone about having dinner with me?”
“No,” Ash admitted.
