by Lucy Diamond
‘Let’s hope not.’ She blew her nose. ‘Thanks for being so nice to me,’ she said. ‘What a muppet, honestly. I can’t believe I got it so wrong.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ he told her. ‘Who your dad is makes no difference anyway. You’re still the same Anna – funny, lovely, a talented writer, a good friend, a genius chef …’
‘Keep going.’
‘… Who needs some pink champagne immediately. Let’s order.’
Chapter Thirty-One
Il ragazzo – The boyfriend
‘Mum!’
‘Oh, Em! Hello, love! Come here!’ Catherine hugged her daughter joyfully, breathing in the scent of clean hair and perfume. Her girl.
It was Friday afternoon and the end of Catherine’s first week in her new job. The work had been simple but satisfying and her colleagues were lovely. Maggie was a great boss too, mucking in with them and jollying everyone along. (She had even arrived on Thursday with chocolates for the team, ‘Just in case your fellas are as crap as mine about Valentine’s and forgot to give you owt.’ How lovely was that?!) And now it was the weekend, and here was Emily, come to visit for a full two days. Bliss.
Catherine had been looking forward to this all week. She’d already taken the liberty of booking them a cosy table for two upstairs at Browns on Saturday for lunch, with plans for a shopping marathon afterwards. If you couldn’t treat your own daughter with your wages, then what was the point of earning them?
A split second later, she noticed the youth at the side of the porch – a tall, handsome guy in a biker jacket with an air of aloof insouciance, as if he’d rather be doing cool stuff with cool people somewhere way cooler than this. He was carrying two motorbike helmets and only then did Catherine see the gleaming chrome and black beast behind him. In the eyes of any mother with a teenage daughter, it was a deathtrap.
‘Oh,’ she said, trying not to show her alarm. Emily hadn’t mentioned a boyfriend. She certainly hadn’t mentioned a motorbike. Didn’t she know how lethal they were? ‘Hello,’ she added quickly. Bang goes the girly weekend.
‘Mum, this is Macca. Macca, this is Mum. Catherine to you,’ she added with a grin.
Mrs Evans, if you don’t mind, Catherine felt like saying.
‘All right,’ drawled Macca, avoiding her eye.
‘Nice to meet you, er, Macca,’ Catherine said. She started putting her hand out for him to shake but he didn’t seem to notice so she dropped it quickly to her side. ‘Come in. Um … Are you staying for the weekend as well?’
‘Uh … Yeah?’ said Macca, as if he didn’t care either way.
Catherine was still trying to come to terms with the fact that her daughter had been driven here on a motorbike. Hideous, nightmarish images rattled into her head of them dodging around cars, leaning into hairpin bends, colliding with an oncoming lorry and being thrown into the centre of the road …
‘Can I make you some tea?’ she asked hurriedly. Stop it, Catherine. They’d got here in one piece, hadn’t they? ‘Coffee?’ Clearly tea and coffee were the drinking choices of middle-aged fogies, judging by the look on Macca’s face. ‘Squash? Something stronger?’ she said desperately.
‘Mum, you devil, don’t tell me you’ve been on the sherry already,’ Emily laughed. ‘We’re all right, thanks. I said to Katy we’d meet her down the pub later. Come on,’ she told Macca. ‘I’ll show you my room.’
The two of them thundered upstairs, laughing together about something, and Catherine drifted into the kitchen forlornly. Oh. Okay then. Dinner for two was suddenly dinner for three. She tried to banish the uncharitable thoughts from her head and look on the bright side. Emily was back, and they would still have a lovely time together. Wouldn’t they?
‘So, are you a student as well, Macca?’
She had managed to stretch the chicken pie to feed the three of them, by dint of adding mushrooms and carrot to the filling and serving it with the biggest baking potatoes in the bag. Not that this oaf looked grateful for her efforts, mind; he was shovelling in mouthfuls as if he was half-starved, one hand caressing Emily’s thigh under the table as he ate.
‘Having a year out,’ he mumbled, a small blizzard of pastry flakes falling from his lips as he spoke.
‘A year out? What, working or saving to go travelling, or … ?’ she asked, although she was pretty sure his answer would be neither.
‘Just a year out,’ he said, not meeting her eye.
‘Macca’s a musician,’ Emily said, shooting him an adoring look.
‘Oh. What do you play?’ God, this conversation was hard work. Clearly Macca hadn’t been honing his social skills during his year out.
‘Guitar.’
‘Are you in a band?’
‘Mum – give him a break,’ Emily protested. ‘It’s not an interview!’
Catherine saw her rolling her eyes at him and felt betrayed. ‘I’m only taking an interest,’ she said, wounded.
Emily began chatting to Macca about plans for the evening and Catherine tuned out; miserable images flashed up in her head of her daughter hanging out in squalid basement flats with unsavoury men, dirty windows never letting in any light, the sweet cloying smell of cannabis, the plaintive sound of a strummed guitar.
Look at Emily, so bright and fresh and clean, with her plump pink face and the pony-riding rosettes still on her wardrobe. The thought of this cretin opposite her daring to tarnish her daughter’s sparkle made Catherine feel like killing him.
‘Morning!’ Catherine called, jogging across the frosty grass to Sophie and Anna the next day. She’d woken early and decided to come out to the Park Run, certain that Emily and Macca would be snoozing for a few hours yet. It was a clear, cold morning and she zipped her tracksuit top up as high as it would go, her breath puffing out in little clouds as she ran.
Sophie was doing jumping jacks to keep warm and Anna was stretching out her hamstrings, a blue beanie hat on her head. ‘Hey, I thought you were going to drag your daughter along this morning,’ she chided as Catherine approached.
‘I was,’ Catherine replied, ‘but she brought this bloke back from Liverpool with her last night, out of the blue. They were both spark-out when I got up so I thought I’d leave them be.’
‘Ooh. Serious boyfriend, then, if he’s come for the weekend,’ Sophie said, raising an eyebrow.
Catherine pulled a face. ‘I hope not,’ she confessed. ‘He’s completely bloody gormless. And so rude.’
Sophie laughed. ‘You should talk to my mum. I brought home a few horrors in my time,’ she confessed. ‘You could compare notes.’
‘Didn’t we all,’ Anna said. ‘Shame you didn’t get your nice weekend together, though. I remember you were looking forward to that.’ She peered towards the start line. ‘I think they’re calling us over,’ she added.
Catherine tried to put things in perspective as they jogged across to join the other runners. Maybe the girls were right, she told herself firmly, as they set off along the path. Everyone went through their share of terrible boyfriends, didn’t they? She’d certainly had a few. Perhaps she’d been a bit harsh on old Macca.
But then she remembered the way he’d spoken to Emily last night and her charity shrivelled back to nothing. She’d been on her way upstairs with a basket of laundry when she heard Emily’s voice float out from her bedroom.
‘What do you think – this blue top with my jeans, or my black dress?’
Catherine had paused, thinking for a moment that her daughter was addressing her. Then Macca spoke.
‘That top’s a bit tight, isn’t it?’
‘Do you think?’ Emily sounded doubtful.
‘Yeah. Way too tight. I don’t think you’ve got the figure to carry that off. No offence.’
It was the longest speech Catherine had heard him make, and she didn’t like a word of it. No offence indeed, when he’d just criticized her figure like that. Who was he trying to kid?
‘Oh,’ said Emily uncertainly, and Catherine winced, imagining th
e crushed expression on her daughter’s face. ‘Should I wear the dress then?’
‘It’s kind of short. Haven’t you got anything less … slutty?’
It was like going back in time, hearing Mike say similar things to her. She could remember the anxiety fluttering inside as she paraded outfit after outfit before him only to see the shake of his head, lips pursed together in disapproval. Oh, Emily. Don’t put up with this rubbish like I did.
‘Um … I suppose so.’ Emily sounded chastened now; Catherine could hear the coathangers rattling in her wardrobe as she went through it.
Been there, done that. She hesitated on the landing, not knowing what to do. Her instinct was to leap to Emily’s defence, but she knew her daughter might not thank her for it.
‘Cath? Are you all right?’
Sophie’s voice dragged her back to the present; they were running alongside the playground but she’d been miles away. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Not awake yet.’
‘Still thinking about the pratty boyfriend?’
‘Yeah.’ In the end, she’d said nothing, just made a point of telling Emily how gorgeous she looked when she finally emerged in a long-sleeved smock top and jeans. Emily’s smile hadn’t quite reached her eyes though, and Catherine could tell she didn’t feel very gorgeous at all.
‘How did it go with your mum?’ Sophie asked Anna in the next moment, and Catherine felt bad for being so wrapped up in herself.
‘Oh God, yeah!’ she cried apologetically. ‘What did she say? Have you found out any more about your dad?’
Anna’s face went a bit pinched. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not really.’
‘Oh,’ said Sophie, glancing sideways at her. ‘But I thought she was going to tell you …’
‘Mmm,’ Anna replied. ‘It was a bit of a weird conversation actually. I’m still trying to get my head around it.’ She grimaced. ‘Not what I was expecting.’
Catherine had never seen bubbly Anna so reticent. ‘Are you okay? You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,’ she began, but Anna was already changing the subject.
‘Anyway,’ she said, lengthening her stride slightly, ‘how are you two? How’s the play coming along, Soph?’
Sophie flicked a glance at Catherine and Catherine shrugged. Whatever had happened between Anna and her mum was clearly not up for discussion. Not yet anyway.
Catherine arrived home feeling full of energy after the run. She’d knocked two minutes off last week’s time and her skin tingled from all the fresh air. As she kicked off her trainers in the hall though, she heard Emily’s voice from the kitchen, high-pitched and defensive, and her mood deflated almost immediately.
‘He’s just a friend, I’ve known him for ever. Honestly, there’s no way he’s interested in me.’
Catherine pricked up her ears but could only make out a surly mumble from Macca in reply. Then came Emily again, protesting tearfully. ‘I didn’t! I swear! I don’t even really like him!’
Catherine held her breath as she heard that low mumble in reply once more. What was he saying to her?
‘It’s not like that!’ cried Emily wretchedly, and something inside Catherine snapped. Whatever it was, she had to stop this. She was damned if she was going to let history repeat itself.
Her hands curling into fists, she strode into the kitchen. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
Emily was at the cooker, poking bacon around the frying pan with a fork and jumped as Catherine spoke. She was only wearing a long T-shirt and there was something hopelessly vulnerable about her bare pink legs, mottled with gooseflesh, and the damp spikes of her eyelashes. ‘Oh! Mum. It’s nothing.’
‘It didn’t sound like nothing to me. You sounded upset. Again. What’s happening?’
Emily shrank into herself, glancing nervously over at Macca and then back to Catherine. ‘Honestly, Mum, it’s fine. We were just talking.’
‘Talking? Is that what you call it?’ Catherine put her hands on her hips and glared at Macca. ‘Well, let me tell you something for nothing, sunshine. I’m not having you putting my daughter down in my house,’ she told him. ‘I heard you last night as well, making her feel bad about what she was wearing.’
He curled his lip at her, scornful and disbelieving. ‘You what?’
‘You heard me. Nasty, that’s what it is. Nasty and rude. My ex-husband used to put me down in the same way. Years and years I put up with it until my confidence was in shreds. So believe me, I’m not standing here and watching you do the same thing to my daughter. She’s worth more than that.’
‘Mum!’ Emily hissed, mortified.
‘I’m deadly serious,’ Catherine snapped. ‘So you’d better start treating her with a bit more respect, pal – otherwise you can get out of my house. Understand?’
He stared back at her, eyes limpid. ‘Whatever.’
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ she snapped. ‘I’m going to have a shower now. You just think about what I said.’
Upstairs in the safety of the bathroom, she leaned giddily against the tiled wall and let the water pour down on her. Oh my goodness. Had she actually just said all of that, hands on her hips like a tongue-lashing fishwife? She couldn’t quite believe her own daring, nor her ferocity. But she had meant every single word. No way would she let her daughter put up with the same kind of treatment she’d had from Mike: a sarcastic put-down here, a ‘no offence’ there, a drip-drip-drip of snide remarks that resulted in an imbalance of power, a bullying tyrant, a woman with zero confidence.
All the same, would Emily ever forgive her for it?
‘So what happened? Did he go?’
‘Yeah.’ It was the next day, and she had driven over to the allotment after a sleepless night, hoping that some hard work and fresh air would sort her out. The weather was unexpectedly mild and she was helping George dig over a vegetable plot. ‘The only problem was, she went too.’
‘Your daughter? What, they both just upped and left?’
‘They’d gone by the time I got out of the shower. Didn’t even eat their breakfast.’ She leaned heavily on her spade, remembering the shock of the empty house, her running from room to room calling Emily’s name, the bacon abandoned in the pan. Too late. ‘I feel terrible, George. The first proper boyfriend she’s ever brought home and I bollocked him and sent him packing.’
‘And you were right to, by the sound of it,’ he told her. ‘The guy sounds a total jerk.’
‘He was. The sort of jerk I married, so I should know.’
‘Well, then, I reckon you did her a favour.’ He turned the fork in the soil vigorously a few times. ‘What has she said about it since? Have you made up?’
‘Me and Emily? No. She won’t even answer my phone calls,’ Catherine said unhappily. ‘Honestly, George, it’s so unlike me, shooting off at the mouth like that. I don’t know what came over me.’ Even as she said the words, she knew they weren’t strictly true. She’d known exactly what had come over her: a terrible premonition of the future, of Emily going down the same wrong path she’d done, letting a man crush her spirit until she hardly recognized herself.
‘Give her a few days,’ George advised. ‘You probably dented her pride, blowing your top in front of this bloke. Called her allegiances into question.’
‘That’s what I’m worried about: that she’s decided her allegiance is with him, not me. You know what it’s like at that age – passions run high. And parents know nothing, obviously.’
‘I’m sure deep down she knows you were only trying to protect her,’ George said, and she smiled at him gratefully. He was so easy to talk to; she was so glad she’d decided to come here today. ‘Just like I’m sure deep down you know you’re meant to be helping me dig this vegetable plot over.’
Catherine laughed, despite her anxieties. ‘Sorry.’ She plunged her spade into the hard ground, standing on it until it sank all the way in. She hoped George was right and that Emily would know in her heart that Catherine had acted out of love. Surely she would?
The sun chose that moment to peer out between two thick cotton wool clouds and Catherine turned her face to the sky, appreciating the feeble warmth it provided. In a few weeks it would be spring, she thought, digging at the soil with a new burst of energy. The days would become longer and lighter, the trees would be in bud, snowdrops and primroses would give way to daffodils and blossom. It had been a long old winter, all in all.
‘You know, you’re a really nice person, Catherine,’ George said, out of the blue.
She glanced up in surprise to see him leaning on his fork, smiling at her, his eyes crinkling at the edges. ‘Oh! I am? Thank you,’ she said, taken aback.
‘I hate imagining your husband treating you in the way that you’ve talked about,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you’re not with him any more.’
‘Me too,’ she said, feeling self-conscious.
‘And I was thinking,’ he went on, ‘maybe we could go out some time. Just the two of us.’
Just the two of them … Oh my goodness. Was he asking her on a date? Her initial feeling was one of panic. ‘Well … I … Gosh,’ she said stupidly. Colour rushed into her face. ‘I’m a bit out of practice,’ she said, and then blushed even harder. Oh God. That sounded like she was talking about sex. ‘With going out, I mean. Going out with men.’ As opposed to what? Badgers? ‘It’s been a while.’
‘Well, you don’t have to go out with men,’ he pointed out mildly, ‘just me. And only if you want to.’ He unearthed a huge bramble root and chucked it behind him. ‘We could go for a drink tonight if you fancy it.’
‘Tonight?’
‘Yeah, if you’re not busy.’
Of course she wasn’t busy. She was never busy. But going for a drink, with him? Tonight? I’m not ready to go on a date, she thought uncertainly. Would she ever be ready for it?
She glanced across at him and he smiled – a proper, warm smile. She smiled back. Well, why not? It was George. He was lovely. And in the next moment, an unfamiliar girlish excitement began spiralling up inside her at the thought of going out with him to a pub somewhere. Talking. Having a drink. Getting to know each other. It’s just like getting back on a horse, Penny had said. ‘Okay,’ she blurted out.
