On a Beautiful Day

by Lucy Diamond

  Maisie, as it turned out, didn’t have anything much to say for herself, other than a muffled ‘I’m really sorry’, before crumpling into penitent tears.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Jo said grimly, catching the eye of the security guard. He appeared completely unmoved by the tears, as if he’d seen all this before. Every single Saturday, probably. ‘So what happens now?’ Would he call the police? she wondered, shooting a glance at Maisie, who was still weeping, clutching a small scraggly tissue that she’d retrieved from her bag.

  The security guard scratched at his stubble for a moment, considering. Then he turned the sunglasses over, peering at them. ‘Those girls I saw you with, they’re in here all the time, trying to nick stuff,’ he said, with a hard stare at Maisie. ‘And one of these days I’m going to catch them, and they’re going to be very sorry. But I haven’t seen you here before, I’m glad to say. So that’s something. And there’s no damage done to the goods.’

  Jo held her breath. ‘So . . . ?’

  He cleared his throat. ‘So this time I’m going to let you off with a warning,’ he said gruffly. ‘But let me make this clear: if I catch you in here again, mucking about and trying to nick stuff, I’m going to be straight on the phone to the police and, take it from me, they will not be so nice to you. You’d get a criminal record, you know. A criminal record! If you want to go to college one day, or university, or when you come to get a job, that criminal record will be there, remember, and it doesn’t look good, believe me. Not good at all.’ His voice was getting louder and more severe, and Maisie seemed to be shrinking on the spot.

  ‘No,’ she mumbled. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘We appreciate that,’ Jo felt obliged to say.

  ‘I mean it, though,’ he said. ‘And tell those mates of yours, and all. In fact, word of advice.’ He turned to Jo. ‘You might want to suggest your daughter finds some new friends to hang around with. The two she was with today . . .’ He shook his head. ‘Heading down the slippery slope any day now, put it like that. And you don’t want them dragging your girl with them.’

  Jo couldn’t quite look at Maisie, who was probably pulling an about-to-vomit face that this man could be so idiotic as to assume someone like Jo could possibly be her mother. Although if Jo put him straight, he might insist on ringing Maisie’s real parents, she figured. Perhaps it was better to let that one go uncontested. ‘Thank you,’ was all she said. ‘We’ll certainly have a chat about it.’ And with that, the ordeal seemed to be over.

  Maisie shrugged on her jacket again, not saying a word as the two of them made their way back across the busy shop floor. Once outside the store, she hesitated, blinking in the bright sunshine. (Should have bought those sunglasses, shouldn’t you? Jo thought, rather heartlessly.)

  ‘Are you going to tell Dad?’ the girl asked in a low voice.

  And just like that, the power dynamic had shifted. Again Jo hesitated, wondering how best to reply. If she kept quiet about this, then Maisie would be in her debt, she realized – although that would mean keeping a secret from Rick, which wasn’t ideal. But if Maisie was genuinely sorry and, more to the point, suitably shaken up to think twice about pulling such a stunt again, maybe she had been punished enough. Oh God. This was hard. Jo felt completely unqualified to make decisions about somebody else’s child. ‘I’m not sure,’ she replied honestly. ‘Look, there’s a Caffè Nero round the corner, why don’t we go and have a milkshake or something? Talk it through.’

  Maisie flushed, looking very much as if ‘talking it through’ was the last thing she felt like doing, but to Jo’s surprise – and no doubt with an eye on any repercussions, if she rudely refused – the girl nodded reluctantly and they trailed along there together.

  It was only as they were waiting to be served that Jo remembered seeing all those clothes in Maisie’s bedroom the other day, tags still attached, and all those expensive toiletries to boot. She’d thought at the time there was something odd about so much brand-new stuff being at Rick’s place, rather than at Polly’s – especially when she’d never heard anything about Rick taking his daughter on shopping trips. She could make a pretty good guess at where it had all come from now, though. ‘You’ve done that before, haven’t you?’ she asked in a low voice, pretending to be browsing the menu above their heads. ‘Nicking stuff, I mean. I’ve seen it in your room.’

  Maisie picked at her nails, glaring and shrugging. Jo would take that as a yes, then, she decided, raising her eyes heavenwards. God. Worse than she’d thought. How the hell was she meant to deal with this sort of thing? Why wasn’t there a manual?

  Once they’d been served and were sitting at a table with a drink each, Jo decided to spare the lectures. Maisie wasn’t an idiot, she didn’t need Jo banging on about shoplifting or choosing her friends more carefully. Besides, she could tell the girl felt uneasy there with her and was itching to get away again. Bugger it, Jo thought, she might as well seize the moment and go straight in for the big stuff while she could, just get it out there. ‘Do you know, a couple of months ago I was here in town when that car crashed near Peter Street,’ she began conversationally. ‘Do you remember hearing about it? It was a sunny day like this, really busy – people everywhere.’

  There was suspicion in Maisie’s expression as she eyed her over the straw in her drink, as if wondering where this might be leading. ‘Yeah,’ she said guardedly.

  ‘And I rushed over to help some of the people who’d been injured, and this one woman, Miriam, she was called, gave me a card and asked me to ring her husband.’

  ‘Right,’ said Maisie, still with that ‘So what?’ look about her.

  ‘So I did and – well, long story, but we stayed in touch. They’re a really nice couple who live out in Didsbury. Ash Grove, funnily enough.’

  Maisie’s shoulders stiffened as she sucked her drink. Oh yeah. Here it comes.

  ‘I went there the other week, because Miriam’s out of hospital at last, and I was just knocking on their door when you and your mum went by,’ Jo went on.

  Cringe. That had got her. ‘Oh,’ said Maisie uncomfortably, her expression hard to read.

  ‘Small world, right? I was surprised, too. Even more so when Bill said a few things about you and your mum. How you’ve not been getting on. How things have been difficult. And I just wondered—’

  Maisie’s hackles shot up; sensing sympathy – or, worse, pity – she bristled with defiance. ‘I get it. You think that because I’ve had an argument with my mum it’s made me go out trying to nick some sunglasses.’ She held her hands up sarcastically, her top lip curling. ‘Whoa. You got me there, Sherlock.’

  ‘No,’ said Jo, trying to keep her patience. ‘I was going to say, I wondered how much your dad knew about all that. About what’s been happening at home.’ She could see mutiny setting in on the girl’s face, so she wheeled out the big guns, quick. ‘What with the police getting called out, that sort of thing.’ Boom.

  Maisie’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ she growled. ‘Who is this nosy old git anyway? Why is it any of his business?’

  ‘He said the whole street knew about it,’ Jo said mildly. ‘I got the feeling he didn’t want to make it his business, but . . .’

  Maisie glowered. ‘Yeah, right. Sounds like it.’

  There was a moment of silence, then Jo tried again. ‘Look, I didn’t say anything to your dad, but maybe you should. If you’re not happy, tell him. Because if the police have got involved, it’s only a matter of time before word gets to social services and—’

  ‘Don’t. You don’t . . . You don’t understand,’ Maisie said, but the fight seemed to have deserted her all of a sudden, her voice low, shoulders slumping.

  ‘I might, you know,’ said Jo in her gentlest voice. ‘Try me.’ A few seconds passed when she could sense Maisie struggling with her own emotions and then, at last, the girl seemed to unbend.

  ‘She’s just finding it hard,’ she began, so quietly Jo had to strain to hear. ‘Without Dad. And then sh
e split up with Mike, her boyfriend.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jo, and waited.

  A whole minute passed without either of them speaking and then Maisie went on, as if she couldn’t hold it in any longer. ‘She gets drunk sometimes,’ she mumbled, speaking more to the table than to Jo. ‘And she keeps . . . forgetting things.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘Like school things. Dinner money. Sometimes she forgets to pick me up from places and I can’t get home. It’s not on purpose or anything,’ she added defensively, then shrugged. ‘She’s always really sorry.’

  ‘Have you tried saying any of this to your dad?’

  ‘Well, I can’t, can I, cos you’re always there,’ Maisie snapped.

  Touché. ‘I guess I have been lately,’ Jo realized, remembering what India had said about Maisie probably fearing that her dad would love his girlfriend more than her. Perhaps this was really what it boiled down to. ‘And you need your space with him.’

  ‘Well, duh,’ said Maisie, but it was said without her usual level of waspishness at least.

  ‘Don’t you duh me!’ cried Jo, pantomiming crossness, hands on her hips. Was it her imagination or did Maisie’s lips twitch, ever so slightly, as if she might be on the verge of a smile? And then she was remembering too late how, with the mean girls at school that Maisie had reminded her of, there had so often been some unpleasant story or other in the background. An abusive uncle. A bitter parental divorce. A sibling in and out of prison. Nobody’s life was black and white. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she went on. ‘We’ve not got off to a great start, me and you, but I’m not trying to take your dad away from you at all. I swear. I’m going to get on the case and find a new flat to rent soon; me moving in was only ever a temporary arrangement.’

  Maisie sucked up more of her shake and then muttered, to Jo’s surprise, ‘I’m sorry I broke your bird. I was just feeling mad with everything.’

  Oh my goodness. Talk about a breakthrough. Jo had to stop herself from checking out of the window for a flying pig flapping by. ‘It’s okay,’ she replied quietly. ‘We’ve all been there. And I appreciate the apology.’

  Silence fell again, apart from the slurping of Maisie’s shake as she pushed the straw around for the last few mouthfuls. Any minute now, she’d be up from her seat and this moment would be over. Jo thought hard about what she wanted to say before that happened. ‘You know . . . I had a difficult relationship with my mum, growing up. I still do, actually. She drives me and my sister completely mad, even now. I’m not saying your mum’s like that,’ she went on hurriedly. ‘But I do know that, unlike me, you’ve got a great dad who absolutely adores you. He’d hate to think you were unhappy and didn’t want him to know about it. Plus . . .’ She poked her straw around in her own shake, bracing herself for rejection. ‘Plus you’ve got me to talk to as well, remember. If you want.’ She kept going before Maisie could shoot her down. ‘And I’m a nurse and, believe me, I’ve heard everything by now. I am one hundred per cent unshockable. We nurses are good listeners and we can keep secrets, too.’

  Maisie tipped her head on one side. ‘Does that mean you won’t tell Dad about what happened in Primark?’

  Jo smiled at her. She’d walked right into that one, hadn’t she? ‘As long as you talk to him about how you feel – properly, I mean – then I’m going to be, like, Primark? What the hell happened in Primark? I don’t remember anything happening in Primark.’

  And then the tension left Maisie’s face and she was smiling, too. Just a small, shy smile – grudging almost, as if she’d rather not be doing it, but a genuine one nonetheless. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Deal.’

  Jo finished her drink. ‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘I’m going to ring your dad right now and say to him that I’m going to spend the rest of the day with my sister. Tonight as well, actually. And I’ll probably take her out for Sunday lunch tomorrow, seeing as she’s pregnant and hungry all the time. So why don’t you go round there this afternoon and hang out with him for a bit? Without me cramping your style?’

  She got a proper smile for that. A real shiny-eyed grateful smile, and a nod of the head. ‘Thanks,’ said Maisie. Was that a bridge being built between them? wondered Jo, daring to hope. The weapons-down ending of a bitter civil war? It was a step forward, anyway; a moment of mutual understanding. A nudge, too, for her to crack on with flat-hunting sooner rather than later.

  A burst of optimism flared inside Jo as she fished in her bag for her phone and dialled Rick’s number; with Maisie peering into a pocket mirror and cack-handedly applying more eyeliner while she waited. Goodness, was that even a prickle of affection for the girl that Jo was experiencing all of a sudden? Whatever the case, this was, most definitely, a start.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Eve had spent so long feeling as if Death was one step behind her that as she was wheeled towards the operating theatre, she half-expected the Grim Reaper himself to come trotting along too, scythe slung over a shoulder, that ghastly skeletal smirk. We meet at last; one bony finger crooked and beckoning. Your time is up.

  ‘You’re not going to die,’ Neil had told her categorically, as had all the doctors and nurses she had spoken to. ‘The odds are in your favour, love. We’re going to beat this.’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’ She managed to stop herself from pointing out that this wasn’t necessarily the end of it. From what she had dared read, there was a chance that, when the pathologist analysed the breast tissue that had been removed from her, he or she might find an area of invasive cancer cells lurking there, as well as the DCIS. For all she knew, the cancer might already have snaked insidiously into her lymph nodes, which would mean . . .

  No. Stop, Eve. She really did have to call time on these Internet searches. As important as it was to be well informed about your own body, you could know too much sometimes. You could scare yourself to death.

  She had tried not to make too big a deal of the operation to the girls, first thing that morning. The school holidays had just begun and India had arrived in order to pick them up for the day. ‘I’m going to be fine, don’t worry. I’ll almost certainly be back here for tea, and it’ll all be over,’ she told them in the most bright and cheerful voice she could manage. ‘Now you just have a lovely day and don’t even think about me, okay? Dad will keep you posted. Are your phones charged? Well done. Anyone need the loo before you go?’

  ‘Mum, don’t fuss,’ said Sophie, squirming out of her embrace. She’d requested a serious haircut recently to mark the end of primary school, and all her lovely locks were now gone, reduced to a cute, quirky elfin haircut that made her cheekbones stand out and her eyes look huge and fawn-like. No more plaits, no more bunches, no more winding long strands of it around her thumb to suck. Eve couldn’t quite come to terms with this new grown-up version of her daughter, more spiky, less cuddly. Every day it was as if the invisible threads between them tautened a little tighter as Sophie tried to yank herself away.

  ‘I’m not fussing, I’m—’

  ‘You are fussing, actually, but it’s okay,’ Grace said, her head almost reaching Eve’s shoulder as she at least gave her a goodbye hug, her cloud of long dark hair so similar to Eve’s, falling down her back. ‘Don’t worry, Mum, we’ll be all right. Don’t you even think about us, okay?’

  ‘That told you,’ India said as Eve blinked away the sudden dampness in her eyes that had appeared. (Since when did her eldest girl become so mature and empathetic anyway?)

  ‘We’ll neither of us think of the other,’ Eve promised jokily, giving Grace a last grateful squeeze, knowing already this wouldn’t be possible. ‘See you later. Be good. Text Dad, won’t you, if you—’

  ‘Muuum!’ Sophie cried, throwing up her hands with flamboyant melodrama. And then they’d gone, and Neil was checking that the back door was locked and telling her it was their turn, they’d better get a move on, and was she ready?

  She hesitated in the hall, wanting to put her hands over her breasts protective
ly, suddenly scared of the knife that awaited her. ‘I hope I don’t end up looking too . . . butchered,’ she said in a low voice, as he stood, one hand on the handle of the front door. ‘I hope I still feel like me, at the end. Like a woman.’

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ he told her. ‘Feel like you, I mean. They said they would only need to take out a small amount, didn’t they?’

  ‘I know, but there’s not that much there to spare in the first place,’ she replied, grimacing. She took another step forward, then stopped again. ‘I just keep thinking I might never wear a bikini again. I might not even want to look at myself in the mirror again. And you might not fancy me, either. How shallow is that?’

  He walked back and put his arms around her and she held herself very still and tight because she knew, if he started being kind, that she was probably going to end up crying again. ‘It’s not shallow,’ he said. ‘I’m sure everyone in your position feels like that. It’s scary. It’s the unknown. But we can’t do anything about it now, it’s out of our control.’

  She leaned against him, grateful for his solidity. ‘That’s the bit I like least of all,’ she said, her voice small.

  ‘I know it is. So let’s just get through the op and see where we are, yeah? One step at a time.’ He dropped a kiss on her head. ‘Tell you what, when you feel like wearing a bikini again, I’ll wear one too, and then nobody will even glance your way. Okay? But come on, we need to go. Are you ready?’

  She gave a snuffling little laugh at the image of him trying to squeeze into one of her bikinis and felt a tiny bit better. ‘I’m ready,’ she said. And in a funny sort of way, once she was in the car and they were heading towards the hospital, once she was changing into a hospital gown and the doctors were preparing to begin the localization procedure that preceded the surgery, she did actually feel ready. It was a cliché, sure, when people talked about battling cancer as if engaging in some kind of war, but as she was wheeled down the corridor towards the operating theatre, she felt, for the first time, that she understood why this metaphor was used. Because she wanted to fight. She wanted it out of her, stopped in its tracks, and she had this whole battalion of skilled, experienced doctors and nurses on her side. You think you can take me on, cancer? You think can mess me up? Well, screw you, she thought defiantly. You are not welcome in my body. So you can bugger right off.