by Judy Astley
About the Book
Viola hasn’t had much luck with men. Her first husband, Marco, companion of her youth and father of her only child, left her when he realized he was gay. Her second, Rhys, ended his high-octane, fame-filled life by driving his Porsche into a wall. No wonder her family always believes she needs Looking After, and her friends think she really shouldn’t be allowed out on her own ...
Which is why, at the age of thirty-five, she finds herself shamefully back at home, living with Mum.
Viola knows she has to take charge; she needs to get a life, and fast. With a stroppy daughter, a demanding mother and siblings who want to control her life for her, where is she going to turn?
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
About the Author
Also by Judy Astley
Copyright
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I don’t want to have a ‘Thanks-To’ list that sounds like an Oscar speech but there are several people who have, in their various ways, helped me to get this book written.
So, my thanks to:
Elizabeth Garrett for the most wonderful writing retreat week at Cliff Cottage, and to Katie Fforde and Catherine (Captain) Jones for being such fabulously fun retreat mates. We even managed to get lots of work done somewhere between the gin and the dolphin-watching.
To Chris Chesney and to Danny Relph for giving me a tour of Danny’s premises at Palmbrokers Ltd and essential information about the kind of film/TV/advertising-industry plant-hire that is the green stuff, not massive machinery.
To Susie Bould for permission to include her First-Date-Hell experience. May she for ever have boyfriends of utter delight.
To Sam Eades for letting me use the truly horrible Incident of The Bag. Top tip from this: if you ever get your handbag nicked and you then get it back, give it a good sniff before you use it again.
And as always, thanks to my fab agent, Caroline Sheldon, and to Linda Evans and Alison Barrow at Transworld, without whom, etc.
ONE
VIOLA KNEW IT was time to go home when the many shades of pink in Charlotte’s sitting room made her think of the messier surgical events in Casualty. At the point where the claret-coloured sofa seemed to be morphing into a giant haemorrhaging liver, she stuffed that week’s book-group choice (Sense and Sensibility) into her bag with a firmness that Jane Austen, even at her most waspish, really didn’t deserve. The others were talking holidays and handbags now anyway, two subjects on which Viola didn’t have a lot to say, having bought neither that were worthy of discussion for a couple of years. The book had long since been dealt with, swiftly and without mercy; the Austen aspect having descended into a discussion about the fat-hiding quality of Empire-line frocks and whether sprigged muslin would ever again be an on-trend style statement.
Party’s over, Viola decided. With difficulty, she hauled her whirling brain back to reality and queasily tried not to picture Slit-Wrist Scarlet (contrast-feature wall, over fireplace) listed on Farrow & Ball’s paint chart as a bloody trickle instead of a neat rectangle, sandwiched between Picture Gallery Red and Dead Salmon. Charlotte must have been in a state of severe iron deficiency the day she chose the decor for this room.
‘Sorry, everyone, lovely evening but I have to go now. Curfew.’ She wobbled a bit as she got up. The massed perfumes of the seven assembled women in an overheated room were surely dangerously potent: what with that and the collective hair products they’d all go up in a whopping fireball if anyone lit a match. And of course once that thought had crossed her mind Viola immediately looked round nervously to make sure Lisa wasn’t casually lighting up a B&H and about to blast them all to pieces. That instant tension was what you got when you had the kind of life where the default setting was for everything to go as wrong as it possibly could. But Lisa was halfway out of her chair, taking Viola’s departure as a break opportunity, and nodding apologetically garden-wards, ciggies and lighter safely unlit in her hand.
‘Oh, Vee! What do you mean, curfew?’ Charlotte’s smile was a mocking one. ‘Come on, stay a bit longer; it’s only just gone ten. You’re nearly fort— I mean over thirty, not thirteen!’
Sometimes, I don’t like you an awful lot, Charlotte, Viola thought suddenly. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to say that out loud? But you didn’t do that, not to a woman from whom you’ve accepted an evening’s worth of hospitality and more than your share of luscious lemon drizzle cake. She stayed patient and polite but determined. ‘Can’t stay any longer, I’m afraid. I promised Mum I wouldn’t be late back.’
‘Your mother? Darling, it gets worse – you’re not still camping out at the old family homestead, are you?’ Charlotte was openly jeering now. The others (apart from sweet Amanda) smirked a bit but looked awkward. Jessica blew Viola a cheery goodbye kiss. Lisa waved through the back-garden window but the choices hung in the room’s hot air: humour your hostess or support her victim? Viola vaguely pondered this tricky social dilemma on their collective behalf. Then she caught Amanda firing a warning glare across to Charlotte, who looked instantly alarmed and clapped her hand to her mouth. She’d remembered. This happened a lot.
In the sixteen months since Rhys had died Viola had learned that she carried her youthful widowhood around like a big ugly disfigurement: something not to be mentioned but impossible to overlook. From the beginning it had made even those she was closest to overcareful of her, wary of saying the wrong thing in case they accidentally pushed Viola into shattering emotional meltdown. In fact, Charlotte’s unthinking teasing was a welcome change from being treated with velvety care. All the same, it didn’t make Charlotte any easier to love.
In the hallway, as Viola pulled her jacket from the heap draped over the banisters, she had a flashback to being actually thirteen, when getting ready for games in the school gym’s changing room meant exposing the awful truth – that her mother insisted she wear a vest under her uniform shirt to ward off chills, even in May, and even though she was also wearing a bra (albeit with not much in it). It was always the girls like Charlotte who had thought it fun to tease, to round up the others to point and laugh, knowing that they’d got plenty of backup in case you felt brave enough to retaliate. You’d ring a helpline for less than that these days, she thought as she put her jacket on quickly and called a brief goodbye through the sitting-room door to the rest of the group.
‘My mother is keeping an eye on Rachel for me, Charlotte,’ Viola said as Charlotte opened the front door. ‘I don’t want to push my luck there.’ She hesitated, more than half expecting Charlotte to point out that, at close to fifteen, the last thing Rachel would want or need was to be ‘kept an eye on’, which would then lead to explanations about the creaky, creepy, dark house, th
e unreliable door locks and rusting window catches. But Charlotte was glancing back into the room where the others had gone into shrieky-laughter mode, and she was eager to be in on the joke.
‘OK, sweetie.’ Charlotte air-kissed her briefly. ‘I know it must be difficult for you. We’re always here if you need us, you know, Vee. Don’t forget. Call any time. And I mean any time, for anything. And, you know, I’m so glad you came out tonight. Shows you’re getting back to normal, which you so need. After all, make the most of it. Any of us could be run over by a bus tomorrow.’ Charlotte then squeezed her hand, giving her a deep, between-the-eyes sincerity look, but had shut the door firmly by the time Viola was down the steps.
People often said that ‘any time’ thing when there’d been a death. Viola had noticed that, since Rhys. It was kind and well meant but not particularly realistic. For what would happen if, in the middle of the night, she called Charlotte and said she had a raging migraine and would she mind coming round at seven in the morning to make sure that sleep-addicted Rachel got up and left for school in time, and that she’d got her violin, gym kit and lunch money with her? Exactly. It was the true awkwardness of asking friends for that kind of help that had sent Viola back to relying on the shelter of her family when things went wrong. And how horribly often they did … As for being run over by a bus, if Charlotte (breathtakingly tactless) had left that door open a few minutes longer, Viola would have been able to tell her that she’d already had a near-disastrous encounter of that kind, thank you very much: with a big red number 33, at the age of eleven, while cycling all dreamily careless across the road to the ice-cream van.
Naomi tiptoed across the parquet-floored hallway to lean her ear against the door that connected to the apartment at the side of the house where Viola and Rachel were currently living. Not a sound came from beyond the heavy oak door, which wasn’t good. Rachel was a teenager – surely there would be noisy music? Or the TV on at an unsociable volume? Or maybe she’d got those little white bud things clamped in her ears to listen to music, the way everyone on the streets did. If she’d got a boy in there with her, Naomi hadn’t seen him arrive. She rather wished she had seen one. If she had caught Rachel sneaking a boyfriend in for an evening of dangerous underage consorting, Naomi could have bustled into the flat quite legitimately, pretending she was just being good-manners sociable rather than guarding her granddaughter’s virtue. She wasn’t actually against teenage sexual activity: heaven only knew, the hormones kicked in with magnificent fury in those years, just as nature intended, but safe-ish sixteen was a good year away yet and she didn’t want Rachel being exploited by some crass young twerp with no clue what he was doing.
If Rachel wasn’t alone, she could take them some of the fairy cakes (she refused to call them cupcakes, as they now seemed to be known) that she kept a handy supply of, safe from marauding mice in a Queen’s Jubilee tin in the old spidery larder. She would have sat on the smaller of the two crackled leather sofas in there, across from the thwarted couple, grilling the poor boy about his school exams and listening to his accent to make sure he wasn’t the kind who said ‘innit’ every five seconds. Or worse, was one who sniffed. She detested sniffers. If she was close behind one in the Waitrose checkout queue he always got the sharp spike of her shopping trolley. On your own premises it was possibly acceptable to offer a box of tissues. Certainly, if Rachel had her mother’s luck in picking male friends, he’d be sure to be both an ‘innit’ boy and an incurable sniffer.
She thought about trying the door and just walking in. The company of Rachel would be welcome: television on Tuesdays wasn’t inspiring; she’d finished all her library books and there wasn’t an unread murder mystery left in the house. Or she could knock on the door. She should knock, of course. Just walking in would be wrong, even if it were a lot more fun. But it was part of the agreed deal of Viola and Rachel being on the premises – that they would keep separate households, have their privacy. Of course it was just possible Rachel had simply gone to bed. Didn’t she have exams coming up soon? Viola had said something about them, she was fairly sure.
Naomi – with reluctance – moved away from the connecting door, crossed the hall (neatly avoiding the loose bits of parquet) and went into the kitchen to make a mug of tea. She should put the light on, but it was such a waste. ‘Good lighting is essential. It’s safer.’ Viola, Kate and Miles, in a rare moment of sibling solidarity, had all given her the lecture when the electrics were being rejigged. In spite of daily yoga and being able to horrify the grandchildren by still being able to contort her feet to behind her ears, Naomi was finding that her knees weren’t quite what they were, and in the past year she’d had a few adrenalin-surge moments on the stairs when it had felt as if her joints were locking up like a rusting engine and that putting a foot down in the right place on the next step wasn’t going to happen. Running twelve light bulbs at once in one room, however, could only be an outrageous expense, whatever they claimed about low voltage and green options. When she was a young thing of eighteen and first escaped from Burnley to a grim but thrilling Bayswater bedsit, the household managed well enough with one bulb per room and a torch on string for the lav. No one had died of dark.
She would take her tea into the sitting room and watch the news on TV, she decided. That way, she would be in the right place to see Viola’s headlights swinging into the driveway when she got home. Perhaps she’d come in and join her for a shot of bedtime Scotch. After all, in spite of this being-separate thing when it came to living arrangements, what was the point of having your own family as your neighbours if you didn’t at least pass the time of day with them?
‘It’s OK, Dad, she’s gone!’ Rachel let her long-held breath go in one whooshing sigh and bounced back to the sofa where her father – on a ‘just passing’ visit – sat as still as a spooked cat, a mug of tea halfway to his mouth.
‘Does she do a lot of that? The checking-up thing?’ Marco flipped one long leg across the other, tweaking at his jeans and taking a peek at the sharp, shiny toes of his cowboy boots. Rachel gave him a look and teased, ‘They’re just shoes, you know, Dad. You are such a girl!’
Marco fondly stroked the surface of the inky snakeskin. ‘Boots, to be exact. But they’re new, Rache! You know what it’s like when you’ve found the exact thing you didn’t even know you were looking for. I heart them, fell desperately in love the moment I saw them in the window at R. Soles. But tell me about your grand-mama. Doesn’t it creep you out when she breathes through the wood like that? Does she do it when your mother’s here?’
‘No – when Mum’s around and Gran wants something she makes a big thing of knocking on the door and saying she’s sorry to disturb us. It’s fine … but you know, really, it was only supposed to be for a little while after Rhys died and Mum was so upset cos all those loony people kept writing on our fence and shoving vile notes through the door, but it’s been, like, more than a year? I want to go back home. I think we should. I love Gran and all, but this place spooks me.’
‘It would spook anyone.’ Marco looked at the purple chenille curtains that moved gently in the draught from French doors that were closed but not airproof. ‘This place is all noise and movement, like there’s always someone else in here, rustling about.’
‘Eek! Don’t say things like that, it’s too scary.’
‘Sorry. Anyway, it’s probably mice and lack of double glazing. Hey, look, I’d better go. Your gran might go for a round-two raid and burst in here to see if she can catch you snogging some poor spotty geezer on the sofa, and we both know how thrilled she’d be to see me.’
‘Spotty? As if. I do have some taste,’ Rachel scoffed. ‘But it’s been really good to see you. And to meet your new boots.’
‘And it’s always a delight to see you, girl.’ Marco pulled back the chenille curtain and peered out. ‘OK, looks clear enough. I should be able to skirt round the shrubbery to the gates without Nana Naomi catching sight.’
‘Be careful you don’t g
et mud on your snakeskin.’ Rachel giggled.
‘Shudder! I’d rather take them off and carry them through the nettles in just my socks.’
‘Oh, Dad!’ Rachel laughed as Marco stepped out through the doors into the darkness. ‘You are just so …’
‘Gay? Yes, darling, I know. Everyone knows.’ He kissed the top of her head and hugged her. ‘Goodnight, princess, and come and hang out at mine if you’re mizzy here. We’re always thrilled to have you around.’
‘I will. Soon. And thanks for coming over. It was fun; better than maths homework, anyway.’
‘Oh, thanks! Glad to have been so very useful. Now I must rush, James will be wondering where I am. Do send my love to your gorgeous mum and tell her I’ll give her a call soon. It’s time we had one of our lunches. Right, stay by the window and watch me do my Great Escape number.’
He peered into the night, looking around like someone badly acting a spy routine, scuttled over to the dense shrubbery that ran from the side of the house to the front gate and vanished into the bushes. Rachel closed and locked the doors and stood watching the trail of trembling foliage marking the progress of her father. If Naomi were looking out of the front windows she’d imagine there was a bear weaving its way through the hydrangeas. Then he waved briefly from the pavement side of the gates and vanished. Moments later Rachel heard the revving of a Mini Cooper and her father was off, back to his light, bright apartment in Notting Hill where his light, bright partner James would be waiting for him.
The traffic was slow and heavy for a late mid-week evening, as if – Viola idly thought, as she and her Polo crawled along the dual carriageway – while she and the book group had been wolfing cake and sympathizing with Marianne Dashwood regarding her knack for picking the fit but feckless option when it came to men, there had been a dire national emergency announced on TV and Twitter, and half the population had taken to the roads to bolt for rural safety. A small earthquake in Earls Court, perhaps. Or the Thames filling up with weird water-borne radiation that was causing the capital’s kettles to glow scarlet as the water heated. As she came to yet another red traffic light she looked into the nearby cars, half expecting to see hastily piled-up bedding, cat baskets, children in pyjamas, sleeping. But no – mostly it was … couples. It was always couples. Lately when she’d looked at the loved-up, the paired-off, she’d felt a sad stab of envy.
