by Penny Parkes
‘Oh Quinn,’ she said, ‘we really need to talk.’
His face coloured instantly. ‘You have to be kidding me?’
She shook her head. The very idea that she had even considered turning down this opportunity for Quentin and his primetime show about first-world problems seemed almost laughable in that moment. She’d foolishly made him a priority in her life, when all she’d been to him was an option. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t believe you are,’ he said, his tone cold and measured. ‘I think you’ve been stringing me along. And all this Ambassador bollocks? Well, we both know that’s not who you really are.’
‘But maybe it’s who I could be,’ Julia offered.
‘I won’t wait for you,’ he said bluntly. ‘You’re not the only blonde in a doctor’s coat, you know.’ He paused, waiting for a reaction, clearly infuriated at finding none and switching up a gear. ‘I’m going to make this show with you or without you, Julia. It’s your decision, but you have to know that you are completely replaceable.’
To his intense surprise, she nodded and a smile lit up her face. ‘And I think I’m looking for something, or maybe somebody, where that’s not the case.’ She leaned in and kissed his cheek. ‘Bye, Quinn. And good luck.’
She left the room in a daze, replaying her own words in her head. True, she had dared to hope that Quentin and his show could fill the Dan-shaped hole in her life, but she’d been wrong. All this time looking outwards, when the answers had been there all along, if only she’d been brave enough to look.
She wasn’t cut out for television shows and media parties with Quentin. Or for that matter, domesticity, babies and country-living with Dan.
The idea of helping other children thrilled her far more than the notion of having her own. Rather than focusing on the petty weaknesses in her messy, disjointed life, she could actually use all the skills she’d painstakingly acquired to bring relief to others. And maybe, at last, she would be able to sleep at night.
Her mind flew to Dan for a second, to the look on his face if she said yes to this. Would he be proud, she wondered? And then gave herself a shake. If she were going to do this, really do it and take a leap of faith, she could only do it with the best of intentions. Her own.
And who knew, maybe on some level, a little altruism in her life might give her a taste of the serenity she’d been hearing so much about. She couldn’t change who she was, but maybe she could make a difference to these children’s lives. On her own terms.
One of Elsie’s favourite platitudes popped into her mind. ‘Sometimes when things are falling apart, they might really be falling into place.’ The first time she’d heard it, she’d dismissed it instantly. This time, it actually made sense.
In for a penny, Julia sat down on a chair beside her mother and looked around at the Sunnyside rehab facility. It had been an impulsive decision to come here during her break and she was embarrassed to admit that this was the only time she’d seen the true delights of the Visitors’ Room. She had managed to make sure that her previous visits had been taken as uncomfortable strolls through the grounds. The heavy wooden armchairs were bolted to the ground in small clusters and even the paintings on the walls were screwed firmly into place. The number pad at the door, not to mention having her handbag frisked, had all added to the surreal sense of her mother being here against her will, when in reality, for the first time that Julia could ever remember, this was actually her mother’s choice.
She reached out and straightened her mother’s cardigan, as close to an affectionate gesture as she could manage right now. It had seemed such a good idea, after talking to Quinn, to get all her tricky conversations handled in one fell swoop, while her confidence and conviction were still burning strong. She hadn’t foreseen the quenching effect of so much beige paint on her momentum.
‘So stop twitching and tell me what you came here to say,’ said Candace bluntly. ‘You certainly didn’t come here to make small talk about the soft furnishings,’ she said, having obviously noticed Julia’s eyes roaming about the depressing room. No matter how many cute kittens on branches were encouraging her to ‘Hang in there’, there was no escaping the sense of the institutional about the place.
Julia was about to protest when a sharp look from her mother stopped her. She may well be an adult now, but some behaviours were programmed from childhood and Julia knew better than to defy that particular expression on her mother’s face. ‘I’ve been offered a job,’ she said. ‘It’s a bit, well, it’s a bit of a change in direction for me, but I think it might be good. A good thing.’ She hated the hesitation that had crept into her voice, no longer sure of how to ‘sell’ the idea.
‘Off to London then, is it?’ Candace said, not looking vaguely surprised.
Julia opened her handbag and pulled out the leaflet that had accompanied the letter from Unicef. She passed it to her mother wordlessly, allowing the images to speak for themselves.
Candace said nothing, as she quietly read the leaflet from cover to cover. Julia waited patiently, quashing every urge to interject.
Candace nodded to herself as she read, before passing the leaflet back to Julia and looking at her properly for the first time since she’d arrived. ‘Well, it’s a slightly longer commute,’ she said, aiming for humour, but the tremor in her voice giving her concerns away. ‘What does your Dan have to say about this?’
Julia twisted her fingers together in her lap to stop herself ripping at the cuticles. ‘He’s not my Dan anymore, so I guess it doesn’t really matter what he thinks.’
Candace sipped at her can of Coke, her craving for sweet things seemingly out of control since she’d stopped drinking. Julia resisted the urge yet again, to talk to her about the vast quantities of Haribo her mother had been mainlining on every visit. One thing at a time. They could deal with the sugar addiction later.
‘So what’s stopping you?’ asked Candace astutely. ‘If you want this job, you should take it. What’s making you hesitate?’
Julia reached out and took her mother’s fragile hand in her own, trying not to be hurt by Candace’s instinctive reaction to pull away. ‘Well, nothing really, except . . . Well, you.’
Her mother’s laughter was so unexpected as to jar in the stultifying atmosphere of this place. Julia pulled her own hand away then, the concept of détente suddenly feeling like a lost cause.
‘Is that really so awful?’ she said coldly. ‘That I might want to spend a little time with my mother? I was quite looking forward to building a relationship with you, now you’re not two-thirds down a bottle of gin by lunchtime!’ Even as the hurtful words spilled out of Julia’s mouth, she knew she was going too far, but was somehow unable to stop.
‘You always were a prickly child,’ her mother said without emotion.
Julia stood up. ‘I can’t imagine why.’ She pulled her handbag over her shoulder and looked down at her mother, seemingly smaller and frailer than she had remembered. The soothing voice of the counsellor at the AA meeting was in her head again, even as her temper rose. Julia hadn’t realised how much of what the woman had said seemed to have really resonated with her. ‘I can’t feel badly enough to change the past,’ Julia muttered to herself as she stalked towards the door, all her earlier serenity and enthusiasm exhausted, ‘but I can have a say in my future.’
She felt a peculiar lightness behind her eyes, rather proud of herself for having come to that conclusion on her own. But as she looked out of the windows at the town of Larkford nestled in the valley below, she realised it was a false pride really – ironically, it was the very security of Larkford that had given her the strength to turn her back on it. Knowing it would always be there for her, had finally given her the confidence to spread her wings.
She stopped dead – was that how some people felt when they left home for the first time? Brave and bold, but cushioned by love and support? It had to be better than the stay-or-go-but-don’t-come-back she’d been issued with, as she packed for university all t
hose years ago and that part of her was anticipating reliving today.
She turned back towards her mother, knowing that if she were heading overseas, this might yet be their last goodbye.
‘Sit down, Joo Bear,’ Candace said gently, an unfamiliar compassion in her voice. ‘You can’t go striding out of the room every time we disagree. And I can’t go sneaking off to the pub. So, you and I? We need to find a different way to communicate.’ She patted the seat beside her. ‘Now, sit your skinny arse down and tell me all about this job.’ Candace’s smile wobbled a little then, showing the effort it was taking to reach out to her daughter. ‘You deserve to be happy, darling – someone in this family should be. Statistically.’
Statistics Julia could handle; it was all these pesky emotions that everyone insisted on having that made her feel so incredibly uncomfortable.
She took a breath, knowing that how she handled the next few moments could dictate the relationship with her mother from here on.
‘I’d love to tell you about it. This is something really special, Mum.’ she said, sitting back down, her conviction making her vulnerable. ‘There’s so much I can bring to this project, you see. And I think it will make me happy. Really happy.’
Chapter 45
‘Ah, I see we’re using the humble legume as contraception again,’ said Taffy, as he unceremoniously plonked two pints of cider on the table and sat down opposite Dan, who was mainlining peanuts from a bowl – its very presence enough for the delectable Lindy Grey to give him a very wide berth. Dan knew he would be easy-pickings tonight, should Lindy decide to turn on the charm. It seemed so much easier to snaffle some extra peanuts instead.
The whole of the pub garden was humming with the gentle laughter and conversation of a warm summer’s evening, but Dan couldn’t concentrate on any of it. He wasn’t entirely sure that he was supposed to be consuming the draft pages of Elsie’s biography with the fervour normally reserved for a teenage boy and a copy of Razzle, but there was something in her story that seemed to be speaking directly to him. The title said it all really – Life’s Too Short – and all the anecdotes were laced with Elsie’s trademark wit and observation. It was as though, with the benefit of hindsight, she could see all life’s motivations and machinations for what they really were. He could understand now why Holly had pressed it into his hands like contraband, making him promise to ‘really, really read it’.
He pushed the well-thumbed manuscript back into his bag and took a long sip of his cider.
‘No Gracie this evening? I thought she said she was coming out for a quick one?’ Taffy asked.
Dan shook his head. ‘Nope. She’s having a spontaneous picnic with Jamie the Wonder-boy down by the river.’ He looked as glum about this development as he sounded.
‘Right,’ said Taffy, a little bemused. ‘Why?’
‘That’s what I said,’ Dan replied. ‘It’s not exactly an obvious pairing, is it now?’
‘And?’ Taffy stole a handful of nuts from Dan’s stash.
‘ “Because he asked,” apparently. She was a bit weird about it, to be honest. Not that he’s not a good guy.’ Dan looked suddenly morose. He knew deep down that actually Jamie was a kind, honest man – the kind of man you would choose for one of your friends. Objectively, he could even acknowledge that Jamie was rather easy on the eye and his love for his work made him the perfect candidate for the attentions of every female in Larkford. The fact that he only seemed to have eyes for Grace (well, and Coco) was annoying and unnerving. It made Dan feel as though he’d missed the boat, even though he had to confess that he had no intention of trying to catch the boat in the first place.
‘Oh Eeyore,’ said Taffy. ‘Did you think she was going to sit around for ever, just in case you decided to make a move?’
‘What?’ Dan spluttered, choking so hard on a peanut that his eyes watered. ‘Don’t talk rubbish. I’ve only just come out of a relationship . . .’
‘Okay,’ said Taffy easily. ‘If you say so. But if I were to play the hypotheticals, then I’d say this.’ He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts, taking longer than was strictly necessary when he saw how fidgety it was making Dan. He waited until Dan was on the verge of launching a peanut volley in his direction and then grinned. ‘Julia’s already moved on. By all accounts, on and on. So maybe you could do with a little carpe diem-ing yourself. And I’d have to be blind not to see the way you’ve been looking at Grace recently.’
Dan sighed. ‘I’m not really up to seizing anything at the moment, not even Grace, sadly. I think Elsie might be more what I need.’
Taffy looked stunned and took a long draught of cider to recover himself. ‘Crikey. Ok-aay. Well, whatever floats your boat, I suppose. I just never had you down as a granny-chaser . . . A chubby-chaser, maybe . . .’ He scrumpled up his face in thought.
Dan couldn’t help himself, the laughter bubbled up in his throat. ‘Not like that, you big perv. I’m not going to hit on a fragile old lady for my jollies! I just meant this . . .’ He pulled the manuscript back out of his bag and thrust it into Taffy’s hands. ‘It makes you think, that’s all.’
He watched as Taffy flicked through the pages, stopping now and again to read a passage that caught his eye. For Dan, Elsie’s prose had forced him to reflect on what it was that he needed from life. Bizarrely, the thought that had sprung immediately to mind wasn’t the happy marriage and 2.4 children he had always imagined it would be. He wanted more.
His place in the world had to have value, he realised – not necessarily just to a special someone, but in his contribution to life in general. He wanted to feel that life in Larkford would be better for his patients because of the contribution that he had made. The Health in the Community Scheme was a good place to start, he thought. But was it enough to really make a difference?
It was becoming a familiar refrain and he wondered when he might actually sit up and take notice.
‘Whatever Elsie has been teaching the girls, I want some too,’ Taffy said eventually, his brow furrowed in concentration. Condensation ran down the sides of his ice-cold cider, creating a small puddle that edged ever closer to the discarded pages he had already skimmed through. ‘Some of this is genius.’
Dan nodded over towards the Major, who was getting Grover to balance crisps on his nose for applause. ‘Our role models aren’t quite so inspiring, are they?’
Taffy looked left and right, like a character in a cheap spy movie, tapping the stack of papers in front of him. ‘Maybe we could get Elsie rigged up with a live radio feed. Have you read all of this? No wonder she always seems to give the most ridiculously on-point advice.’
Dan laughed. ‘We should try it at her swanky party. It would be just perfect. We’ll get her one of those little Mission Impossible earpieces and it could be like Cyrano de Bergerac. She’d like that.’ He gave Taffy a sideways glance, ‘We could have code names. You could be – ooh I don’t know – Meirion maybe?’
Taffy sighed and held up his hands in defeat. ‘So, she told you then? I suppose it really was too much to ask to keep that one under her hat.’
‘What?’ said Dan completely lost.
‘Holly. I trusted Holly with that one.’ He tucked his hands under his legs and frowned. ‘I do wonder if we’ll ever be on the same page.’
‘Well, I don’t know what you’re going on about, but, my little Meirion, that was just my way of saying your mum called earlier. She wants to talk to you about Christmas.’
‘Christmas?’ Taffy said, a full range of emotions scudding across his face. ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, it’s August!’ He sipped at his pint and Dan couldn’t quite decipher the look of relief on his face.
‘Oh my God,’ Dan said. ‘Merry Christmas – oh, are we going to have fun with that one!’
Taffy lobbed a peanut at him in response and they sat in companionable silence for a moment. And then, ‘Storm warning,’ muttered Taffy urgently under his breath, suddenly finding something incredibly fascinating on
his beer mat.
‘Mild turbulence or Full F5?’ Dan queried, deliberately not looking up, their shared love of the film Twister serving them well.
Taffy stood up. ‘Hard to say, but now incoming fast at 3 o’clock. I’ll be at the bar when you need me, okay?’
‘Wish me luck,’ Dan said quietly, as Julia weaved her way towards them through the pub garden with a determined expression on her face.
Taffy punched Dan hard on the shoulder in lieu of formulating the words he seemed unable to say.
‘Me too, mate,’ said Dan quietly, squeezing Taffy’s arm in reply. ‘Me too.’
‘You’re a hard man to find today,’ said Julia as she slipped into the seat opposite him and delicately pushed Taffy’s empty pint glass to one side. ‘And I know you’re probably busy, but I’d love it if we could talk?’
Dan looked up in surprise – there was nothing confrontational in her tone, or even in her expression. On the contrary, she looked almost . . . well, peaceful. ‘Of course,’ he said automatically and then stopped. The rules of engagement had changed and he was no longer sure of his role here: boyfriend, ex, friend, colleague?
To her credit, Julia noted his discomfort and moved to reassure him. ‘I know it’s been uncomfortable since we broke up and I wanted to say how sorry I am. About the things I said, the way I behaved.’
Dan froze, completely blind-sided by this uncharacteristic outpouring.
‘I seem to have been making some really bad choices recently and I know I’ve been hurting the people I care about. So I wanted to apologise. For the stapler, for Quentin, for being such an ungrateful shrew when anyone could see you were only trying to help with Mum.’
Dan tried not to show how utterly stunned he felt, especially at hearing her refer to Candace as ‘Mum’. ‘You don’t need to apologise, Julia. Honestly. We can all see you’ve had an awful lot to deal with,’ he said gently.
