by Karen Clarke
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I woke to a wraithlike figure at the end of my bed and screamed.
‘Cassie, for heaven’s sake, it’s only me.’
Moving closer, Mum placed a mug of coffee on my bedside table.
‘I thought you were a ghost,’ I said, peering at her white waffle bathrobe. ‘Why are you creeping about?’
‘I’m not, I was just checking you were OK.’
As soon as she’d said it, I realised I wasn’t. Apart from my heart palpitating with fright, my tongue was sticky and my head felt like it had been crushed into a cube.
‘Your hair looks like purple silk fanned out on the pillow,’ Mum said, fancifully.
I scrunched one eye shut and looked at her with the other. ‘It’s not purple, it’s Plumberry.’
‘Do you remember last night?’ she said.
‘Of course I do.’ Memories rolled in. ‘The comedy night…’ Too much wine. Crying in the garden. Snogging Danny Fleetwood. I dragged the duvet over my face. How could I have done that? Especially when I was supposed to have been tearing a strip off him for interfering in my life.
Helping he’d called it, when I’d finally peeled my lips away from his. He hadn’t resisted one little bit. In fact, he’d joined in after the initial shock, and it had felt like there was a Catherine wheel twirling in my stomach. ‘I was helping, that’s all,’ he said, when I’d shoved him away and gone back to being cross. ‘The idea of a comedy night was yours; you made the booking. I hardly did anything.’
I’d flounced away in disgust, tripped over someone’s bag and gone flying, and the next thing I remembered was Mum and Dad hustling me into the car, and Rob threatening to push me out if I was sick.
‘I didn’t thank Andy, or even say good night,’ I wailed now, from my cocoon.
‘I’m sure he won’t mind, after the reception he got,’ Mum said. ‘You can always email him, can’t you?’
I peeped out, to see Mum looming over me.
‘Please, open the curtains,’ I begged. ‘It’s too green in here.’
She did, but the light was like daggers in my eyes, so I covered my face again.
‘I’m going to make some breakfast.’ I sensed Mum’s stare through the duvet, but didn’t budge. ‘It’ll be ready in ten minutes,’ she said, rather tersely. ‘You need to line your stomach, Cassie.’
I heard her slippered feet leave the room, and the door clicked softly closed.
Shoving the bedding off, I dangled an arm to the floor and felt for my bag.
It was on the chair, which meant I had to get out of bed.
Everything swung and tipped, so I crawled across the floor and took out my phone, hoping Adam hadn’t tried to call already. Unlikely as it was only 7.30 a.m. I whimpered, wishing Mum hadn’t woken me so early, hovering about like a spirit.
About to crawl back to bed, I noticed a couple of texts:
Sorry to rush off like that. Job done now. If you fancy coming over for a nightcap, I’m in room 73 A x
He’d sent it at ten o’clock. Right about the time I’d locked lips with Danny bloody Fleetwood. I rocked back against the dressing table and closed my eyes. What the hell was wrong with me? Had I really been so desperate for a snog that I couldn’t wait until I saw Adam again? Had it been the press of Adam’s lips in the first place that had fired me up? Ugh. What a revolting thought. It was the stress of the comedy night, and drinking on an empty stomach, that was all.
He’d sent another text at midnight:
Guess you’ve been busy! I’ll call you AM X
At first, I thought he’d got his initials wrong, then realised he meant in the morning.
Suppressing an urge to cry, I plugged my phone in to charge and sniffed the air. A delicious smell of frying bacon was drifting under the door, sending a flood of saliva to my mouth. I was officially starving.
‘You look pale,’ Dad observed as I entered the kitchen and dropped down at the table.
‘She’s doing too much, that’s why.’ Mum threw two rashers of crispy bacon onto a plate, slapped on a heap of mushrooms and crashed the plate in front of me. Her lips were pressed together and her eyes were too bright. Or maybe it was the effect of her dazzling white bathrobe.
‘You look like you’re at a spa,’ I said, falling on the food as if I hadn’t eaten for a month. It wasn’t until I’d nearly cleared the plate that I realised neither parent had spoken since Mum’s outburst. Which, now I thought about it, was so out of character, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t reacted immediately.
‘Are you OK?’ I pushed my plate aside, feeling slightly restored. Mum was washing up nosily, crashing plates into the drainer, while Dad – in his work trousers and shirt – leaned against the worktop, staring into his mug as though there was something more than coffee inside. I suddenly noticed his hair was receding more quickly than I’d realised (‘It’s not that my hair’s receding, just that my head’s getting bigger,’ Andy Farrington had joked), and the sight of it made me sad. ‘I’m sorry if I showed you up, last night.’ I wondered whether that was the root of Mum’s apparent annoyance. My behaviour hardly reflected the brilliant daughter she loved to boast about. ‘I shouldn’t have kissed Danny Fleetwood, I don’t what came over me,’ I said, when neither of them responded. ‘I think I was high on the success of the evening.’ I attempted a little laugh that sounded fake.
‘High?’ Mum’s head whipped round, curls flying sideways. ‘You looked to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown!’
‘What?’ I stared as two red patches bloomed across her cheeks.
‘Lydia,’ Dad warned, putting his mug too close to the edge of the worktop. It teetered before dropping to the floor where it smashed into three large pieces.
‘Now look what you’ve done.’ Doubling over, her bathrobe gaping to reveal two slices of bosom, Mum snatched up the segments and hurled them into the bin. ‘Things are turning to crap around here and I’ve just about had ENOUGH!’
The last word was evicted so violently, Dad and I jumped as though she’d fired a gun. ‘Lydia,’ he tried again, a hand outstretched as though calming a volatile dog.
‘Don’t Lydia me,’ she growled. Literally growled. She looked feral, fingers clawing the air, as though she longed to drag her nails down his face. ‘And you!’ She spun round, eyes flashing like lasers. ‘You need to sort yourself out.’
‘Mum!’ I cowered, but the part of me that wasn’t scared was rather impressed. I’d never seen her properly lose her temper, and the sight was riveting. She seemed to have swelled in size, like Jigglypuff from the Pokémon series. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about… about everything.’ Flinging her arms wide she tipped her head back, as if trying to encompass the world. ‘Nothing feels RIGHT any more.’
‘Lydia, come and sit down.’ Firmer now, Dad took her elbow and she visibly deflated and let him steer her to a chair, where she plopped down and burst into tears.
‘I knew something was up,’ I said, scooting round to sit beside her, while Dad stood like a centurion, one hand on her shoulder. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Oh, I’m just bloody fed up.’ She threw off the arm I’d placed round her and clamped her head between her hands. ‘I’m sick of working all hours at the bloody café, I miss you and Rob like crazy when you’re not here, and I think you might be messing up your lives and I don’t know what to do.’
Her words exploded in my head like a stick of dynamite. I flicked a look at Dad, who was staring at the table, lips pursed, and I knew this must have been the core of the conversation at the café I’d partly overheard. They weren’t ill, they were worried sick. About Rob and me. And Mum was fed up with working at the café. That was almost more shocking than anything else. The café was their lifeblood – or so I’d thought.
‘Do you feel the same way?’ I said to Dad. My voice sounded hoarse, as though I’d been the one shouting.
‘Not all the time, love, no, of course not,’ he
said, meeting my eyes at last with a pained expression. ‘It would be nice to have a break from it for a while though.’
‘But when I said about getting a manager in, you weren’t interested.’
‘We thought it would look bad if we handed over the café to a complete stranger and swanned off somewhere for six months.’
Six months sounded oddly precise. They’d obviously discussed it; taking a sabbatical, which they totally deserved.
‘Bad to whom?’
‘You and your brother,’ Mum said, as though it was glaringly obvious. ‘We’re supposed to set a good example, not give up as soon as things get a bit much.’
‘But you have set a good example.’ My mind was spinning. ‘So, it’s all been a front, you pretending to love your job, so Rob and I wouldn’t think you were massive failures?’
‘We do love the café.’ Releasing Mum’s shoulder, Dad shuffled round the table and sat opposite. His posture was one of defeat – as though he’d confessed to a murder he thought they’d got away with for years. ‘But it’s got so much busier lately, since the makeover, which is great, but it’s bloody hard work.’
They were swearing a lot for people who didn’t usually swear.
‘It’s a pain in the bloody beehive,’ Mum said, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. ‘I think I liked it better before. And now it’s going to be even busier, thanks to your… events.’
I reeled back in shock. ‘Why didn’t you say, if you didn’t want my help?’
‘Because,’ Dad said, holding up a hand, presumably sensing another eruption from Mum. ‘Our roles are to support you and Rob, whatever you want to do. We could see how much you wanted to help us, and it’s been wonderful seeing you in action.’
‘But you didn’t really need my help,’ I said in a mechanical voice.
Mum dried her face on the sleeve of her bathrobe. ‘It’s not that,’ she said with a sniff. ‘It’s just that it’s reminded us how hard you work all the time, how you can never just… be.’
I stared. ‘Where’s all this coming from?’
‘Oh, it’s just that sometimes, I wish you didn’t live so far away,’ she said on a sob. ‘I wish we saw more of you, or you came to stay more often, and we could go shopping together like Meg does with her mum. I know it’s not very exciting here for you, but we bloody well miss you.’ Her voice was muffled by the back of her hand. ‘If you must know, we’re glad Rob’s back. I know it sounds selfish, but there it is.’
‘Oh, Mum…’ I tried desperately to sift through this startling new information. I’d never for one moment guessed they’d worried about Rob and me, or that they’d missed us so badly. I remembered what Sid Turner had said. I don’t know how your parents coped with the pair of you off goodness knows where from such a young age. ‘But you seemed so keen to get rid of us,’ I said, amending my words when they started to protest. ‘OK, not get rid of us, but you acted as though us leaving was the right thing to do, and you were happy to be left to your own devices, because you had the café. And each other.’
‘We wanted you to have the opportunities we didn’t,’ Mum said, sniffing.
‘And now you begrudge us taking them?’
‘No, god, no.’ Dad’s hands stretched across the table. He looked grey, with crescents under his eyes. ‘We were delighted when your careers took off, we couldn’t have been happier for you and your brother. If you were happy, it meant we’d done our job, but, yes, we missed you both terribly, especially when Rob started touring and you got so busy you never had time to come home. But we could see how much you loved your jobs.’
Guilt twisted my insides. I recalled how I’d thrived on their pride; enjoyed them boasting about me – their brilliant, clever daughter – it had made me push harder to do better. Maybe I’d liked who I was in their eyes just a smidge too much. Being so busy all the time – too busy to visit – meant I really was the career-driven high-flyer with the exciting lifestyle, who they bragged about back home.
‘And the point of this is?’ I said, because there had to be one. Something had been building, maybe even before Rob and I had returned.
‘The point is, I suppose we’re tired of putting on a front now that it’s obvious things aren’t going right for either of you, or for us. Or for Sylvia, come to that.’
‘Nan?’ I looked at Dad.
‘We don’t want her getting rid of all her things and killing chickens, or weeing in her garden, and refusing to come for Sunday lunch because our beef might not be organic.’
‘She’s trying not to be a burden,’ I said.
‘Not that again.’ Dad gave a heavy sigh. ‘She’s not a burden.’
I could see a pattern emerging. ‘Then you’d better tell her,’ I said. ‘How are any of us supposed to know how you feel if you don’t ever say it?’ That’s a laugh, coming from you, piped a voice in my head. ‘I reckon Nan’s been waiting for ages to know what you really think of her latest fad. That’s why it’s gone so far. She’s pushing the boundaries.’ There, I’d finally said what had been lurking at the back of my mind since I’d seen her packing her life away. ‘We need to feel our loved ones give a shit about what we’re doing. Pardon my French,’ I added, when Dad automatically lowered his brow, aware of my rampant hypocrisy, considering I hadn’t known what the hell was going on at home. How much of a shit had I given about what they were doing? ‘It doesn’t mean you’re being controlling or putting us under pressure to say that you don’t always agree with our choices.’
‘So, you think we don’t give a shit?’ Mum went screechy again. ‘We give a massive amount of shit.’ She banged her fist on the table, and Dad and I jolted upright like startled meerkats. ‘That’s why we’re in this state, from giving too much of a shit, but not telling you about it. And now you’re in a mess, judging by the state of your wrists, and I’ve no idea what’s going on with Rob. He’s been acting so weird I think he might be on drugs.’
‘Who’s on drugs?’ Rob entered the kitchen in tartan pyjama shorts and a baggy T-shirt and headed straight for the Cheerios, seeming oblivious to the tension swilling about. I’d forgotten he was even in the house, and couldn’t believe that he’d slept through Mum’s shouting and Dad’s mug smashing on the floor. ‘What have you been up to, Sandra?’
‘It’s not my fault,’ I said. Or was it? I’d clearly had a role to play, because I hadn’t been behaving like part of this family for ages. I’d been too busy living up to their supposed expectations, scared to admit I’d cocked up and wasn’t the success story they believed I was. ‘Mum and Dad are fed up with the café, they think I’m having a breakdown, they don’t want Nan killing chickens, and they think you’re a drug addict.’
‘Oh, is that all?’ Abandoning the cereal, he turned to look at us properly; Mum, supporting her head as though it might fall off, Dad slumped over the table studying his hands, and me, bolt upright, fingernails raking my wrist.
His look said this is weird.
He came over and crouched next to Mum. ‘I thought we’d already talked about me switching jobs, and making a go of things with Emma, and you were fine with it. You seemed really glad that I was back.’
‘We think you might be slipping off the rails,’ Mum said tearily, letting him take her hands in both of his. ‘We were so upset when you told us you’d been drinking too much, because we weren’t there for you.’
He looked at me, but all I could offer was a helpless shrug. ‘Like I said, Mum, I didn’t want to let you down.’ He jumped at her wail of protest. ‘It’s not your fault, I’m a grown-up,’ he said earnestly. ‘I just wasn’t coping, that’s all.’
‘But you should have felt you could talk to us, or your sister, and you didn’t.’
He glanced at me, and I looked away from his open gaze, hot-cheeked.
‘But now I have talked to you.’ He tried to get Mum to face him properly. ‘We can’t change the past, so let’s not go on about it. And anyway, I’m fine now. Brilliant, in fact.’ He bounced
her hands up and down. ‘I didn’t have any alcohol at the pub last night, did I?’
‘But your eyes always look funny, as if you’re on something.’
‘And you’ve been smiling too much.’ Dad sounded certain he was on to something, his fingertip prodding the table. ‘No one smiles that much unless they’re hiding something.’
‘I don’t think that’s true,’ I said. ‘I’ve been beaming as well and so have you, but…’ I trailed off, remembering we’d all been hiding quite a lot, but they didn’t notice.
‘Are you really doing a teaching course, Rob?’ Mum’s eyes explored his with unusual intensity, and he blinked a couple of times, but held her gaze and nodded.
‘And I can’t be a drug addict, Mum,’ he said, with a grin. ‘Not when I’m going to be a dad in six months’ time.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The effect of Rob’s words was transformative. Mum had him hooked in a bear hug before he could move, almost snapping his neck, while Dad leapt up and switched on the kettle, his smile so wide it almost swallowed his ears.
‘Why didn’t you say?’ Mum kept repeating, rocking Rob from side to side, until he managed to wriggle free, adjust his glasses, and explain why he’d kept it a secret.
‘We’re going to be grandparents!’ Mum practically leapt into Dad’s arms and they jigged around the kitchen like teenagers. Rob caught my eye and smiled sentimentally. I grinned back, a golf-ball-sized lump in my throat.
‘Congratulations, son,’ Dad said, slapping Rob’s shoulder, the rims of his eyes suspiciously pink. ‘You’ll be a brilliant father, and I’m sure that Emma will be a wonderful mother.’
‘She’ll be able to channel her bossiness into our child,’ he said, slipping Mum and me a look that said he’d always known our secret nickname for her.
