by Fanny Blake
‘And you’ll never believe what she said next…’
How much she enjoyed Wendy’s company and her excitable interest in life. How short-sighted she had been to forego it for so long.
‘You see.’ Wendy nodded when she had listened to what May had to say. ‘You’ll soon make new friends. Come out with us tomorrow, do. We’re going to a Vietnamese restaurant Sam has found near the Boule Saint-Michel.’
‘No, I…’ She stopped. The realisation hit her like a bolt of lightning. Wendy was right to encourage her and she was wrong to refuse every time. Eventually Wendy would stop asking, and who could blame her. Nobody wanted to hang out with a misery. If anything would get her through this dreadful time, it would be her friends. She couldn’t mope for ever and life had to go on. Even if she were battered by her experience, her eyes had been opened. Nobody else need know what she had gone through. She would pick herself up and try harder. She was lucky to have a friend who cared. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I’d like that.’
22
Lancashire, 2019
It was late in the afternoon when Isla pulled into the service station on the M61. Charlie unplugged herself from her phone and looked about her as if she’d just woken up to the world.
‘Where are we?’
‘We’ve just passed Bolton, so we’ve still got a way to go.’
‘So why’ve you stopped?’ Charlie held back a yawn, her teeth chattering.
‘Jock needs a pee, and I need to stretch my legs.’ Isla opened the car door, her knees stiff as she swung her legs out, a slight ache in her lower back. When had her body started objecting so vigorously to her treatment of it? She dreaded returning to the tyranny of the pilates class schedule even though she and Jock walked round Parker’s Piece every day, rain or shine.
A steady hum and whoosh of traffic came from the motorway.
She let Jock out of the back, grabbing his collar as he jumped past her with a groan, and clipping on his lead. She stretched her arms to the sky, then bent side to side with Charlie watching her from inside the car.
‘Coming?’ Isla raised her voice and pointed towards an expanse of grass. Charlie shook her head and plugged in one then the other earbud, nodding her head to a beat.
‘That’s fine by me,’ Isla said out loud. ‘Come on, boy. We’ll do once round the field.’
Once they got there, she let him off the lead so he could sniff out a good spot. Without Charlie there to overhear, Isla got out her phone. She needed to warn Lorna that Charlie was coming with her. She was not a woman who liked surprises. And yet it was Isla who was surprised by the equanimity with which Lorna greeted the news.
‘It’ll be fun to see her. It’s been ages.’ She was in danger of sounding friendly but she altered her tone just in time. ‘I gather you’ve been asking Aggie about Mum and Dad.’
‘She told you?’
‘I was round the other day, helping her clear up more of Mum’s stuff.’
And what else? Isla wondered, but this wasn’t the best moment to bring up the sale of the house. They’d only argue. No. For once she would be more diplomatic.
‘Yes. I’m trying to find out the story behind the picture she left me. I’ll explain when I see you. Did you find anything unexpected?’
‘Only Dad’s old passports, stuffed in the bottom drawer of the desk. I don’t remember them travelling at all but the earliest one showed he’d been to France.’
‘Really?’ Isla’s heartbeat quickened. This was too much of a coincidence.
‘Yes, he was there in 1953. Aggie took them before I could look at anything else.’
The year before May had sent those postcards home.
‘Jock!’ Isla yelled, suddenly aware he was about to go under the fence next to the road. ‘I’ll have to go. He’s about to get killed. More when I see you.’ She cut her sister off and ran over to grab Jock’s collar just before he escaped and ran in front of a lorry. What had she been thinking of?
By the time she got back to Betty, Isla felt much better and full of new resolves. From now on she wouldn’t object to Charlie constantly charging her phone so she could listen to her music, while Isla’s battery was left at six per cent. Nor would she complain about the unidentifiable snatches of song that Charlie sang, forgetting she wasn’t alone. She wouldn’t complain again about the endless ping of notifications. And she would resist the temptation to reach out to still Charlie’s hands that rapped out the beat of whatever she was listening to. No, she would listen to Radio 2, 3 or 4 on her own and keep driving. They could try talking another time. She was going to channel every ounce of zen calm she possessed. Travelling with Charlie reminded of her own teen car journeys with her parents when her mother refused to let them listen to Radio 1 as she and her sisters sat crushed on the back seat on the way to the Scottish borders. Denied the option, they would nudge and pinch each other until a fight broke out, and their mother rounded on them over whatever classical piece she was listening to, yelling at them to Be Quiet and Sit Still.
Isla turned the key in the ignition but the only response was a click: not a sound from the engine. Nor on the second and third attempts. She banged the heel of her hand on the steering wheel. ‘Damn! Betty, you can’t do this to me.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘No idea. Not my strong point.’ How could Betty let her down now, in an anonymous motorway car park, miles from their cheap hotel in Preston? Outside her house was one thing, but here… With her elbows on the wheel, she put her head in her hands.
‘You’re not crying?’ Charlie’s concern was muddled with mild alarm.
Isla looked up. ‘Of course I’m not. I’m wondering what the hell to do.’
‘Gran!’
‘That’s hardly swearing,’ she sat up. ‘And if it is, you ain’t heard nothing yet. I’ll try the petrol station and see if someone can help. You stay with Jock.’
It was no surprise to discover there were no mechanics on hand. Walking back, she noticed the motel was ‘closed for refurbishment’. Her heart sank.
When she got back to the car park, Charlie was not in the car and Betty’s bonnet was up. Charlie! She ran the last little bit only to find her granddaughter peering over a strange man’s shoulder into the engine.
‘Charlie?’
‘What? He was standing by the car so I asked if he could help.’
The man straightened up, wiping his hands together. He was in his thirties, at a guess, with a broad smile that tipped into a grimace as he shook his head. ‘I can’t help, I’m afraid. I think it might be your starter motor.’
‘I don’t even know what that means.’
‘The garage, I guess.’ He shrugged, his shoulders muscular.
Oh God, they were stranded. They should have left earlier.
‘Is there one nearby?’
‘I’m not from round here.’ He tucked his shirt into the back of his dark blue shorts. ‘But the petrol station should know.’
‘Or we can google,’ added Charlie, holding out her phone, confident. With Isla’s backing and occasional interference, she took command of the situation and a taxi soon turned up to take them from the car park to the Dragon and Maid, a pleasant-looking mock-Tudor pub in the nearest village.
When the manager heard their predicament he called the owner of the local garage, ‘an old mate’, who agreed to collect the car key and then pick up Betty first thing in the morning as a special favour and of course at a special price. On top of that, Isla would have to pay whatever additional parking charges would be levied overnight.
‘We’re busy tonight,’ he said. ‘Them refurbishing the motel has done us a good turn.’ Eventually he handed Isla a key and the WiFi code and issued instructions that took them up the stairs, along a crooked corridor to a door at the end, which Isla unlocked. Inside was a double bed, a chest of drawers on which perched a TV and its controls, and a chair and side table.
They looked at each other.
‘There’s only one be
d.’ Charlie dumped her backpack on it, then threw herself beside it.
‘I’ll go and say we need another room.’ No way was Isla sharing a bed with Charlie. She dumped Jock’s bed that she’d lugged from the car in a corner.
‘It’s this or nothing,’ Isla announced on her return. ‘We’re going to have to make the most of it.’ She did her best not to sound as doomed as she felt.
There were scuff marks on the pale grey walls, and the green furnishings had seen better days but at least the place seemed clean. An uncomfy looking chair by the window overlooked the busy pub garden. Isla opened the window to let out the musty beery smell, only to be knocked back by the smell of roasting meat on the barbecue right underneath them. All the tables in the garden were occupied, glasses clinking and cigarette smoke in the wind, and screaming kids tore around the play area.
Charlie propped herself up on one elbow, challenging her. ‘Now what?’
‘Good question. We don’t want to eat for another couple of hours – do we? – and I didn’t see anywhere to go in the village. It’s just the one main street. We could go for a walk or read?’
Charlie was filming Jock as he circled round on his bed before lying down. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’ They weren’t going anywhere, had no one to dress up for. ‘We’ve got to do something. Got any suggestions?’ Isla could think of nothing she would like more than to lie on her bed and read. Quietly. On her own. A waft of spit-roast pork drifted into the room. ‘What are you doing?’
‘TikTok.’ As if that explained everything. Again.
‘Let me see.’
Reluctantly Charlie sat up, making room for Isla, holding the phone so they could both see a girl dancing. That gave way to two girls lying on their backs juggling footballs in time to the music. And then, someone failing to get their dog to dance with them. All accompanied by tinny electronic music. Er, why? They all seemed utterly pointless to her. ‘I think it’s a young person’s thing.’
‘Mmm.’ Charlie didn’t care.
Silence fell as Isla made two cups of tea, put one on Charlie’s bedside table and took the other to hers. Just as she had opened her book, Charlie put down her phone. ‘I could do your make-up. I could make you look really nice. I sometimes do Mum’s and she’s stolen loads of my ideas.’
‘Really?’ But the quiet longing she heard made Isla take notice.
‘We could do each other’s.’ But Charlie was giving up now, expecting rejection.
‘Okay.’ Isla took up the challenge. ‘Show me what you can do.’ Her book could wait.
‘Do you mean it?’
‘Yes! Go for it.’ She had make-up remover. What had she to lose?
Sitting in the chair, Isla waited while Charlie emptied a ridiculously oversized make-up bag onto the bed and sorted out the bits she was going to use. ‘I need to like pin back your hair but I can’t find my grips.’ She rummaged through her kit.
‘Shower cap?’ Isla went into the wet room where there was a basket of shower gel and shampoo that included one. She opened the box and put it on before sitting back down, feeling naked and vulnerable, in front of Charlie’s considered half-smile.
‘Primer first.’ She picked up a tube and squirted some onto the back of her hand.
‘You won’t overdo it, will you? I usually go straight for the foundation.’ Although she was pleased to see Charlie so absorbed.
‘Gran! Let me do it my way.’ She started patting the primer onto Isla’s face. ‘If you don’t like it, you can wipe it off after.’
‘Okay, I give in.’ There was no point in talking about what she had learned about make-up when she did that brief stint of modelling to pay her way. How May had hated her doing that. When Isla thought her mother would be proud of her resourcefulness in earning her own money, she had been furious.
‘Parading yourself about like that. You can do better for yourself than that.’ Her dislike of this development in Isla’s life whipped down the phone line. ‘Why can’t you be like Morag and have a proper career?’ How proud she had been of Morag and her vocation. By the time it came to Lorna, secretarial work and a decent marriage was good enough. As Isla remembered that conversation, she also remembered how May had subsequently dialled down her affection again from lukewarm to cool after that. They never recovered. But why not?
‘Where’s your make-up? I might be able to use some of it.’
Isla jumped back to the present and extricated her embarrassingly grubby make-up bag and tipped its contents onto the bed.
‘That’s it?’
‘I don’t need much.’ Isla defended her minimal regime.
‘I’ll use this.’ Charlie picked the fancy foundation that cost an eye-watering sum, bought on a whim after reading an article in one of the Sunday supplements. ‘I saw Kylie Jenner using it. The vlogger,’ she added quickly, certain the explanation would be needed. ‘One of the Kardashians.’
‘I know,’ said Isla. ‘I’m not in the Dark Ages. I know what’s going on.’
There was a snort from behind her head. ‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah, actually.’ Isla relaxed and let Charlie do her thing.
‘I’m going to mix these two foundations together.’
‘Two? Really?’
‘Gran!’ That came with a warning note. ‘But you could look after your skin better. Don’t you have any moisturiser apart from this?’ She discarded Isla’s tub of Nivea onto the bed.
‘It’s always worked for me.’
‘Mmm. Since those Dark Ages!’ Charlie laughed. ‘Now for some concealer.’
There was a stippling sensation under Isla’s eyes and she caught the smell of chocolate on Charlie’s breath. What Isla had thought would take ten minutes turned into more than half an hour of explanation and preparation and reapplication as her brows were pencilled and gelled, her eyelids subjected to a range of browns and terracottas. Having someone else’s fingers moving over her face – smoothing, patting, tapping – was pleasantly soothing. She shut her eyes and let her get on with it, listening to the explanations with half an ear.
At one point, she opened her eyes to see Charlie coming at her with a tiny medieval instrument of torture.
‘Eyelash curlers. They make the difference.’ She snapped them together.
Isla pulled back her head to avoid them but they were clamped close to her right eyelid anyway. ‘Ow!’ Then the left.
Charlie stood back and studied her work so far.
‘Can I see?’ Isla interrupted the humming. ‘Is there a mirror?’
‘Not yet. Let me finish first.’ She picked up a brush and powder. ‘Contouring.’
Isla shut her eyes, feeling one brush after another buffing over her cheeks, the stroke of mascara, a pencil drawing the outline of her lips, and finally the gloss of lipstick.
Charlie pulled off the shower cap and fluffed up Isla’s hair with her fingers. ‘Cool.’ She sounded pleased. ‘Go and look.’
‘Okay, I’m ready.’ Deep breath. In the mirror over the basin, someone who was her, and yet wasn’t, stared back. ‘Charlie! This is amazing. I’ve never looked better.’ Instead of the caterpillar brows, glowing cheekbones and exaggerated lips she had dreaded was a subtle enhancing of her features, that made her look younger, less tired. She was entranced, captivated by her granddaughter’s sensitivity. ‘Where did you learn to do this?’
Charlie shrugged, looking down at the floor. ‘Online. You can learn like everything there.’
‘Well, you’re bloody good at it.’
‘Your turn, then.’ She waited for Isla to get out of the seat.
Isla had forgotten that part of the deal. ‘Are you sure? I won’t be anything like as good as this.’
But Charlie was already in the chair, shower cap on. ‘You can try. Make sure you get rid of my freckles.’
‘Let me do it my way.’ Isla repeated Charlie’s words while she stared at the bewildering array of cosmetics in front of her, wondering where to start. ‘If you
don’t like it, you can always take it off.’
They grinned at each other.
Isla quickly realised her own way of doing things wasn’t going to be enough so began poking through Charlie’s kit.
‘Come on,’ said her granddaughter, concentrating on the photos scrolling down her screen. ‘Look at this.’ She stopped at a photo of a girl about her age – but who knew? ‘See. It’s all about the eyes and lips.’
‘Give me a chance,’ said Isla, settling on the primer Charlie had used on her. Seemed like the right place to start. ‘What are you doing now?’ she asked, as Charlie took another selfie.
‘Streaks.’ As if that explained everything. Charlie stopped as Isla began to apply the primer.
‘Which are?’ Isla’s attention was focused on several foundations, wondering which to plump for. However, she looked up in time to see Charlie’s eyes do that familiar roll towards the ceiling.
‘You post a photo every day to a friend and they have to post one back…’ She stopped speaking as her thumbs moved over the screen, ‘… for as long as you can.’
‘And if you stop?’
‘You might lose a friend.’
‘That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?’ What a mystifyingly daft waste of time.
Charlie shrugged. ‘Look.’ She held out her phone. ‘See that number – fifty-two? That’s how many days Tilly and I have been going.’ She spoke with such a sense of achievement.
As a teenager, Isla remembered she’d been equally obsessed but with her collections. She’d given up the childhood pressed flowers and birds’ eggs for her precious egg cups and snow globes and Wade Whimsies, those little porcelain animals. Ordering and adding to her collections gave her another way of passing those tedious hours of being a teenager when you’re too old to stay in and too young to go out.
Charlie had the same pale skin as Helen, with an identical light scatter of freckles over the bridge of her nose. With some judicious highlighting, Isla could make it look narrower. ‘Look up if you want me to do this.’