He flung his arms in the air and, exasperated, turned around to walk back up the lane.
Had she asked me if I was staying? Had I told her I was? I know I definitely didn’t tell her I would be staying in a hotel, but could she have assumed that was what I meant? I couldn’t think straight anymore.
Adam was still walking away, and I rolled fast-forward in my mind to see him crashing back into Pammie’s house with little me trailing behind him twenty seconds later. I couldn’t let that happen.
I cried then, real tears of frustration. God, listen to me. What was I doing? Making a defenceless old woman out to be some kind of maternal monster. It was crazy. I was crazy.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and he stopped, turned around and walked back towards where I stood, a snivelling mess in the middle of the road.
‘What’s wrong, Em?’ He put his arms around me, pulling me towards him. I could feel the warmth of his breath on the top of my head as my chest heaved up and down.
‘It’s fine. I’m fine,’ I said half-heartedly. ‘I don’t know where that came from.’
‘You worried about going back to work?’ he asked gently.
I nodded. ‘Yeah, I think the stress must be getting to me,’ I lied.
I wanted to tell him what had really upset me. I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us, but what was I supposed to say? ‘I think there’s a chance your mother could be a vindictive witch?’ It sounded ridiculous, and what proof did I have to back the theory up? Her selective memory and a penchant for over-feeding people? No, any opinion I had on his mother, that she was deranged or otherwise, would have to remain unsaid for the time being.
8
I’d intended to stay out of Pammie’s way for a while, just to give me time to calm down and re-evaluate her odd behaviour. After all, I was sure that was all it was, just a mother looking out for her son. If I stayed on that line of thought, I could begin to understand it. But three weeks after Christmas, two days before my birthday, she called Adam to ask if she could take us both out to celebrate.
I tried everything to get out of it, but I was beginning to run out of excuses. ‘I’ve got to arrange something with Pippa and Seb,’ I told Adam. ‘And the office said they wanted to take me out.’
‘You can go out with them anytime,’ Adam said sternly. ‘Mum wants to treat us.’
‘Treating us’ meant going to a restaurant of her choice, in her home town – Sevenoaks. So even though it was my birthday, we were still having to do things on her terms.
‘Oh, Emily, it’s so lovely to see you,’ she gushed as she reached the table where we’d been waiting for her for over twenty minutes. Her eyes travelled up and down, as if sizing me up. ‘You look . . . well.’
She was sweetness and light whilst we ate our starter, and I was beginning to relax, but then she asked what Adam had got me for my birthday. I looked across the table at him, and he nodded, as if giving me permission to tell her.
‘Well, he’s taking me to Scotland,’ I said excitedly. I watched her face flicker between confusion and displeasure. Her mouth formed an ‘O’, but no sound came out.
‘I’ve not been up there for years,’ said Adam.
‘And I’ve never been,’ I said, chipping in.
‘W-well . . . when will you be going?’ she stuttered.
‘Tomorrow!’ we both exclaimed.
She looked like somebody had pushed her, as she slumped back into the chair, the air sucked out of her.
‘Are you all right, Mum?’ Adam asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
Pammie shook herself, and it took her a few seconds to find her voice. ‘So, where will you stay?’ she asked eventually.
‘I’ve booked a really nice hotel for a couple of nights,’ said Adam. ‘Auntie Linda said we could stay with her, but I didn’t want to impose.’
I felt ridiculously triumphant. ‘Auntie Linda said we could stay with her,’ I repeated in a sing-song voice in my head. ‘So there.’ I lambasted myself for being so immature.
‘Oh, well, I’m shocked,’ she said. ‘I had no idea.’
I wondered why she thought she should.
‘Linda said she’ll have us up for lunch,’ said Adam. ‘She’ll get Fraser and Ewan over. I’d like Emily to meet them all.’
‘Goodness, this is a surprise,’ said Pammie, patting Adam’s hand. ‘Well, that’s lovely, just lovely.’
The conversation was stilted whilst we waited for our main course. I greeted my seabass like an old friend, thankful to have something to focus my attention on. When Adam excused himself to go to the toilet, I wanted to run in there with him.
‘So, things are moving along pretty quickly, then?’ said Pammie, without waiting for the gents’ door to close.
‘Mmm,’ I smiled tightly.
‘How long have you been together now?’ she asked, pursing her lips to take a sip of her white wine spritzer.
‘Four months.’
‘Goodness, that’s no time at all,’ she said, a fixed grin on her face.
‘It’s not always about time, though, is it?’ I questioned, careful to keep my voice light. ‘It’s about how you feel.’
‘Indeed, it is,’ she said, nodding slowly. ‘And you feel that Adam is the one?’
‘I hope so.’ I didn’t want to give her any more than necessary.
‘And you think he feels the same?’ she asked, with a withering look on her face, as if she was dealing with a naive child.
‘I would hope so. We’re practically living together, so yeah . . .’ I deliberately left it hanging, as if I was almost willing her to say something else, yet knowing that I wouldn’t want to hear it.
‘You’d be wise to back off a bit,’ she said. ‘He likes his own space, and if you crowd him, you’ll have him running for the hills.’
‘Has he said something?’ I couldn’t help myself. Her mouth had spread into a smug grin, and I instantly wished I could tie a knot in my tongue.
‘Just this and that,’ she said dismissively, knowing full well I wouldn’t be able to leave it there.
‘Like what?’ I asked. ‘This and that what?’
‘Oh, you know, the usual. How he feels hemmed in. How he has to answer to you every time he wants to step outside the front door.’
A rush of heat spread across my chest. Was that how I made him feel? Don’t be ridiculous, I remonstrated with myself. We’re an equal partnership. That’s not who we are. What we’re about. But then I caught sight, in my mind’s eye, of me having a go at him for coming in late last Thursday. And on Sunday, I’d asked how long he’d be at the gym for. Was I that person? Was he tired of being questioned, to the point he’d tell his mother?
I looked at her as my brain frantically whirred away and wondered, not for the first time, whether she knew what she was doing. Or had I got it all wrong? Again?
Sensing Adam walking back towards us, she grinned and put her hand over mine.
‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,’ she said cheerily, her voice saccharin sweet, like butter wouldn’t melt.
‘So, is she just some batty old woman who’s lonely and bored?’ asked Pippa, when Adam dropped me back after the meal. He’d wanted me to stay at his, but Pammie had left me mentally exhausted and I wanted to go home.
I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders.
‘Or is it more spiteful than that?’ Pippa went on in her most sinister voice. ‘Is she playing some kind of game here?’
‘I really don’t know,’ I offered honestly. ‘Sometimes, I think it’s just silly pettiness, but then something gnaws away at me, chipping and chipping until I’m convinced she’s a bitter, jealous psychopath.’
‘Whoa, wait up a minute, let’s calm down a bit here,’ Pippa said, hands aloft. ‘She’s sixty-three, isn’t she?’
‘Yeah, so?’
‘So, I can’t think of too many psychotic sexagenarians, that’s all.’
I had to laugh. The whole thing sounded ridiculous when it was said aloud, and I made a mental note to remind myself of that the next time I let it get to me.
9