Declyn watches with an indulgent smile, then focuses on me. ‘Great dress, Amy. Vintage?’
‘Vintage.’ Or, to put it another way, second-hand. Some of my clothes are proper, expensive, designers-from-the-seventies vintage. But others are from the wardrobes of recently deceased old ladies that sell for half-nothing in Help the Aged. (You could say that I have a personal shopper – a lovely volunteer called Bronagh Kingston, who rings me if good stuff arrives in.) And really there’s no point in being morbid – if the clothes are nice and they’re dry-cleaned twice, isn’t it heart-warming to think of them continuing to give a person pleasure? (If I sound a little defensive, it’s because I have to defend my choices to Neeve who, most mornings, treats me to ‘Dead people’s clothes – niiiiiice …’)
Not that my vintage stuff can be worn every day – if there’s an important meeting, especially a pitch to potential clients, I have to corporate-up, in a suit that isn’t cut right for a person of my shortness. But when the client starts to trust me, like Mrs EverDry seems to, my lovely character-filled clothes can be unleashed. (Tim, he doesn’t like them either. Tim likes things done by the book. He’d prefer if I toiled in workaday navy tailoring.)
‘Edwardian governess meets biker chick.’ Declyn spends a few seconds admiring my outfit, then suddenly notices Mum’s absence. ‘Where is she?’
‘No one knows,’ I say. ‘She went out to lunch.’
‘Lunch?’
‘But that was six and a half hours ago.’
‘I think she’s home!’ Derry says.
We hurry to the window. A taxi has drawn up outside. Through the tangle of branches we see its back door opening and a tiny woman – Mum – wearing a pink leather jacket come tumbling out. Before she lands bodily on the footpath, she manages to right herself and says something to the taxi-driver that makes her double over, laugh a lot and lean on the side of the car.
‘Is she all right?’ Joe asks.
‘Is she sick?’ This from caring Kiara.
Then Derry articulates what’s becoming clear to us all, as we watch Mum weave her way to the door of the house, her face as pink as her jacket. ‘Is she … scuttered?’
‘And what is she wearing?’
‘My jacket,’ Neeve says.
I should have known. Everything is Neeve’s.
We swarm towards the front door. Mum erupts into the hall and we fall on her with cries of distress. ‘Where were you? We’ve been so worried.’
‘I went OUT!’ Mum declares. ‘To a lunch! I got drunk and I won a prize!’ She waves a box of sweets. ‘Turkish Delight! Mint ones!’
‘But, Mum, you should have come home earlier.’
‘I was enjoying myself. I put up with your father all of the time, listening to him talking rubbish about suing the postman for cutting his hair and asking where our dog is when we’ve no dog and –’
‘Granny,’ Neeve says. ‘That’s my jacket! I couldn’t find it when I was leaving last week.’
‘I know!’ Mum beams. ‘I borrowed it by hiding it.’
‘But why didn’t you just ask for it?’
‘Because you’d say no. I wanted it.’ Mum’s eyes are starey and bloodshot. ‘And I’m keeping it.’ She continues to smile in the most uncharacteristically defiant way at Neeve.
Great, I thought, just great. Now Mum has gone mental too. My husband is leaving me and both my parents are mentally ill.
5
And here’s Maura. Cripes!
‘Everyone,’ I hiss. ‘Act normal.’ I turn to Mum. ‘Especially you.’
Neeve bundles Mum up the stairs and I hurry to greet Maura. Trying not to move my lips, I ask, ‘Who have you told about Hugh?’
‘No one.’
It’s hard to believe that: she’s as leaky as Julian Assange.
‘Keep it that way because the girls don’t even know and, whatever you do, you’re not to tell Sofie.’
‘I haven’t told Sofie.’
Seized by fear, I say, ‘But you might. And you mustn’t.’
Sofie, aged seventeen, is a fragile little creature. She’s feckless Joe’s eldest child: her mum is the woman who preceded Siena and, for reasons I won’t get into now, she’s lived with Hugh and me since she was aged three (didn’t I tell you we were modern?).
Sofie is extremely attached to Hugh and it wouldn’t be right for her to hear about his sabbatical from anyone but him.
‘I was thinking about Alastair,’ Maura says.
Of course Maura would fall for him – she’s a born interferer and he’s the kind of man that most women want to fix. But I see him, week in, week out, cutting a streak through an endless supply of girls and discarding them like old tea-towels.
‘Maura, cop on, you’re married!’
‘Not for me, you fool. For you! My husband isn’t leaving me.’ Of course he wasn’t. The silent Poor Bastard had had his spirit broken long ago. ‘While Hugh’s away, you should, you know, take your time out with Alastair.’
Honestly, there is almost nothing I’d enjoy less. Hugh’s the only man I want, but if I could bring myself to consider another, Alastair would be close to the bottom of the list. Not at the actual bottom. No. That honour would belong to Richie Aldin.
‘He’s very …’ Maura swallows with difficulty and nods ‘… sexy.’
‘He’s revolting.’ I’m fond of Alastair, but thinking of him in that way is distressing. You can just tell that he’s a great man for sexual gymnastics. Whenever I imagine him in bed with one of his laydeez (which happens very rarely), the position they’re in is reverse cowgirl and they’re doing a huge amount of bouncing and whooping – the lucky lady is actually wearing a cowboy hat and swinging a lasso above her head.
A craving for nicotine hits me like a blow. Ten months ago, I gave up cigarettes – not that I was a big smoker, just a precious three a day, but it was lung cancer that Hugh’s dad had died from and it had felt disrespectful to continue.
This week has been so tough that there’s a real fear I’ll start again and, in the hope of heading it off, I’ve bought an e-cigarette. ‘I’m just going to …’ I head upstairs where, in one of the chilly bedrooms, Neeve is doing Mum’s make-up. They’re seated at a big old dressing-table that would be an up-cycler’s wet dream. Not for me. Too big, too heavy, too gloomy. I sit on the austere old iron bed (no, can’t get excited about that either – too high, too rickety, too creaky) and watch them.
Neeve flicks a glance at me and my e-cigarette. ‘You look like you’re playing a midget’s tin-whistle.’
There is so much that’s wrong with what she’s just said that it’s impossible to know where to start. I settle for ‘You can’t say that word any more.’
‘You can’t say anything any more,’ Mum says. ‘Soon it’ll be a crime to speak. People are too easily offended. So what are they now?’
I wince. ‘Little people. I think.’
‘But Little People are leprechauns. Someone should tell them that we’re sorry but they’ll have to find another word.’
‘Mum, please.’
Mum looks up at Neeve. ‘When you said “tin-whistle” there, did you mean something different?’
Neeve laughs softly. ‘It’s just your dirty mind, Granny.’
‘Have I a dirty mind?’ Mum is delighted.
‘Filthy.’
They collapse into giggles and I watch, ashamed of my jealousy. If Neeve was even a fraction as sweet to me as she is to my mum … Mind you, Granny is quite the hit with her granddaughters now. Lately Sofie has been spending the majority of her time here. During the summer just gone, she stopped living with me and Hugh and moved in with Urzula, her mother, in the hope of rebuilding a relationship. Which is in the process of failing. It broke our hearts when Sofie left us and it’s breaking them even more to watch her flail around trying to make Urzula act like a mother. But what can you do? Hugh and I are attempting the near-impossible feat of offering Sofie all the benefits and duties of family, while respecting that she has actual biological parents. These days, Sofie ricochets between Urzula and Mum and Pop but I wish she’d come back to me.
Speculatively Neeve watches Mum’s made-up face in the mirror. ‘You look great, Granny. Maybe I’ll do a vlog with you.’