Every time Cherry went to visit her mother she resolved that this time she would be different. She would be open, friendly, relaxed. She would talk to her without snapping and without feeling panicked, trapped by all the things that reminded her of her penniless childhood – it wasn’t her mum’s fault that they’d had no money all those years – but as soon as she was let into the small two-bedroomed flat, it seemed to suck out all her good intentions. The large-screen TV too big for the room, the fluffy rug in the middle of the living-room floor, the horrible tilting sofa. The tin of Celebrations or Heroes on the side, open for guests. Cherry knew that Wendy, her mum, valued these little perks from the supermarket. She always had first-hand knowledge of the deals; she said they’d saved her a fortune over the years. Cherry hated supermarkets and hated their ‘deals’ even more. The trash they encouraged you to buy and fill your house with. They bled people of every penny of their deficient wages they could trick them out of, dressing it up as some comradely arm about the shoulders – We’re on your side. We know how you feel. Times are tough – when all the while they were piling up huge profits. Her mum’s DVD collection, at an average of ten pounds each, was worth two grand. Correction: it had cost two grand; it was probably worth a couple of hundred quid, if that. It frustrated Cherry that her mum never stopped to work it out.
‘But that’s a classic,’ Wendy had said when she’d added The King’s Speech.
‘It’s a piece of plastic in your living room. How often do you even watch it?’
Owning a classic didn’t make you more of a film buff, didn’t mean that you were erudite or had an eye for quality; it made you a mug, especially when you could watch it on TV or borrow it from the library. It didn’t ever occur to Cherry that her mum might actually enjoy watching them, might even be grateful for them, as she spent most evenings when she wasn’t working alone, having never found someone who lasted after Cherry’s father had died.
She kissed her mum chastely, trying to avoid the bear hug and lipstick brand on her cheek.
‘Mum!’
‘Sorry, it’s just that I hardly ever see you these days.’
It was true and Cherry, awkward, evaded responding. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine. Can I get you a drink? Glass of wine, seeing as we’re celebrating?’
Cherry knew that her mum would only have white and that it would be sweet, something she detested, but she didn’t want to upset her so made some excuse about not starting too early, saying she’d have tea instead. She followed Wendy into the kitchen, where she was made a cup of tea in a mug with Daniel Craig’s face on it. No neck, just his disembodied, handsome face with its craggy smile staring out, floating on a background of white china. It looked surreal. As her mother filled the kettle, Cherry took a moment to appraise her. She’d dyed her hair again. She had a different-coloured rinse in every time she saw her, as if she was working her way through the L’Oréal brunette spectrum. (‘Eighty-three there are in total,’ her mum had said once, finding this nugget of information in the supplier’s catalogue.) Underneath that, it was grey, but it had once been the same lustrous brown-black that Cherry had now. She’d inherited the best of both her parents’ looks, with the odd gene thrown in from a grandparent, a collection of random lucky dips that fell at such high odds the outcome was impossible to predict.
Wendy led her into the living room. ‘You can have the tilter if you want.’
‘No, it’s fine – you have it.’ Cherry quickly sat down on the opposite side of the sofa, remembering the time she’d been made to sit in the tilting seat to satisfy her mother’s excitement, and had been thrust back as if she were at the dentist and had felt every bit as helpless.
‘I’m thinking of painting that wall red.’ Wendy pointed her mug at the wall that was the backdrop to the massive TV. ‘Like a statement.’
‘A statement of what?’ Cherry hadn’t meant to let the irritation creep in, but there it was already.
‘I don’t know. Why do you always have to be so—’ She was going to say ‘critical’ but bit her tongue. Not today. They both looked into their mugs of tea, vowing to do better.
The TV was on mute, a game show. Cherry hated all game shows for the single reason that the contestants had always been shopping for their TV outfit, with the result that they ended up unwittingly humiliating themselves by looking cheap or ridiculous. She also couldn’t stand how thick everyone was. Teachers not knowing the capital of Canada . . . It was pathetic.
‘How’s work?’ said Cherry.
‘Oh, you should have seen the queues on Saturday. We sold out of every one of the disposable barbecues and I told them we’d need more.’
‘They should listen to you.’
‘Yes, they should,’ said Wendy, pleased.
‘How long have you been there now?’
‘Well, I started when you was just two, as we needed the money,’ Wendy began, and Cherry, who’d heard this story before, found herself waiting for the punchline. ‘It was only meant to be part-time, and I started on the tills, worked my way up, took on more days when your dad passed. I was reliable, you see, and a hard worker. None of this needing to disappear off to take the dog to the vet’s or what have you. Anyway, it’ll be twenty-three years this September.’ Wendy smiled proudly, lost for a minute in her own achievement. Cherry could think of nothing worse than being stuck in a mammoth warehouse full of people pushing around huge wire baskets on wheels, and secretly thought that becoming a checkout manager after twenty-three years didn’t sound like that much of a rise. Surely you’d be heading up the entire region or something by then, but thinking about it all depressed her, so she stopped.
‘The good things come to those who work hard, see. That’s when you get the promotions and stuff.’
‘How’s Holly?’
‘Not happy. Her daughter went to an X Factor audition but had a really hard time. They slated her, apparently. Holly got really upset about it.’ Wendy leaned forward and patted her knee. ‘Never mind about all that. What about you? I still can’t believe my daughter’s got herself a proper job now! There’s always money in property,’ she said sagely, although this was a general perception that Wendy had latched onto rather than personal knowledge.
At last Cherry could smile, although she wouldn’t be going into any detail. ‘Good. Really good, in fact. I’m enjoying it a lot at the moment.’
‘Well, that’s great. I always knew you’d do all right. You was the smart one of the family. So what do you do, then? Sell posh houses?’
‘Yes, mostly. A few rentals.’
‘Bet they go for a bit up there, don’t they? How much would it cost me to rent my flat up in la-la land?’