‘All the best, love,’ said Wendy with a catch in her voice.
It was agony. Cherry knew her mother was aware she couldn’t wait to leave, but quickly pushed it away, pretending not to notice Wendy’s look of hurt. Her chest was tight with guilt; she hated being there; she hated what she became when she was there. ‘Thanks, Mum.’
She escaped and hurried back to East Croydon Station. With every step the guilt grew. She got out her phone and sent a soul-clearing text, something jolly and light-hearted about how nice it had been to see her. Once she’d got a cheerful reply, she felt the pain in her chest ease, and gradually the train and then the Tube transported her back home.
It only took half an hour to get to Tooting, and the evening was still warm. She poured herself a glass of wine left over from the weekend with Daniel and went out into the tiny courtyard garden. It was only three steps wide and six steps long, and she could see St George’s Hospital’s chimneys from beyond the fence and the row of Victorian flats that ran parallel to hers, but it was a little piece of outside. A fox slipped quickly and silently through a hole it had dug under her fence and disappeared into the neighbour’s garden. She sipped her wine and watched it go, impressed with the animal’s ability to make a home anywhere in London. She’d heard a radio show a few weeks back in which people from places like Barnes and Chelsea had been phoning in to complain about foxes coming into their houses. Tooting had been as close as she could get to the capital’s centre, rising rental prices like a thicket of thorns that kept her from going any further. This made her think about what she was going to wear the next day, and galvanized, she took her wine inside to the bedroom.
Opening up her wardrobe doors, she scanned her clothes critically. It was going to be another hot day, so she needed something that wouldn’t look creased and shabby after working in the office. She decided on a tailored sleeveless silk shirt and navy pencil skirt. She made a space for the chosen items in the middle of the wardrobe by pushing everything else to the sides and then hung them together and looked on them satisfied for a moment before closing the door. She went back into the garden and thought excitedly about the next day and how much she was looking forward to meeting Daniel’s parents. She felt a warmth towards Laura for inviting her over, and so soon into her and Daniel’s relationship. It was something that had never happened the entire time she had been seeing Nicolas. She imagined them hitting it off right away and a wave of pleasure washed over her as she saw herself fitting in. Daniel was so easy-going and she had a feeling that his parents would be her type of people.
It was only much later, when she went to bed that night, she remembered the present. She got it out of her bag and opened it. It was the latest iPhone, and Cherry knew it was her mother’s attempt to understand her, buy her something that she thought the younger generation might like. She also knew it would have cost her a lot on her salary. It seemed so sad somehow, and anyway, she already had one. The guilt flared up again and she discarded the gift in a drawer, lay back on the pillows and sighed. How her mother fitted into her future she didn’t know.
SEVEN
Friday 13 June
The Cavendishes’ house was only a ten-minute walk from the air-conditioning of the office, but Cherry was hot and bothered. Even at early evening it was thirty degrees and she quickly and subtly checked her armpits for damp patches. Other than a tiny five-pence-shaped dot under her right arm, she’d thankfully escaped.
Cherry was nervous. She wanted to be liked. She looked at the bunch of tiger lilies in her hand, artfully arranged in brown paper with twine tied like a corset’s stays, and wondered again if they were too much. There seemed to be a lot of them and they were, well, big. They should be, she thought wryly – they cost her sixty quid. And then again, lilies were big. She counted the stems: seven. Surely that wasn’t over the top? She swapped hands so they didn’t get too sweaty and decided it was too late to do anything about them now. The important thing was she wouldn’t turn up empty-handed. She turned into the Cavendishes’ street, and checking her watch, realized with a flicker of apprehension that she was going to be early. Oh God, she didn’t want to look too desperate or anything. Quickly she turned down a side street that, if she followed it round, would bring her to the other end of the road she was in now. She walked along pretending to be a little bit lost in case there was anyone around who might know the Cavendishes and bring up the story of her wandering around in some later casual conversation. The idea of it made her cringe with embarrassment.
She turned into the top end of the Cavendishes’ road, checking her watch and matching her pace so that she reached the iron gate of number 38 at exactly six thirty. She walked across the chequerboard of immaculate black and white tiles to the large, imposing black front door and rang the bell. It wasn’t long before it was thrown open, a warm, wide welcome from Daniel. He took her hand and kissed her fully but quickly on the mouth.
‘Hi. They’re dying to meet you,’ he whispered in her ear as a sort of pre-emptive warning, and then she heard two sets of footsteps approaching.
Mr Cavendish was first, a large, broad-shouldered man who was clearly used to striding into rooms without any fear of who might be in them. He wore a short-sleeved shirt tucked into shorts, an odd mix of semi-formal and casual, and she felt pinned down by the full beam of his – not unkind – eyes. He grasped her free hand with more force than was necessary in that confident, brisk, male way, and if she was honest, it hurt.
‘Dad, this is Cherry.’
‘Howard,’ he said, introducing himself. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘Great to meet you, Howard.’
He let go of her hand and it tingled as the bones realigned and the blood rushed back. Then it was Laura’s turn. To Cherry’s surprise and secret delight, she took her hand and after looking at her in some sort of charmed way, drew her closer and kissed her on each cheek.
‘Lovely to meet you, Cherry.’
‘You too.’ She handed over the bouquet. ‘These are for you.’
Laura took them with a look of genuine pleasure and Cherry was glad she’d paid so much for them.
‘Oh, they are absolutely beautiful. Thank you.’
Cherry couldn’t quite believe that this glamorous woman was probably the same age as her own mother. They couldn’t look more different. Laura was tall, statuesque and a shimmering blonde. Her cream silk blouse and wide-legged caramel trousers draped over her frame as if they were privileged to do so, and the whole effect was one of a burnished-gold goddess.
‘I love your top,’ she found herself gushing, and had to try and suppress the flush that rose up her cheeks.