‘Hi!’ said Daniel to everyone.
Wendy turned too and Cherry froze. This was the meeting she never wanted. Then suddenly a blind fury overtook her: how dare her mum make her feel like this, make her panic and stress, put her whole future in jeopardy? Why couldn’t she leave her the fuck alone? She struggled to keep from lashing out explosively at her mother and imagined shoving her backwards towards the door, kicking her out crumpled onto the street, and then she caught herself. The image brought her up sharply, and horrified, she blocked it from her mind. She mustn’t lose it, not now. She gestured nervously towards her mother, a light flick of the fingers, without looking at her.
‘This,’ she said tightly, ‘is my mum.’
Daniel came over and shook Wendy’s hand and Cherry watched carefully for a reaction, but she saw nothing except his usual friendly charm, albeit with a note of confusion. ‘Nice to meet you. Sorry, have I got my days mixed up or something?’
Wendy turned to Cherry for an explanation, a saucy smile on her face; Cherry knew she’d guessed that Daniel was more than just a friend. ‘Mum,’ she said in a low warning voice, a voice that said, Do not say anything to embarrass me, ‘this is Daniel.’
‘Daniel. So nice to finally meet you. Cherry has told me so much about you.’
Which was a big lie, as Cherry had not mentioned Daniel to her once. She was grateful for this tiny reprieve, although her feelings towards her mother did not soften.
‘Did you come to have lunch with Cherry?’ he asked.
She was about to wade in, play it down, suggest that she meet her mother another day, but Wendy was too quick.
‘A surprise lunch,’ she said. ‘Although I think it was even more of a surprise than I intended.’
‘Well, I’ll let you two—’
‘No, no,’ interrupted Cherry quickly. ‘Mum, Daniel and I already have plans.’
‘We can do it some other time,’ he said, and then added to fill the silence, ‘or if it’s OK with you two . . . why don’t we all go together? It would be nice to get to know my girlfriend’s mum.’
It was the worst lunch Cherry had ever had to endure. Everything she’d carefully kept hidden came out – the flat in Croydon, the supermarket job, the ‘cute’ details about Cherry’s childhood – and Cherry watched her mum blossom in a way she had never seen before. She was flushed with pleasure, a happiness that Cherry would have realized stemmed from pride in her daughter, had she stopped to think about it. Cherry couldn’t see past her own muted, seething resentment that her mother was having such a good time at her expense. After the story of how she used to sit at the cash register at the end of her mum’s shift, delighting in playing ‘shops’ and insisting she was going to work there when she was grown up, Cherry cut her such a furious look that Wendy faltered and changed the subject.
At that moment, Cherry hated her mother with a passion. Her plate swam miserably before her and the food stuck in her throat. Daniel remained polite, of course, and even laughed a couple of times, but Cherry sensed he was dumbfounded at some of what her mother was telling him and wanted to distance himself as soon as possible.
At the point where she was unable to stand it anymore, she escaped to the toilet and stood with her hands deep in water in the sink, staring at herself in the mirror. She wanted to cry, bitter, angry tears of despair, but had no choice other than to go back and watch the human wrecking ball that was her mother reduce everything she’d built up to a pile of unrecognizable rubble. This was her life, her life she was gatecrashing. She clenched her fists and let out a low moan of rage at her mother’s inability to see when she wasn’t wanted, her inability to see how she was single-handedly destroying the only thing Cherry had ever truly cared about. For a brief moment she allowed herself a dark thought. Imagined her life as it would have been without her mother for the last sixteen years, if she’d been in the car when it had crashed, killing her father. Maybe there would have been some inconvenience with foster parents for a while, but it would’ve been over soon enough and then she could have rebuilt her life without any of the baggage she currently had to tow around. She wondered if her mother had any insurance or if the supermarket would’ve paid out life premiums. Maybe she could’ve lived somewhere a bit nicer than Tooting. The fantasy bubble faded away and Cherry slowly became aware that she’d been in the toilet for quite some time, so she methodically dried her hands and went back into the restaurant. Her mother looked up as she returned to the table, but Cherry didn’t meet her eye.
‘Everything all right, love?’
‘Fine.’
The plates had been cleared while she was in the bathroom and Daniel picked up the menu. ‘Dessert?’
Cherry sensed that Wendy was about to accept, so she shot in with, ‘I have to get back to work.’
Daniel paid, despite Wendy’s protestations, and then they left. Both walked her back through the rain to the office and Cherry stopped a few doors down.
‘You don’t have to see me in,’ she said tersely, and her mother glanced at her in hurt. Then she threw an arm around her neck in a tight hug, the other clutching her umbrella, which clashed with Cherry’s. Cherry felt a lipstick mark land on her cheek and resisted the urge to wipe it away in disgust. She wanted no trace of her mother on her.
‘It’s been lovely to see you,’ said Wendy wistfully, and Cherry smiled tightly.
‘You too.’
Wendy then turned to Daniel and Cherry cringed as she gave him an affectionate hug too; in fact, she seemed more relaxed with him than she did her own daughter, something Cherry instantly felt guilty about. She knew her behaviour was abhorrent, but she couldn’t help it.
‘Thanks for a great lunch,’ said Wendy. ‘I can’t believe Cherry’s been keeping you to herself all this time.’
She pulled away and, looking one last time at her daughter, took her cue to leave. Cherry watched her walk away to the Tube, her sandals flicking more dirty rainwater up the backs of her legs. She didn’t want to look at Daniel, as she didn’t want to see the new distance in his eyes, the urge to escape now her persona had been stripped bare.
‘We didn’t get to buy the bedding,’ he said.
‘No.’
‘Doesn’t matter. We’ll get it some other time.’
It was the first brush-off. A vague reference to a future date that would never materialize. Cherry stood miserably on the pavement, immobilized and unwilling to play her part in this break-up.
‘Shouldn’t you be getting back? It’s gone two,’ he prompted.
And now he wanted rid of her. This was the last time she’d see him. She raised her eyes to his.
‘Hey, what’s the matter?’