‘Nothing.’
‘Come on, you’re not upset about the sheets, are you? I mean, I know you wanted to get them, but I thought it was more important we spend time with your mum. Especially as she came all the way here to see you.’
Cherry stared at him, checking for signs of genuineness.
‘I did the right thing, didn’t I? Only, I got the feeling you weren’t so sure. Is everything OK between you two?’
‘Fine,’ she said slowly.
‘Good. Because she seems really nice. Funny.’ He smiled. ‘Only, I’d have a word with her about all that childhood stuff if I were you.’
Cherry wasn’t sure she’d describe her mother as funny. Cringeworthy more like. But more to the point, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Daniel didn’t care. Her mother was a Croydonite who wore fake tan and thought that a cruet was a sliced raw vegetable, and he didn’t seem to care one bit. She’d got away with it and the immense flood of relief was intoxicating. But they wouldn’t meet again, not for ages, she quickly vowed; it had been far too close for her liking. Cherry had always known deep down that they would have to meet at some point if she was going to get engaged to Daniel, but she would have planned and prepped it to within an inch of its life. Two or three hours max, somewhere public where they could easily escape, and she would have visited her mother beforehand, perhaps taken her something new to wear as a gift and warned her about what not to say. At least now it was out of the way. Cherry would never forgive her for turning up like that, but all in all it had worked out quite well.
She thought back to his last question and gave him a celebratory kiss. ‘Yes, you did the right thing.’ Then she gazed up at him, happiness flooding through her. This man was amazing. She had to have him.
NINETEEN
Friday 22 August
Laura followed Daniel around his flat politely admiring it. He would point out the obvious (‘This is the bathroom’) and she would answer with something equally mundane (‘Nice tiles’). All the fun of seeing her son’s first ‘grown-up’ pad was lost. It saddened her and she could sense he disliked their new distance too. He’d been in his place a month now, but it was the first time she’d been to visit.
‘It’ll be hard the next few weeks,’ he’d said, ‘now I’m at the hospital.’
She knew it was true – his new job as a junior doctor was all-encompassing – but it just highlighted another thing about him that she knew hardly anything about. They had spoken on the phone a few times since the fateful night of the barbecue, short conversations that had mostly revolved around small talk, but the party was still an obstacle to any in-depth or relaxed chat. It was impossible to say what she had to say over the phone and so Laura had waited for a chance to speak to him face to face, and here it was. The nerves were made worse by the fact she missed him terribly and all she wanted to do was throw her arms around him and have them make up, but she couldn’t.
Not even Izzy had fully understood. They’d met up for coffee shortly after the barbecue and Laura had tried to explain what she’d found out: Cherry’s seemingly fictitious deceased grandmother and the disparity over the cost of the flights to France. Since the barbecue and Cherry’s evasiveness, she was convinced again that something was up. Izzy was sympathetic but pointed out there could have been any number of explanations. Worse, she’d said she should be careful not to interfere too much. Paranoia had a way of alienating people.
Laura looked out for signs of Cherry as they went round: clothes, shoes, bottles of product in the bathroom. There was some conditioner and a toothbrush – nothing else that she could see – and so with some relief she supposed that meant frequent stays but not yet the semi-permanent status that preceded moving in. She also looked for the reassurance of condoms or a packet of birth-control pills but couldn’t find any.
Daniel made ham baguette sandwiches for lunch. He pushed a plate towards her as she sat down at the breakfast bar. ‘Ta-da.’
She smiled. It looked huge. But delicious. ‘Thank you. It’s a lovely flat.’ She inspected him next; he looked tired – no doubt all those hours junior doctors had to put in. She reached into her bag. ‘This is for you. I wasn’t sure what you might need . . .’ She tailed off, not wanting to highlight the fact she hadn’t seen his new home before now, and ruminated, not for the first time, that a few months ago she would probably have helped him move in.
He opened it up. Inside the stylish wrap was a top-of-the-range alarm clock that woke you with a gradually brightening sunrise that could also be accompanied by a dawn chorus, waves or a cockerel wake-up call.
‘You can choose how long you want your sunrise to last,’ said Laura. ‘I thought it might be useful, now you’ve started on the Foundation Programme – all those shifts and night work. It’s meant to help regulate your sleep-wake cycle.’
‘I love it,’ said Daniel. ‘Thanks. A sunrise every day, no rain.’ He read the side of the box. ‘Seems it can also boost your mood and productivity levels. I’ll have no excuse not to write up good notes now.’
‘Is it going OK?’ asked Laura.
He lit up. ‘Hard, but I’m loving it. I’ve even got a bit more relaxed about writing prescriptions. You should have seen me the first time – I checked and double-checked the British National Formulary and reread the patient’s notes about three times. It took me twenty minutes to do a five-minute job. And the ward rounds! My senior house officer rattles out instructions like a machine gun. I’ve learned to write very fast.’
She watched him glow as he spoke and saw the five-year-old boy who’d bandage his Action Men with toilet paper and tell her he was going to be a doctor when he was ‘a growned-up, when I’m ten’. And now look at him. She felt so proud, but something else was pricking away at her, childhood memories making her emotional. She quickly shook them away.
‘And how about you? How did Pillow Fight go down with the great British public?’
‘Not bad. It’s all about tonight, episode two. If we get good ratings, we should be OK for a second series.’