Maybe I could brazen it out with ‘I’ve looked everywhere for it and think it must have found its way into one of the bags I took to the charity shop. I’m so sorry. Let me buy you a new one.’ My heart sank at how much work I’d have to do to pay for that.
But I’d gone back on my word and now it was up to me to fix it. I’d sat there, that morning we’d cleared out the attic, and promised I’d never throw anything away without her permission. I’d insisted that she shouldn’t feel embarrassed about having her mother’s things around. Apart from Lara, none of us had any experience of losing a mother at a young age and she was entitled to handle it any way she wanted. Though of course, I hadn’t expected to discover an unexploded bomb amongst Caitlin’s belongings with the power to blast Francesca’s memories of her mother to smithereens.
I heard their feet crunching across the floorboards I’d painted white and sealed with ship’s varnish. My mind was puzzling over the unfamiliar noise. Then I realised. She’d overturned the printer’s letterpress tray with all the little compartments that held my beads, sequins and gems, the ones I browsed for at flea markets, bid for on eBay, scoured charity shops for. My own little haven of pearls, diamante and jewels, scattered everywhere and crushed underfoot. In that moment, I hated her. I was sick of being the grown-up, of accepting bad behaviour, of biting my tongue and letting Nico deal. Yes, of course, I was sorry her mother had died, sorry I couldn’t replace her, right now sorry I’d ever laid eyes on the Farinelli family. But even I would have to draw the line at a thirteen-year-old wrecking my business when all I’d been trying to do was protect her from the truth about her mother and her loose knicker elastic.
I wanted to clatter up those steps, bellow at Nico for being so bloody blind he hadn’t even noticed that every time his wife was trotting off clutching her flipping opera glasses, she was carrying on with some fancy man, crooking her little finger over her Earl Grey and cucumber sandwiches while Nico was disappearing off to the garden centre with no more on his mind than reducing the price of the geraniums before they were past their best.
But even as rage swept through me, I knew I’d never wield Caitlin’s shit behaviour as a weapon. However much Sam’s dad had let me down, I’d known who and what he was right from the start – a player, a shirker and an irresponsible flirt. He probably thought the word ‘faithful’ was a quirky oddity to be trotted out once a year in a Christmas carol. And still I’d cried into my pillow, heartbroken and bereft, clutching my newborn baby and wondering what the future would look like.
God knows how painful it would be to superimpose those feelings on the perfect image of a woman, who had a drawer containing a clothes brush, a shoehorn and paper clips. But that thought wasn’t quite enough to calm me down. Especially when Nico appeared out of the attic with something close to a look of satisfaction on his face.
He dropped his voice. ‘She’s really sorry about the mess but we are making progress. She feels ready – finally – to go to the graveyard. She thinks it would help her.’
I stared at him as though he’d grown two heads and finished the look with a couple of deerstalkers. My bloody workshop, the place where I earned my money, was completely trashed and Nico was presenting it to me as though some frigging triumph had taken place. In that moment, I had to cling onto every fibre of maturity and resist turning into a toddler myself. I wanted to march along the corridor to Francesca’s room, rip all the bloody posters off the wall, fling every bottle of nail varnish about until her bedroom resembled a giant splatter painting and burst a few feather pillows for good measure.
When I’d tried out the words ‘stepmother’ before I got married, rolling it around my tongue to see how it sounded, I’d imagined being laid-back and chummy. I’d hoped Francesca would be telling her friends: ‘My stepmother’s really cool, I’m so lucky.’ I wanted to be the type that planned picnics, days to the beach where we all held hands and jumped over waves, flew kites at the Seven Sisters, our laughter swept away on the wind. Although she’d never forget Caitlin, I longed for her to think her life was richer for having me in it.
Instead here I was, swallowing down the big burning ball of anger into my stomach – probably gumming up an artery or two with something toxic that would kill me off at a young age – gritting my teeth as though I’d trapped a tadpole in my mouth and saying, ‘Great. Let’s clear up tomorrow.’
Clearly I’d been far too Disney and nowhere near enough Jeremy Kyle.
20
MAGGIE
The next morning, the only person with any bounce at breakfast was Sam, who wanted to know whether he could have a party for his eleventh birthday.
‘Massimo offered to help, Mum. He said he knew loads of ball games and he’d do it all if you didn’t want to.’
I didn’t know whether to give into irritation that Massimo had raised Sam’s expectations or be grateful that with all the shit going on with Francesca, at least someone was taking notice of Sam. He never complained, but it seemed a long time since I’d sat down with him and he’d had my full attention. When we lived at Mum’s we seemed to have so much more time to chat, watch telly together, just be. Now, I was so busy trying to make headway with Francesca, it felt as though I just patted Sam on the head now and again, saying, ‘All right, love?’ as I ran past, rather than standing still long enough to hear the answer. But maybe it was good for him to separate from me a little, forge relationships with other people who could show him another world beyond my narrow horizons.
But if Sam even noticed that I wasn’t as focused on him as I used to be, it hadn’t dented his confidence. He was nothing if not tenacious. ‘So can I have a football party? Can I, Mum?’
Given the general atmosphere in the house that morning, it didn’t seem quite the right moment to discuss plans for a birthday party involving football games among the precious plants Nico deadheaded and doctored with such care.
‘Can we talk about this another time, darling? I’ve got a lot to think about today.’