Layla groaned but reluctantly agreed. ‘I missed it when I was away. Daddy asked me one day why my fingers kept twitching.’ She giggled. ‘I keep trying to remember the tunes and I can’t help it but my fingers move when I don’t mean them to.’
Veronica laughed. ‘It’s our secret, but he’ll be glad of the surprise in the end. How about we make a deal? Instead of practising every morning, I could phone your house when my daughter and granddaughter go out – let you know when the coast’s clear.’
Layla’s smile returned. ‘Is your daughter like you?’
‘Does she look like me? Not really, she doesn’t have grey hair or so many wrinkles for a start.’
‘Does she like to stay inside like you do?’ Children definitely had a way with questions. Veronica thought about the looks that passers-by sometimes gave her if she was at the front door taking a delivery or talking to the gardener, the looks that told her she was an anomaly, she wasn’t like them, she was the odd one out. ‘It’s okay if she is,’ Layla went on, ‘because I like you just the way you are.’
‘I’m pleased you do. But no, Sam isn’t like me in that way,’ Veronica smiled, basking in the affection that had been so absent from her life in recent years. ‘Speak of the devil.’ Sam had come downstairs and came into the kitchen, Veronica assumed in search of coffee, although she had her handbag over her shoulder.
‘Hello.’ Sam beamed a smile at Layla. ‘Who do we have here?’ You wouldn’t think she’d been wandering miserably around the house for the last couple of days, lost in her own world.
Veronica introduced Sam and Layla, who instantly launched into a getting-to-know-you conversation covering where they both lived, the long summer holidays, camping and a fondness for Veronica’s delicious carrot cake.
‘Do you know Veronica used the carrots that I grew?’ Layla asked.
‘I’ll be sure to remember when I have a slice later – it’ll make me appreciate it more.’ Sam turned to Veronica, managing to stop a frosty exterior taking over. ‘Do you have a spare key I could use?’
Veronica fished in the top kitchen drawer and found one at the back to give to Sam. ‘Are you going anywhere nice?’
‘I’ve got an interview.’
‘A job interview?’
‘What else would it be, Mum?’ So the defensive attitude was back. ‘I’ll see you later.’
Veronica cut herself and Layla another slice of cake to take the edge off what should’ve been a conversation with her daughter, not a confrontation. But it seemed the latter was all they could manage at the moment. Baking was at least a distraction neither Sam nor Audrey resented her for, so she was happy to carry on making cakes, biscuits and delicious meals. She’d do anything if it meant another chance with her family.
When Audrey clattered into the kitchen in search of something for lunch, Veronica suggested Layla do the litter run now. ‘I can watch you from the front window.’
Audrey muttered, ‘Litter run…eww,’ under her breath and didn’t even look over.
‘Audrey, could you please see Layla across the road?’ Veronica seized the opportunity to involve Audrey, although she couldn’t deny her hands were clenching at the thought of Audrey turning round and telling her she would do no such thing.
Veronica’s tension abated when Audrey grunted but didn’t protest. ‘Come on then, but be quick, I’m hungry.’
‘Take a bag,’ Veronica called after them, snatching a carrier bag from the cupboard in the hallway, but Layla was out of the door, Audrey close behind.
Veronica watched Audrey hover at the front gate while Layla crossed the road carefully. She tried to get Audrey’s attention, waving the plastic bag, but Audrey’s gaze was firmly fixed on the other side of the road. Either she was doing it to be responsible with Layla or she was deliberately avoiding her gran. Veronica had no idea which. Her role seemed interchangeable, from ally to enemy, with only the slightest nudge; giving Sam the last remaining room upstairs and forcing Audrey to live with her mum in close quarters again hadn’t gone down well. Veronica had never been to Sam’s house in Cheshire but she had looked up the address on the internet and seen it on Google Earth, so she knew they’d both had a lot more breathing room when they were still living there. Sam had bought the house with her ex-husband Simon – typical of him, doing anything he could to impress those around him. Well, he’d never impressed Veronica. The fact he reminded her so much of her own husband Herman when he was alive made her wish her daughter had had more sense than to marry a man just like her father.
Veronica pushed the front door so it was only open a crack and retreated more inside the house when a couple she recognised from the neighbourhood looked her way. She’d kept a low profile for years and couldn’t see any way for that to change. She tried to remember the last time she’d walked over to the shops on Mapleberry’s main street, or bought an ice-cream on a hot summer’s day. She couldn’t remember when she’d last taken the bus to the nearby National Trust stately home where she could walk the grounds in autumn and have the leaves crunch beneath her feet, or when she’d visited the local café to enjoy a hot chocolate with a side order of whatever cake they had on special that day. It had all become too hard, and as for being a part of a team of nurses at the hospital where she’d once worked, those memories almost felt as though they belonged to someone else.
With tears in
