There were various things that pissed Rachel off. Like how Debbie used to load the dishwasher in a constantly ‘illogical’ way, like how the guy in the flat above her still kept his alarm on at weekends, like how her boss could never keep eye contact with her, whenever they talked in a corridor. She knew her anger was coming because she’d suck her bottom lip in under her teeth, so much that the lip pretty much disappeared.
She noticed that she was doing exactly that, right now, and once the breath was in, it came flowing out in a voice three notches louder than before.
‘Actually, Mum, there is more to life.’ She snapped it out loudly. Pushed back her chair.
Mum sucked a sliver of orange from her thumb. She took her time over it.
‘There’s my new flat. There’s my new friends. My new life.’
Mum’s thumb dug deep into the peel again. A jet of acid leapt into three bubbles on the table. She looked down at it.
‘And my hair. I’ve got a completely different haircut and you haven’t even mentioned it. You haven’t even said my glasses don’t suit me, because I know you think they don’t.’
Mum blinked slowly and looked up at Rachel’s head. ‘Do you have a boyfriend yet?’
‘Jesus Christ …’ The words popped like a bubble, and it made her pause for a second. ‘You barely even know me.’ She looked down at her lap. ‘And you say you want me here but whenever I call you, you barely say a word and whenever you visit me I know you’re hating it because it somehow doesn’t count unless you see me in this house, and whenever you look at me—’
A sudden bumping sound came from upstairs.
Mum looked up.
‘Are you listening to me?’
‘Did you just hear that?’ A smile started to form. One side of the mouth twitching up.
Finally, Rachel stood, tossing her napkin on the table. Her face had switched from anger to exasperation, heartbreak even, and for a second she saw her reflection in the horrible thick mirror that hung from the rusting chain. She could see the flash of that little girl who’d lived here for all those years, and for a second she couldn’t tell if it was her reflection looking back, or if it was Holly, hiding in the mirror. Ready to climb out and throttle her, while Mum held her down.
Mum went to stand. ‘I think it came from Holly’s room.’
‘And there you have it!’ Rachel clapped her hands together once. ‘We can see it now. You’re not interested in anything that ever happens in my life because that’s all post-Holly, isn’t it, Mum? That’s all invisible. And nothing even exists post-Holly. Does it? Nothing even exists.’ Rachel stopped to catch her breath and suddenly looked at her surroundings, disorientated. Like she’d fallen asleep in one place and woken up in another.
Mum set her satsuma neatly on the table, then she rose from her chair.
‘Oh, come on. You cannot just walk out. You need to listen to—’
She cut herself off when she saw Mum not walking away from her, but towards her. She leant near to an astonished Rachel and put a hand gently around the back of her head, just like she used to. Like when she was little and terrified of making the Brownie promise, or when Kassy had said something horrible enough to cut. Or when she’d found herself feeling lonely and different and she couldn’t figure out why. The weather girl would swoop into her bedroom and without saying a word she’d slide her hand around the back of her head and hold her into that wonderful hair that smelt like how a ten-year-old girl thought Paris catwalks would smell. And things would feel brighter.
It felt like electricity, when those fingers touched her scalp again now.
Mum pulled her close and kissed her softly on the forehead, lingering with her lips of orange zest and cold meat. Rachel felt her shoulders crunch into some sort of submission, the slow bubbling up from whichever part of the brain programmes tears. But Mum let her go as quickly as the affection began. Hair all thin again, she turned and walked through the open kitchen door, looking at the ceiling as she went. ‘I did hear something.’
Rachel stood for a moment in the kitchen, with her eyes closed in the silence. The ghost of her mum’s fingers still caressing the back of her head. Then she walked silently into the hallway and saw that Mum was now sitting at the very top step of the staircase, her hands folded neatly in her lap. A child patiently waiting for a friend to come running round the corner.
Rachel wiped a tear from her cheek, with the palm of her hand. When she called up, her voice was quiet. ‘Mum?’
‘I heard something.’
‘You must have imagined it.’
‘I’ve been hearing it more and more, lately.’ Mum smiled and turned to look down the stairs. ‘Come on up, love.’
Rachel’s body locked into place.
‘Come up the stairs,’ she said, smiling. ‘Come up the stairs, and sit with your mummy.’
Somewhere in her head, she could hear the echo of herself saying, ‘Let’s just go back in the kitchen. Tell me all the penguin’s names.’ But she was already grabbing the banister with an outstretched hand. Then with less hesitation than she expected, she started to walk up, with a growing succession of floorboard creaks. Mum’s eyes were fixed on something on the landing.
‘And you’ll sleep here tonight, won’t you? Your old bed’s there.’
Be brave, she thought. You are almost thirty, Rachel. You can do this.
Work through.
She nodded. ‘I’ll stay the night.’
She neared the top and followed Mum’s gaze, looking through the banisters. The landing had four doors. Her old room, Mum’s room, the bathroom and Holly’s room at the end. And it was Holly’s that looked completely different than the rest. Enough to make Rachel let out a tiny little gasp.
Every inch of the
