Audrey couldn’t wait to move on with her life. Mapleberry was a necessary and now, thanks to Sam, a painful stop-gap, but she’d get to be with her dad in the end.
Audrey stayed in her bedroom for as long as possible after her mum came home from wherever she’d been, and didn’t emerge until she really had to, when Layla turned up and they were in charge of Gran’s one-pot chicken. Thankfully Sam was hiding away in her own room by then and it would give Audrey a chance to calm herself down and make this a pleasant experience. Since she’d realised Gran was going through something nobody seemed to understand, least of all her own mother, Audrey had tried not to be such a pain. Gran didn’t deserve the drama, especially when she was stuck inside. Audrey wasn’t sure how she did it, she didn’t fully understand why either, but the thought of never going outside was unimaginable.
‘Right, Layla, apron on.’ Gran was already bossing the little girl around the kitchen. She fixed on an apron for her, doubling it over at the waist a couple of times so it didn’t drag on the floor. ‘There’s another in the drawer,’ she instructed Audrey.
‘Remember I’m the assistant,’ Audrey told Layla. ‘I only do what you tell me.’
Layla did a little click of her fingers. ‘Get me a knife!’
Audrey laughed but looked at Veronica as though to ask whether she was allowed to hand over a weapon to an overexcited eight-year-old. When she nodded, Audrey did a salute and got the knife from the block at the end of the bench.
Between them, with Layla bossing Audrey around as much as she could, they soon had the one-pot chicken slotted into the oven and Layla insisted they set the table. She folded serviettes into triangles, positioned cutlery the way they did in restaurants, upturned wine glasses in each position even if the person at that place setting would only be having water, lemonade or juice. And by the time Charlie knocked on the front door, the smell of the dinner and the accompanying bubble from the pan of potatoes showed that everything was in hand.
‘I brought dessert,’ he announced, taking something in a foil tray from the carrier bag he had with him. ‘I’m afraid it’s shop-bought, not homemade, but I’m assured by a work colleague that it’s the finest shop-bought apple crumble you can find.’
Veronica smiled. ‘It sounds good to me and I’ve got plenty of ice-cream to go with it.’
Layla’s dad wasn’t bad to look at for a man who had to be at least forty, and he seemed all right as far as parents went. He’d come around a few times since Audrey had started living there and he seemed good company for Gran.
‘I’ve had a hard week,’ he told Veronica when asked how work had been. ‘We were all set for takeaway tonight but this is far nicer.’
‘I’ll bet it’s more nutritious too.’
‘Don’t tell her we had takeaway three times last week,’ he whispered to Audrey as he came to investigate the antics in the kitchen and ruffled Layla’s hair.
Already he was earning himself brownie points from Audrey. She couldn’t stand it when adults talked down to her because they were separated by a generation; she much preferred being treated as an equal, a friend. She’d always imagined that’s what it would be like with her mum when she was older, they’d go on spa days together or out for lunch, but the way things were going it would be a miracle if they even managed to talk on the phone when she finally left home.
Layla took her dad through the entire process of what they’d made for dinner, how she’d wished she had her swimming goggles when she chopped the onion because it hurt her eyes so much, how the garlic had left a smell on her fingers, the variety of vegetables they’d added and how she would be in charge of mashing the potatoes because ‘it’s something Audrey struggles with’.
Audrey had laughed at the comment, but watching dad and daughter together made her miss her own father even more. Charlie and Layla seemed so close. Charlie had dark hair that looked on the verge of fading, but he was a cool dad, just like hers, wearing jeans that fit him well and a T-shirt that showed he wasn’t a layabout like some dads she knew. Charlie was a paramedic, which must keep him active. Her own dad was a businessman but he was into sports too – running, kayaking and hiking. She’d seen all the photographs to prove it. He got to see the most amazing places; his life was a big adventure. That was what she wanted hers to be like, too.
As she watched her gran laughing away with Charlie about Layla, Audrey thought of all the things she took for granted and that her gran was missing out on by never setting foot beyond this house. Gran never got to view the sky from a different vantage point, she never saw flowers other than those in her own garden. Gran never got to say hello to people in the street or exchange a simple thank you with a stranger if they held a door open for her or she for them. And most of all, she didn’t get to help anyone, and if there was one thing Audrey was slowly learning, it was
