‘I want you to mean it.’
‘You sound like a soap opera.’
‘If I do, it’s because I watch soaps. I don’t read your kind of books. How would I say what I want to say… how would I say it in your language? The one you like?’
Penny blinked. ‘Just say it as you think it. That’ll do, Mam.’
‘Well.’
‘I’ll accept it. I’ll meet your bus driver and I’ll give my verdict. I’ll give up my hold over you —’
‘I don’t want you to do that. You chose to stay with me. I’ll never lose you.’
‘No. You won’t.’
‘Your real mother —’
‘She wanted me too. I know. I remember. But you made her redundant. I’ve had both in you. And I’ve been grateful.’ Penny smiled, tasting salt. ‘I needed to tell you that. Before we move on to the next thing, whatever happens next. I’m glad I chose you, back then.’
Liz was hunting out tissues. ‘You were five. Christ, how can you know, when you’re five? How could we have asked you to choose?’ Her hands were shaking inside her handbag. ‘Life’s never dull, is it?’
Penny gave her some toilet roll. ‘Yes, it is, but the bits that aren’t tend to make up for the bits that are.’
Gradually Liz drew herself back together and urged her daughter to go back to her lessons. Penny said, ‘Can you find your way back out of school?’
Liz looked around as if she had forgotten that was where they were. ‘You seem at home here already. In your new school.’
‘Do I?’
‘I hate these places. I’m not used to being anywhere official and proper.’
‘I’ve got to get back,’ Penny said.
‘All right, pet,’ Liz said. As she hurried out of the school building she was planning a meal and rehearsing introductions, only slightly self-conscious of her make-up smudges. Mr Polaroid bumped into her at the main entrance.
‘Your daughter is being very difficult about this secretarial course business —’
‘Secretarial!' Liz cried, quite her old self.
Jane let herself into Fran’s kitchen. There was no one about. She put the kettle on and watched Peter climb into his usual place at the pine bench. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she could smell wee in the carpet. Then she remembered Fran’s dodgy pipes under the sink. She couldn’t get the council to come out.
It always struck Jane how funny other people’s houses smelled. Visiting people, she would pick up the scent of old dinners, the smell of the people themselves. She always ended up wondering if people were clean enough, especially when they offered you something to eat. She’d thought that round Big Sue’s house the other day. It was funny, too, after an hour or two somewhere, you stopped smelling their distinctive smell, as if you had yourself become part of it. And when you went home your own house would smell strange. Jane shook her head. Sometimes she thought she was obsessed with cleanliness.
Then Fran came in through the front door with Lyndsey and Jeff. Peter jumped off the bench and the kids greeted each other loudly, shouting out each other’s names over and over, banging arms and blunt bodies.
‘Oh. Morning, Jane. Kettle on?’ They sat at the table.
‘Tell them to be quiet. My head’s coming back.’
‘I think it’s still warm enough for them to play outside.’ Fran tightened up their anoraks and shooed them out. ‘Still feel rough?’
Jane nodded.
‘Never mind.’ Fran’s eyes were wide with a certain eagerness. She was brushing her wind-blown fringe away and ignoring the kettle as it gave out plumes of steam. ‘Nesta from next door has vanished.’
‘She’s what?’
‘They reckon she’s been kidnapped.’
‘I’m flabbergasted!’
‘Isn’t it awful?’ Despite herself, Fran started to laugh.
‘Well…’ Jane glanced backwards to see what the kids were up to. ‘At least you’ll have your milk to yourself in the future.’
Outside it was windy again. Lyndsey, Peter and Jeff were holding hands in a line, running around the tarmac play park, anoraks flapping as they tore into the wind, shrieking.
Now Ethan was taking the bus into Aycliffe again. He was all over the place these days. But always going back to Rose, he reflected. That was home to him now, her cosy house in the old part of Aycliffe. He could sell up his old place and the shop in Darlington, and cut all his ties. They needed the money for the wedding and the cruise. The cruise! A lovely, long, luxurious word. It made him think of… what? Water the colour of forget-me-nots, as far as the eye could see, and flying fish zipping about and keeping pace with the prow of the vast ship. Taking a stroll at sunset. Bingo and go-go dancers and buffets with as much as you can eat. Stopping off in dusty, exotic bazaars and buying souvenirs for next to nothing. The thought of the cruise they were planning to take together was more exciting, almost, than the thought of the marriage itself. He could see them playing tennis on the deck, both in pristine, freshly pressed whites. And he had two legs in his.
He did feel bad about Andrew. Until this morning he hadn’t given his nephew a great deal of thought in this. Now that he had seen him and gauged his reaction, the old man did have misgivings. Andrew looked so browbeaten. There was no zest in him, no desire to go out and challenge the world. Bless him, though, he’d lost his parents when he was, what? Eight? And God alone knew what that had done to him. Brought up by Ethan’s mother Jean and then, latterly, sort of looked after by himself. It’s a wonder the poor lad could function at all. He was always surrounded by old people, Ethan could see that now, and he wondered if they had done him damage, trying to get involved in his life. Well, anyway, he’d be looking after himself now. And he had friends. That bloke there this morning, he was a friend. It
