She leans forward to give me a hug, and when she pulls back, she looks at my chest and laughs. ‘Great to see you’ve made an effort too.’
I follow her gaze downwards. The T-shirt I picked up at random from my bedroom floor turns out to have the slogan PERVERT 69 emblazoned across the front.
‘Shit, sorry … I’ll change.’
Behind her, I can see a little brown car pulling out and disappearing up the road: Daff’s dad, Michael. I’d already met him and Daphne’s mum by this point – they’d come up to uni for a weekend at the end of first year.
‘Isn’t he coming in?’ I ask her.
She shakes her head. ‘No way, I sent him packing. Way too stressful to have the parents meeting each other as well. Maybe he can say hello later when he comes back to pick me up …’
She breaks off and grins over my shoulder. Mum is wandering through from the kitchen behind me, doing a frantic double-waving routine that is bordering on jazz hands and is presumably intended to waft away any meeting-the-mother awkwardness.
‘Hello! Hello! You must be Daphne!’ she beams as she dances towards her.
I’m sure I was absolutely mortified by this the first time round, but now it just makes me love Mum even more. She’s clearly nervous and desperate to make Daff feel welcome: I’ve spent the past few months talking about her pretty much non-stop, so Mum knows how big a deal this is.
‘Hello! Hi! Yes! You must be Rosie!’ Daff is doing the jazz hands back at her now, making them look like some kind of 1920s musical hall double act. Despite everything, I can feel a bubble of laughter rising to bursting point in my chest. I start doing the jazz hands too, and suddenly all three of us are laughing together.
‘It’s so lovely to finally meet you,’ Daff says, sticking out her hand for Mum to shake. Mum looks at it for a second, clearly thinks about taking it, then swats it away and pulls her in for a hug.
‘Sorry, sorry, embarrassing mother,’ she says, squeezing her tightly. And as Daff squeezes back, she shoots me a sideways glance that is pure excitement and happiness.
‘Anyway,’ Mum says, letting go of her, ‘come on through!’
Chapter Fifteen
We sit around the kitchen table, and I eat the salmon while they talk.
I’m not even particularly hungry, to be honest, but stuffing my face seems like a good excuse for not speaking, and right now, forming coherent sentences is proving to be way beyond my grasp.
I’m doing my best to keep it together, but the whole thing is just so insane. I thought I would never see Mum again, and now here she is – somehow – sitting centimetres away from me, chatting and laughing and telling me to please, for God’s sake, leave some salmon for everyone else. For the first time since I’ve been back here in the past, the confusion and fear is outweighed by sheer, mind-melting joy.
Mum was – is – an English teacher at the local secondary school. And at times like this, you can really tell. She bombards Daphne with questions about the English course at uni – which writers does she like best, which modules has she enjoyed most – and pretty soon the conversation blossoms to cover not just books but telly and music and whatever else. It’s a bit like watching a dream first date unravel in front of me, because they agree on literally everything: from Charlotte Brontë to Bob Dylan, Alan Partridge to Adrian Mole.
‘We’re doing medieval poetry this term, which is a bit of a slog,’ Daff says, as talk returns to uni. ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; all that sort of stuff. It’s a bit like being bored to death in a language you don’t fully understand.’
Mum laughs. ‘I see the exact same thing with my Year Elevens, groaning their way through Chaucer. You just know you’re putting them off reading for a good ten years. I almost want to slip a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy into their bags to try and restore their faith. I mean, reading is supposed to be fun, for goodness’ sake.’
Daff nods. ‘I’ve started sneaking Patricia Highsmith books into lectures, just to keep myself awake.’
Mum’s eyes light up at this. ‘Oh God, Patricia Highsmith! She’s brilliant, isn’t she? Mad as anything, but still: brilliant. Have you read Deep Water?’
Daff shakes her head, and Mum leaps up from her seat and darts into the living room, sending her voice back through in her absence. ‘It’s my absolute favourite, this one. There’s a chap whose wife is sleeping around on him, and so he starts … Well, no, I won’t spoil it. You’ll have to read it yourself.’
She comes back in, waggling a tattered copy of Deep Water.
‘Here, Daphne, take it with you now. I insist. Early Christmas present.’
Daff laughs. ‘Are you sure? That’s so nice of you.’
‘Yes, yes! I can buy another copy.’ This is typical my-mum behaviour. Most mothers force clumps of foil-wrapped food on their guests; she forces paperbacks.
She sits back down and smiles at me fondly. ‘Ben steadfastly refuses to read anything I give him. He’s far more keen on his mardy books.’
This comment has the effect of making me want to simultaneously laugh and cry, and I have to stuff another salmon square into my mouth to ensure I don’t do either. ‘Mardy books’ was a running joke between Mum and me: the books being the gloomy novels by Kafka and Jean-Paul Sartre that began to line my shelves around this time, and the ‘mardy’ being a
