by Lucy Diamond
Now in the kitchen, she rushed about, trying to get everything put away before the others walked in. Originally she’d assumed they’d all be travelling down to Cornwall together, but since George had been roped into bringing Seren along, he’d decided to drive his own car there too, claiming it would make life easier. Was it also his means of escape, she wondered, in case he wanted to make a quick getaway? A rush of nerves assaulted her in the next moment. What if her sister and friends were right, and this was all too much too soon? Would she and George still be quite so besotted with each other by the end of the fortnight?
‘I never expected to feel like this again,’ he had told her on Wednesday night. They’d been out to the cinema together and were back at her place, slotted around each other like spoons in the cutlery drawer as they lay in bed.
‘Me neither,’ she’d replied happily. Oh, so happily! ‘I honestly thought I was done with all that love and romance business. That it was a young person’s thing, and that I was far too cynical and jaded ever to go there again.’
He’d laughed, and it was warm and ticklish against the back of her neck. ‘Same. Who knew that we jaded old cynics would find each other? The perfect match!’
‘The perfect catch,’ she echoed. They had a tendency to be very cheesy with each other, she and George; the exact shade of mush she’d always turned her nose up about previously. How come she had never realized just how enjoyable it was to act like a complete sap? She couldn’t get enough of such behaviour these days.
It seemed hard to believe that it was only five months since they’d met, at Laura and Sam’s house-warming party. She hadn’t even been intending to go – she’d had one of those crazy weeks at work and had been thinking longingly of a pyjama-clad Friday night in, getting up close and personal with a bottle of gin and a box-set on the sofa – except that she’d bumped into Laura on her way back from the station and been nobbled. ‘See you about eight then?’ Laura had asked, after recounting details of the hours she’d spent preparing party food and play-lists. Only the most churlish of people could have said no.
Okay, so she would just stay for a bit, she’d vowed: long enough to be polite, before she went scuttling home to her pyjamas and sofa. Laura and Sam’s new house was a scant two streets away from her own, so at least it wasn’t as if she had to drag herself across town. ‘I’ll see you later,’ she promised the TV, before locking the back door and issuing the kids with strict instructions about remembering not to let in any paedophiles or murderers.
‘Burglars?’ Jack had asked. ‘Psychopaths?’
‘Them too,’ she said. ‘Especially if it’s Amanda from next door. Joking! Do not tell her I said that.’
Once at the party, she’d got chatting to George in the kitchen and found him so interesting and funny and handsome that she completely changed her mind about leaving early. A TV binge in pyjamas had never seemed less appealing. He kept making her laugh and his eyes were gorgeously dark and crinkled at the edges when he smiled. He smelled nice too, and she found herself pretending she couldn’t quite hear what he was saying a few times so that she could lean in closer and get a good whiff. Mmm. Delicious.
Before she knew it, the kitchen clock was showing midnight – how had that happened? It was the latest that Em had ever stayed out, without there being a responsible adult in the house with her kids. Despite text reassurances from Izzie (I’m still up watching Netflix anyway, it’s fine) and Jack (I punched a couple of paedos and shot the burglars, don’t worry, I got this, Mum), she decided, reluctantly, that she should head back. ‘Alas, Cinderella has to return home to her teenagers, who may or may not have been at my pathetic drinks cupboard,’ she confessed to George, weighing up whether she was drunk or brazen enough to ask for his phone number.
Sod it – nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that. ‘I was wondering . . .’ she began recklessly in the next moment, just as he said, ‘I don’t suppose I could have your number?’
They’d smiled at each other dreamily. Kapow! she thought, her heart thudding. Get in there, Cinders.
‘Wait,’ Jack was saying now. ‘Does George drive a shitty beige Volvo?’
Em shut the fridge door, sensing an imminent anticlimax. ‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s got a black BMW.’
‘False alarm,’ said Izzie with a snort of laughter. ‘Unless George has turned himself into a spoddy-looking woman, that is.’
‘I certainly hope not,’ Em said, coming to peer through the window with them at the small shared car park that was in view. Out of the car (Jack’s description of a ‘shitty beige Volvo’ turned out to be pretty accurate) emerged a tall, rather hunched-over woman in a dark-green anorak and corduroy trousers, with a faintly harassed air. She looked as if she was Em’s age, slightly older perhaps, with shaggy brown hair. ‘Nope,’ Em said, ‘that’s definitely not George.’
As the woman turned in their direction, Em dodged abruptly away from the window, embarrassed that she and her children were being so nosy. ‘Stop staring,’ she hissed, but then Jack murmured an approving ‘Excellent!’ and curiosity got the better of her. Peering over again, Em was just in time to see a teenage girl clamber out of the passenger seat with an air of resignation. The girl had long black hair that fell into her eyes and was wearing a ripped black vest-top, a bottle-green miniskirt and high-heeled DM boots. She folded her arms across her chest and took up the stance that Em recognized from her own two as Combative Teen, then said something they couldn’t hear.
‘Someone’s not happy,’ Izzie commented, glued to the scene.
Just then, as the three Hugheses gawped on, the girl noticed them and glared. Em ducked back again, mortified to have been caught snooping, but not before she saw the girl stretch out an arm and flip them the finger.
‘Whoa,’ cried Izzie. ‘Harsh.’
‘She is fit,’ said Jack, grinning back at her.
Oh God, thought Em, startled, was that actually a wink as well? Since when had her son shown the slightest bit of interest in girls? Until today she would have said that precisely nothing went on in his head other than football, YouTube, snacks and sleeping, but apparently he had turned into Casanova during the journey down from Cheltenham. Marvellous. She stared at him as if seeing him for the first time in months, noting the faint fuzz of hair that had recently sprouted along his jaw, as well as how broad his shoulders were these days. Blink and your children changed before your eyes. All of a sudden, he was half-boy, half-man. All hormones, apparently.
‘Gross,’ Izzie was telling him in disapproval. ‘Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to objectify girls?’
‘Clearly not explicitly enough,’ Em said. Oof, Jack getting the horn. Now she was imagining torturous holiday romances, a Romeo and Juliet between the barn conversions (were there any balconies? She hadn’t spotted any) and fumbly first kisses. She’d have to have a serious chat with him about responsibilities and respect. About not being a git to the opposite sex, like his dad, moreover.
Casanova, still smirking, slid down from his perch and headed for the kitchen, with what looked like a new swagger in his step. ‘Well, this place suddenly got a lot more interesting anyway,’ they heard him drawl, before adding in his normal voice, ‘Hey, Mum, can I open these crisps?’
‘I wish it was just going to be us,’ Izzie said in a quiet voice, before Em could reply to Jack. ‘Here, I mean. I wish the others weren’t coming.’
‘What? Oh!’ Now Em felt a pang of guilt. And surprise too, not least because on their last summer holiday, to Snowdonia, Izzie had barely wanted anything to do with her or Jack. Every time Em had tried to drag her out on a day-trip or off on a walk, she’d resisted, saying she just wanted to stay in the house that day; please, did she have to go? ‘Really? But I thought . . .’
‘I mean, we don’t even know this George bloke. I don’t want to sleep in a strange house with a random man hanging around.’
‘I’m opening the crisps then, I’m taking that as a yes,’ Jack bellowed fro
m the kitchen, but Em was too startled by Izzie’s words to pay him any proper attention.
‘I do know him and he’s not a random man,’ she replied, stung, ‘and he won’t be hanging around, either, he’ll be in with me, so—’
‘Yeah, and I’m not wildly happy about that, either, Mum.’ Izzie pursed her lips, her small pert nose in the air. She wound a thick lock of honey-coloured hair around her hand, then tossed it back over one shoulder. ‘Our rooms are right next to each other and I don’t want to hear anything, all right? It’s disgusting, at your age. It’s kind of desperate, too.’
At her age! Izzie made it sound as if Em was geriatric rather than in the prime of her middle years. That jibe about being desperate hurt too. Hardly! she wanted to cry in nettled self-defence. She had all but given up on men until George had come along and surprised her so delightfully; she had been fully prepared to see out her old age alone, nursing the remaining shreds of her dignity in spinsterly solitude. That was not what a desperate woman looked like, in Em’s opinion.
Nonetheless, Izzie’s words gave her pause for thought. I wish the others weren’t coming. Had Em made a colossal error in inviting George along? she wondered with renewed unease. Izzie and Jack spent so little time with her usually – they were out with friends, or playing for their hockey and football teams – that the three of them didn’t often socialize as a unit. She had anticipated – perhaps wrongly, admittedly – that they might want to do their own thing down in Cornwall too, sans Mum. Or had she been kidding herself on this front, so that she could throw herself into the arms of George, guilt-free?
‘I’m sure we’ll still do some things together, just the three of us,’ she promised, trying hastily to think of one. ‘George will have his daughter too, remember, who’s a bit younger and won’t be able to cope with long bike rides, for instance, so you, me and Jack could—’
‘Can I open this beer as well?’ yelled Jack from the kitchen. ‘Mum?’
‘No, you cannot – don’t you dare,’ she called back. ‘I’ve counted the bottles, before you get any ideas,’ she added for good measure. She gave Izzie a beseeching look, taking in the jut of her chin, the squaring of her shoulders. Izzie was sixteen now, and Em felt as if a countdown clock was permanently ticking in her head as her children grew up at seemingly astonishing speed. This might be the final holiday that her daughter would want to spend with them before opting for the wilder temptations of festivals and inter-railing with her mates in future summers. Em had been hoping for at least a few joyful, idyllic days together this time, to add to the photo albums and memory banks, but perhaps she’d been too ambitious. ‘Come on, love. It’ll be fine.’
‘Yeah, but . . .’ Izzie dug the toe of her trainer into the soft carpet, despite Em having told her several times to take her shoes off while they were inside the house. ‘It’s not the same, is it?’
‘Well . . .’ Em felt stumped. She wished they’d had this conversation earlier, back at home, rather than here, when George might appear at any moment. ‘I mean, Dad takes you on holiday with him and Michelle, doesn’t he, so . . .’
‘Yeah, but we like Michelle. She’s really cool.’
Ouch. Double-punch from Izzie. ‘What, and you don’t like George?’ she asked, feeling hurt on his behalf. How could anyone not like George? And – hello! – since when had Michelle, the Queen of Flammable Hair and inch-thick make-up, been ‘really cool’ anyway? It wasn’t all that long ago that Izzie was bitching and moaning about her, and Em, although aiming for detached neutrality, was secretly drinking in every delicious insult.
Izzie shrugged in a way Em couldn’t interpret. ‘He’s a bit . . . fake,’ she replied.
What, and Michelle wasn’t, with those new knockers and all that collagen in her face? Put her too close to a naked flame and she’d combust (with a bit of luck). ‘He is not!’ Em protested.
‘Yeah, he is. He’s like – too nice. I don’t trust him.’ Izzie’s face had sealed up like a tomb suddenly, her eyes down on the floor.
Em opened her mouth then shut it again, taken aback. Izzie had never even hinted at such feelings before. When did her children become such mysteries to her? Had she taken her eye off the ball with the distraction of being swept up in her own romance, and turned into one of those negligent, selfish parents she was always tutting about with her friends? ‘Well . . . look . . . You just don’t know him very well, that’s all. But I promise you—’
‘Exactly! We don’t know him. So why have you invited him on holiday with us? How do you think that makes me and Jack feel, shunted aside for your bloody love-life?’
Just then – of course it had to be just then, with their voices raised and a horrible un-holidayish tension in the air – there was a knock at the open door and George came in. ‘Hello! We made it,’ he said jovially, and Em’s heart almost stopped, both with panic at the conversation he’d just walked into, and at how extremely handsome he was, even after a five-hour drive with a seven-year-old. Look at him, so tall and tanned, in his pale-blue T-shirt and jeans, dropping an overnight bag to the floor with a grin. She couldn’t tell from his expression if he’d heard what Izzie had just said or not, though. Not, she hoped, her stomach tying itself in knots.
‘Whoop-dee-doo,’ muttered Izzie, stalking out of the room, while Em tried to gather herself with heroic effort.
‘You made it! Hello. Welcome to Cornwall,’ she said, rather stupidly, as if she owned the county. ‘I mean . . . Did you have a good journey? We’ve only been here half an hour or so ourselves. Hello, Seren,’ she added, as the little girl sidled in beside her dad, wheeling a small pink suitcase. Awkwardness forced Em’s face into a rictus smile and she crouched down, hoping that she sounded friendly and maternal. Don’t gush, she reminded herself. ‘Lovely to see you! We’re all set for a great holiday, aren’t we? Do you like the seaside?’
‘Not really,’ said Seren, lifting a shoulder as if she couldn’t care less about some old seaside.
George roared with laughter. ‘Of course she does,’ he said, ruffling her hair.
‘Yeah, I liked it when we went to the Bahamas with Mum, obviously,’ Seren said. ‘But . . .’ Her scathing look around the cottage was enough to get Em bristling. Er, excuse me, darling, but this cost me an arm and leg, so button it, she felt like saying. She didn’t, because she was rising above such things. Being the better person. Also because she was forty-four, and not seven herself, she remembered, plastering on a smile.
‘The Bahamas! Lucky you,’ she said. ‘Right then, drinks: can I get anyone a drink? Is it too early for wine?’ (She was desperate for wine.) ‘Not you, Seren, ha-ha,’ she went babbling on, ‘although I do have some squash, if you’re an orange-squash kind of girl.’
‘I’ll have wine,’ Jack said, appearing from the kitchen with a hopeful look on his face.
‘Not you, either,’ Em told him, and George laughed.
‘Nice try,’ he said, then came over and put his arms around her. All of a sudden Em found that she could breathe again. ‘Hello, holiday fun,’ he said.
‘Hello, good times,’ she replied, not caring how hokey they sounded. She hadn’t realized how much knotty tension she was holding in her shoulders until he was there, crushed against her. He smelled reassuringly scrumptious. It felt really good to have his arms around her, and her whole body went limp with relief in response. The drive, the worry, the argument with Izzie . . . it all melted away. Or most of it, anyway. She’d have to dissect Izzie’s words properly later, when she had some time to think. Ask her exactly what she meant and why she’d said it. But in the meantime she was too happy about George’s arrival to go there. ‘Is it me, or did the sun just get a touch brighter?’ she added cheesily. Five minutes he’d been here and she was already approaching peak fromage. Oh, who cared? Bring it on!
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Jack slap a hand to his face. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he groaned. ‘Please, Mum. There are children present. Children with sensitive disposition
s.’
She felt George’s laugh rumble against her and felt better than she had done all day. Lighter. ‘Come on through, both of you,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you around. Seren, do you need a wee? The loo’s just here . . .’
It was all going to be okay, she insisted to herself as she picked up the little pink suitcase and began leading them upstairs. The kids would adjust and settle down. They’d all muddle into the holiday together and have a great time. Of course they would!
Chapter Four
‘I’m going to the pool,’ Amelia called through from the hallway.
‘Oh. What, now? I thought we could—’ Maggie broke off as the door clicked shut and she sighed. ‘I thought we could look at the map together,’ she finished quietly to herself, spreading it out on the table. Maybe not. Less than an hour after arriving at their holiday cottage, her daughter couldn’t wait to get away from her, it seemed.
She smoothed a hand across the paper, trying not to feel rejected. She’d taught Amelia how to read maps from an early age, explaining to her about contour lines and grid references, how to interpret all the tiny symbols. Maggie prided herself on being a patient, encouraging teacher, letting a child’s interest guide the exploration, and had loved seeing her daughter work out routes across an Ordnance Survey charted landscape, her finger tracing lines between destinations. One of Amelia’s favourite games as a little girl had been to go on imaginary adventures around their house, using Maggie’s maps; it had delighted them both. The kitchen would become a lake or forest. The downstairs loo a cave or train station. The dining table an island off a rugged coastline that they’d have to swim to for lunch.