by Imogen Clark
Noah, always curious about anything new, appeared in the hallway and then stuck so closely to Clio’s side that he was making it difficult for her to walk. I told him gently to give her some space, but Clio just smiled at him and ruffled his mad curls. Poppy was now curled up in an armchair and I saw her eyeing this stranger suspiciously.
‘Poppy,’ I said, my tone containing a veiled warning. ‘This is Clio.’
Poppy nodded at her but didn’t smile. I wanted her to buck her ideas up but I was reluctant to tell her off in front of the visitor, so I let the rudeness pass and hoped that Clio hadn’t noticed.
‘Please, sit down,’ I said.
I gestured towards the sofa, swooping in to straighten the throw so that the patch where the upholstery had worn through was covered. ‘Can I get you a drink? Tea? Coffee? Wine?’ I nodded at my own glass. I hoped she didn’t say coffee or tea because then I’d have to switch and I’d been looking forward to my glass of wine all day.
‘Wine would be great,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
That was all right then. I slipped into the kitchen to get a second glass and the bottle and I could hear Clio talking to Noah. Noah’s not like Poppy – he’ll talk to anyone who’ll listen, and when I got back to the lounge, he had sat himself so close to Clio that he was virtually on her lap and the pair of them were poring over the SpongeBob SquarePants annual that I’d bought him for Christmas. It looked like he was reading, but actually I knew he was just remembering all the words. I leaned over them both and passed the filled glass to Clio. She reached for it, gave me a grateful smile and then took a serious swallow. Well, I knew what that felt like.
I settled myself down on the arm of the sofa so I didn’t crowd Clio and Noah.
‘So, you’re still not any wiser about this holiday house thing?’ I asked her.
Clio shook her head. ‘No. I haven’t got a clue. When I arrived this morning I was sure that this was the right street but now I’m totally confused. I know we definitely came to Whitley Bay once. We generally went away to the south of France or sometimes to Barbados, so coming here kind of stood out because . . .’ She stopped mid-sentence, her cheeks colouring again. She certainly had a talent for putting her foot in it.
‘Because Whitley Bay is such a crap place next to the Caribbean?’ I suggested.
‘I was thinking more that it was different to what we usually did,’ clarified Clio with the skill of a diplomat, ‘and so more memorable.’
Her little faux pas didn’t bother me. It was obvious that Whitley Bay would be a bit of a let-down after Barbados.
‘Anyway, I just woke up this morning and thought I’d come and try to find it,’ Clio finished.
‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Shame you’ve had no luck. Have you come far?’
Clio shook her head. ‘Not really. I live in Hartsford. Do you know it?’
I’d never heard of it. What with work and the kids I barely ever got out of town. A day out was usually a trip to the MetroCentre or into Newcastle.
‘It’s a little village just west of Morpeth,’ Clio explained, but I was no wiser.
I took a mouthful of my wine which somehow drained my glass. I poured myself another, offering Clio the bottle.
‘I really shouldn’t,’ said Clio, but she held her glass out nonetheless and I topped it up. I got the impression that she wanted to talk but was reluctant to do so in front of the kids, and I fancied a bit of adult chat.
‘Right then, Noah,’ I said. ‘It’s your bedtime. Run him a bath, would you, Poppy?’
I worried that Poppy might object and make a scene, but she just unfurled herself from the chair and pounced on Noah, making him squeal.
‘I’ll be up in a minute,’ I called out as Poppy chased the squeaking Noah up the stairs.
‘They’re lovely children,’ said Clio.
‘Oh, they have their moments, believe me,’ I said, but a little torch of pride burned inside me. They were lovely and I could take all the credit for that. ‘Do you have kids?’
Clio shook her head. ‘I’m not married. Not really found anyone that would have me,’ she said with a sad little smile. ‘I would like children, though. One day, hopefully.’
‘I’m not married either,’ I said with a wink. ‘Poppy’s dad left me when Her Majesty came calling. He didn’t murder anyone!’ I added, seeing Clio’s eyes go as wide as saucers. ‘But he was a nasty piece of work. He went down for drug dealing in the end, but they could have got him for any number of things. Poppy’s never met him but it’s no great loss, to be honest. Noah’s dad – well, that was different. He’s a nice bloke but it just didn’t work out. He’s still around, though. Takes Noah out sometimes, pumps him full of E numbers and brings him back, the usual story.’
Clio didn’t look as if this was at all usual in her world and I wondered why I was giving a stranger so many details, but it didn’t feel at all awkward, and anyway, it was so long since I’d had a decent adult conversation that didn’t revolve round work or school that I was just happy to chat. The wine helped, too.
‘What do you do?’ I asked. Clio looked confused. ‘For a job, I mean,’ I clarified.
Clio shuffled a little in her seat and focused on the contents of her glass, twisting the stem round in her fingers.
‘I don’t have a job, as such,’ she said. ‘I’ve never really found anything that appealed.’
Now it was my turn to be confused.
‘You just on the Social then?’ I asked, though I’d rarely seen anyone who looked less like they claimed benefits.
Clio laughed, loudly at first and then, when she realised that she might be causing offence yet again, turned it into more of a shrug.
‘I still live at home, with my mother,’ she said. ‘She gives me an allowance. God, does that sound ridiculous? It does. I know it does. I’m thirty-two years old and I’m living with my mother. I mean, it’s a big house. I have my own part of it with my own kitchen and . . .’
I had to fight to stop my mouth falling open.
‘I’m making this worse, aren’t I?’ she said. ‘I am your archetypal spoilt rich kid. My mother is a baroness. I went to the best school money can buy, I live in a huge house with staff to tend to my every requirement. I’ll inherit half a fortune eventually. And despite all that, I’m still not happy. I’m what you might call a total waste of air.’ A tear or two trickled down her cheek but she brushed them away. ‘God. Sorry. What must you think of me? I’m so sorry. I should just go.’
I’d never met a proper rich person before. I mean, it’s not like we were on the poverty line or anything. We did okay. But servants? That was in a different league.
‘Don’t be daft,’ I said. ‘Stay where you are.’
I reached for a box of tissues, slightly squashed from when Noah had tried to karate chop it in half, and passed it to Clio, who plucked one out and blew her nose in a most unladylike manner that made me laugh, but I tried to stifle it so she didn’t think badly of me. For some reason that I couldn’t understand at the time, I really wanted her to like me.
‘I’m not normally like this,’ said Clio, screwing the tissue into a ball and thrusting it into her jeans pocket. ‘My father died unexpectedly a few weeks ago. That’s why I’m here, I suppose. It was he that brought us, my brother and me, to Whitley Bay. I just wanted to be in a place that I went to with him. Silly really.’
‘My mum died,’ I said, pleased to have found some common ground with Clio even if it was us both having a dead parent. ‘Not recently,’ I continued. ‘It was years ago, but a thing like that can spin you off track. It took me quite a while to find my way again.’ My mind bounced to Poppy upstairs, the happy result of my spinning off track. ‘But I got there in the end. I’m sure you will too,’ I added. Although I had nothing at all to base this judgement on, somehow it felt true.
‘Your mother?’ said Clio. ‘How awful for you. That must have been dreadful.’
‘I’ve had better times,’ I said with a shrug. �
��But I survived.’
Clio nodded like she was making a decision to start moving on from her father’s death there and then.
‘God, how very morbid of me,’ she said, looking up at the ceiling and blinking away the remaining tears. Then a picture on the wall caught her eye. ‘Is that the Maldives? I love the Maldives. Which island is it?’
My insides clenched. She looked a bit harder but then when she realised that it wasn’t a photo at all but a picture cut from a magazine she looked a little embarrassed. She’s going to think I’m a right idiot, I thought. I mean, who frames pictures of places they’ve never been to? But I did. And I swapped them every couple of months. It was like a travel agent’s on my living room wall, a tick list of the places that I was going to visit when . . . When what? When the kids grew up and left home? When I won the lottery? When hell froze over?
‘It’s Velassaru,’ I said. I felt my head cock to one side ready to challenge her if she took the mick, even though I really didn’t want to come across that way, but she didn’t seem at all thrown by it.
She looked more closely. ‘The Maldives are so beautiful,’ she said. ‘The sand is the whitest you can ever imagine and so unbelievably fine. It’s like walking on flour.’
‘Have you actually been?’ I asked, all my embarrassment at having been caught with my little pictures gone. ‘I don’t know anyone that’s been outside Europe. What’s it like?’
‘Well,’ said Clio. ‘I haven’t been to that specific island. The whole country is just lots of tiny islands like this one. I forget the name of the one I went to.’
I couldn’t believe it. Fancy going to somewhere as beautiful as that and then not bothering to remember the name of it. If I ever got a chance to go I’d know the square metreage, the population figures and probably the name of the man who drove the taxi – not that there were any taxis. Boat then.
‘But yes,’ Clio continued. ‘It was just like that. We had one of those little houses on stilts over the sea.’
‘What happens when the tide comes in?’ I asked. I’d often wondered about that. If I were to build a little house on the beach at the end of our road it would be underwater twice a day.
‘I didn’t think about that,’ said Clio and she screwed her face up while she tried to remember. ‘I’m not sure there really was a tide, not like we have here anyway. The sea pretty much stayed where it was. It was so warm, though. It’s literally like swimming in a bath. And the fish! Tiny little darty things in the brightest colours you’ve ever seen and then big ones too. And turtles. I even saw some sharks when we were diving.’
‘You went diving? Scuba diving? Wow! What was that like?’
Clio paused as she searched for words. ‘It’s just incredible. The water is so warm that you don’t need a wetsuit and the reefs are totally unspoiled. It’s just you and the fish and the sound of the coral popping and your breathing in your ears. You must go.’
Yeah right, I thought, but I didn’t say anything because I could tell she meant well.
Clio looked at my other pictures, all postcard sized and framed in cheap frames that I’d picked up from Ikea. She nodded as she identified them in turn. ‘Paris, Sydney, Niagara Falls, Red Square. I’ve not been there. I really don’t fancy it. I’ve never quite trusted the Russians since I read Gorky Park. Have you read it?’
I shook my head, hoping it looked like I’d read loads of books but just hadn’t read that particular one.
‘Well, don’t if you’re planning to visit. So is this like a bucket list?’
It was, and I nodded. For as long as I could remember people had been scornful about my dreams and plans, but Clio didn’t seem to see my picture gallery as anything to laugh at.
‘What a great way to do it,’ she continued. ‘Most people just have a list hidden away on an app somewhere, not actual pictures to remind you of your dreams every day. Where’s first?’
If I was being totally honest, the chance of getting to any of these places was so small that a detailed pecking order wasn’t something I’d ever thought about.
‘Paris, I suppose,’ I said. ‘It’s the nearest and the cheapest to get to. But really I want to visit the rainforests of Central America first. I saw a documentary about it. Did you know that there are six kinds of forest in Costa Rica? Rainforest, cloud forest, tropical dry, mangrove . . .’ I wracked my brains for the remaining two but they had escaped. ‘I forget the others, but isn’t that amazing?’
Clio nodded. ‘I just thought a rainforest was a rainforest,’ she said with a grin.
‘Have you been there, to Costa Rica?’ I asked. I was feeling a little giddy now that I had access to someone who had been to all the places that I was dying to see, but Clio shook her head.
‘I did a week’s all-inclusive in Mexico once but that’s the nearest.’
‘Mexico! That’s another one. And Peru. I think ancient civilisations are dead fascinating.’
‘Well, we have some of those in Europe,’ she said. She sounded like a history teacher all of a sudden. ‘Rome. Pompeii! You must see that. I went with school. The whole place is preserved. There’s even a couple who were having sex when the lava fell. Hilarious! Well, not if you were them, of course. And Greece.’
And then suddenly the enormity of everything I wanted to see and the infinitesimally small chance of it ever happening suddenly fell heavy on my shoulders.
‘It’s silly really,’ I said, turning my back on the pictures. ‘I’m a cleaner. Where am I going to get the money to see all these places?’
Clio shrugged. ‘But at least you have a plan. Most people just bumble along from one week to the next letting stuff happen to them. I mean, look at me. Yes, I’ve travelled but only because my friends were going and I could tag along. I’ve never picked a place to go and researched it like you do. I think that’s wonderful.’
My cheeks were burning.
‘Thanks,’ I said quietly.
‘God, look at the time,’ said Clio, flashing a very expensive-looking watch with what looked like a real gold strap. ‘I must go. I promised Marlon that I wouldn’t ring him later than eight.’
‘Is he your fella then?’ I asked, but Clio laughed.
‘Marlon? God, no. He works on the estate, but he dropped me off this morning and said he’d come back and collect me when I was finished. He’s such a sweetie. Remind me to introduce him to you. I think you’d like him. He’s picking me up by that big white building on the seafront.’
‘Spanish City,’ I said, and Clio nodded.
‘It’s been so lovely meeting you,’ Clio said. ‘And the children, of course. Thank you for inviting me in. I’m sorry about the whole “I used to come here” business. I’m obviously miles off the mark on that one. But I’m so glad that I knocked on your door because if I hadn’t we would never have met.’
‘Me too,’ I said, and I meant it.
As I closed the door on Clio I could hear the water splashing in the bath upstairs and Noah squealing.
‘Right, you two!’ I shouted up the stairs. ‘I’m coming up there and I want Noah out of that bath in ten seconds.’ Another squeal and a huge splash came from the bathroom. Bless them. My grand plans were one thing but right then I was perfectly happy with what I had under my own roof.
It was only later, when I was taking off my make-up, the kids tucked up and fast asleep, that I realised that even though I’d told Clio more about myself than I’d shared with anyone else for years, I’d probably never see her again. She’d just wandered out of my life as easily as she had wandered into it.
4
CLIO – NOW
It was her! It hadn’t really crossed Clio’s mind that the same family would be living in the house, although when she thought about it, it wasn’t really that surprising. Her own family hadn’t moved house for hundreds of years. To be fair, there had been nothing to suggest that the woman was Melissa’s daughter until she had said her name. Leah. Clio had recognised it at once from the entries in her
father’s notebook. It was a relatively unusual name. Surely there could be no mistake?
Clio fondled the ears of the aged Labrador who sat in a heap at her feet, enjoying running her fingers over their velvety softness. How annoying it would be to have someone fiddling with your ears like that, she thought, but he seemed to enjoy it. Years of practice, no doubt. The dog, Mozart, had been her father’s, bought shortly after he had been made leader of the orchestra and had stopped being away from the Hall as much. The pair of them had become inseparable and Mozart was still pining for his master, not really understanding, Clio assumed, why he had disappeared so suddenly. Clio knew that the dog was unlikely to live much longer himself and she swallowed down a gulp as she tried to banish the thought of yet more death at the Hall.
Leah had been great. She was everything that Clio would want in a friend. Vivacious, kind-hearted, determined and open to new ideas in a way that was less common than you’d imagine. Before they had met, a little part of Clio had hoped that Leah would be sullen and unlikeable; that would have made the situation easier to deal with, but in her heart she was delighted to have been proved wrong. And Leah’s children were charming too. They were all lovely.
Clio slumped deeper into the feathery sofa and hugged her knees into her chest. In fact, Leah’s whole set-up made her feel even more inadequate than she had before. Yes, her father had recently died but that aside, Clio’s life was entirely charmed. So why did she feel so empty so much of the time? The only solution must be some fault in her personality. Clio knew this to be true. She had had every advantage in life and yet here she was, doing nothing and going nowhere. Looked at from that angle, meeting Leah just enhanced her overall feelings of pointlessness.