Lottie had decided, after much deliberation, that she was going to apply for a fine art course and had given up on English Literature, which seemed far too popular, and she hadn’t achieved the grades for anywhere she actually wanted to go. She had just enough points from her exams to apply for the degree course in art at Bristol University. Her application was very late, but when she’d rung the department they said they would consider her if she’d send in a portfolio of her work.
‘You know,’ Lottie said, sitting back in her chair. ‘There are advantages to Dad not being here. He’d never agree to this – he wouldn’t want me to take an art degree. He’d say it wasn’t academic enough. It’s rather nice to be able to follow my heart without being scared of what he says all the time.’
‘He’s going to need to pay your tuition and accommodation fees,’ Sara pointed out.
‘Oh. Bugger. Do you think he will?’
‘Oh yes,’ Sara said, smiling. ‘I think he’ll fall over himself to pay. You might even be able to squeeze a flat out of him.’
‘Mother! What a dreadful thing to say! And for all your high words about not taking a penny from him.’
‘That’s me. Not you.’
‘OK. I’m cool with that.’
Sara had let Lottie type out her CV first, for the ‘facts relevant to this application’ section, and then laughed out loud as she read back Lottie’s comments under ‘additional qualifications’.
‘I’m not sure Life Saving Grade Two is all that relevant,’ Sara pointed out.
‘But it said “qualifications”,’ Lottie argued. ‘And I haven’t got many.’
‘You must be able to think of something more relevant than being able to float on your back using a pair of blown-up pyjamas.’
‘It’s a jolly useful skill,’ Lottie said, giggling. ‘Shall I put BAGA gymnastics Grade Three?’
‘No.’
‘Filling a blue egg with coins for the NSPCC and getting a badge?’
‘No.’
‘Grade One piano?’
‘Is that all you got to?’
‘Yes. You never made me practise enough.’
‘Of course it would be my fault, darling. Come on. You must have something else you can put down. Move over.’ Obligingly, Lottie shifted up so Sara was directly in front of the laptop, and then got up to pour them both another glass of the Cloudy Bay. Sara wondered briefly if they should have typed out the application before they started drinking, but it was too late now. She did seem to have become much fonder of wine, and she wondered if this was a good thing. She decided, on balance, it was – but she must be careful not to start drinking alone.
After five minutes, as Sara typed, Lottie became bored and wandered away. When she came back, she read the information over her mother’s shoulder. ‘Wow. I sound really cool. I’d give me a place.’
‘Well, let’s hope they will. Now, where else have you put down on this application?’
‘Warwick. Then two other duff places, I hope they don’t send me an offer.’
‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ Sara said, and then regretted it.
‘Beggar, am I?’ Lottie said crossly, holding her cool wine glass against her cheek.
‘You know I didn’t mean that. If you get an offer from any of these I’ll be thrilled.’
‘You only went to Manchester,’ Lottie pointed out snippily. ‘Not Oxford.’
‘I met your father there, though, didn’t I?’
‘Imagine what your life would have been like if you hadn’t met him. You might have had an amazing career. You might have been like a novelist, or something.’
‘Unlikely. I don’t think I ever really had the talent. I’m good at organizing, but I’m not very creative. You know, sometimes I do regret not having a real career. I was only twenty-four when I got married – I’d only been out of university for two years, and I was earning peanuts. It made sense to start working for Matt, and then when I had you two – I just couldn’t imagine handing you over to a nanny. Matt didn’t want that, either. So my brilliant career just never happened.’ She smiled. ‘I don’t really regret it, you know. I wouldn’t have given up those years when you were young for the world. It’s the greatest joy, to see your children grow. I’m really lucky that I could be at home – I mean, there were times when your dad’s business looked like it was going to go bump and I thought I’d have to go back to work full time, but Matt was never keen. Anyway, how can I regret the fact that I met Matt? You wouldn’t be here, for a start, if I hadn’t,’ Sara pointed out practically. ‘So we can hardly say it’s a bad thing, can we?’
Lottie reached forward, her eyes scanning the application, and then she hit the ‘send’ key.
‘That’s me done,’ she said. ‘Now, what about you?’
‘What do you mean, what about me?’
‘What are you going to do?’ Lottie sounded out each word, as if talking to a very small child.
‘Oh.’
‘You need a job. You said you did. You can’t just potter about here.’
‘I know. It’s just with the cottage, and all the renovations . . .’
‘You are prevaricating,’ Lottie said, firmly. ‘You can’t just drift about, Mother. You’re only forty-nine. You’re not old enough to retire. Besides, if you’re not prepared to accept handouts from Dad, you have to face the fact that you need to earn money. Get out in the real world, like the rest of us. Do an honest day’s toil. You are no longer a kept woman.’
‘Lottie,’ Sara said patiently. ‘Since when have you lived in the real world? The only job you’ve ever done was being a waitress and then you only lasted a week. Anyway, I’m not forty-nine. I’m fifty.’
‘No!’
‘I was fifty when you were at Gran’s. She rang me. She assumed you had remembered and sent me a card or at least rung, and I didn’t want to disillusion her.’
‘God, no!’ Lottie put her hand to her mouth, in shock. ‘What evil children we are! We forgot your fiftieth birthday! Em too?’ Sara nodded. Emily’s lack of acknowledgement had been far more deliberate, she thought – it was much more like Lottie to simply forget. Lottie had been known to forget her own birthday. Strangely, what had hurt most of all was the lack of contact from Matt. He loved birthdays. She had once accused him of acting as if every day was his birthday, in that he relished finding excuses, any excuse, to splash out on a gorgeous present, open a bottle of champagne and take her out for a delicious meal.
On her fortieth birthday he’d flown her to Paris in a private plane and taken her to lunch at one of the city’s most exclusive restaurants, in a five-star Relais Château hotel. There he had presented her with a small black velvet box. Inside was an exquisite eternity ring, made from white gold, inset with diamonds.
‘Bit bling,’ he admitted, cheerfully. ‘But it’s not every day you get to be so ancient. You know what this means,’ he added, slipping the ring over her wedding finger, having first taken off her wedding and engagement rings. He then slid them back on, one by one. ‘This means you can never leave me. This binds you to me for eternity. Or at least until one of us kicks the bucket, which is most likely to be me, given the amount I smoke and drink. But then I can haunt you until you join me. I fancy a marble and slate mausoleum with side-by-side coffins. And a huge angel on top. With outspread wings.’ He put his head on one side, and grinned. ‘What do you think? Perhaps a little too ostentatious?’
She reached over to touch his face, and he leant against her fingers. ‘It sounds perfectly dreadful,’ she said.
‘Take note,’ he said, sitting back and taking a long drink of the exquisite wine he had chosen. ‘I want the whole works when I go. Black horses, great big plumes on their heads, a carriage, the whole shebang. I’m trusting you, you know. No fake wood coffin and a discreet little service. And don’t you dare take me back up north. I want to be buried in London. Somewhere smart.’
‘But I want to be buried in Yorkshire. In the church, where we were married.�
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‘Tough,’ he said, smiling. ‘You’re staying with me. I’ll have it written into my will.’
‘Mum, you’re miles away. What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing.’ Sara brushed away a tear, embarrassed.
‘Hey! You’re crying. I’m so sorry, it was so thoughtless of me, Emily too . . .’
‘It’s not that.’
‘It’s Dad, isn’t it? Did he forget?’
‘I doubt he forgot,’ Sara said. ‘Look, darling, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a day. It’s not important.’
‘Please don’t do that poor little me I’m so unimportant thing,’ Lottie said crossly. ‘It’s bollocks. It does matter and tomorrow we’re going into Fowey and I am going to buy you a very belated massive present.’
‘Do you have any money?’
‘No, obviously, you’ll have to lend it to me but I promise I will buy you something great.’
Sara laughed.
‘Did you get a card from anyone?’
‘Granny, Catherine, a few friends.’
‘I bet Catherine sent you an obscenely huge bunch of flowers.’
‘She did.’
‘With a note saying, “Chin up, darling, we love you”?’
‘Spot on.’
‘What happened to the flowers?’
‘They died.’
‘Dad always used to send you pink roses, didn’t he?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Why was that?’
‘A silly private joke, really. He went out to buy me red roses when Emily was born, but he couldn’t find any and he ended up at a garage, where he bought me some grotty pink ones which were turning brown and looked like they’d been trodden on by an exceptionally hefty horse. It kind of went on from there.’
‘You did really love each other, didn’t you?’ Lottie sounded wistful.
Sara looked at her, surprised. ‘Of course we did. That will never change, Lottie, no matter what happens. What’s happened doesn’t affect the way we were, and I don’t think you should look back and think our time together has been . . .’
‘A waste?’
‘Not a nice thought, but yes, I suppose so.’
‘Are you going to work?’
‘If I can find something I enjoy and I’m good at, then of course I will. I can’t just sit around.’
‘I know you won’t.’
‘I feel a bit drunk, you know I’m hopeless with wine. I ought to go to bed.’
‘Me, too.’
‘You go ahead. I’ll put Hector out and clear up. Good night, darling.’
Lottie leant forward for a kiss. ‘You suit it here,’ she said, looking into her mother’s eyes.
‘Do I?’
‘Yes,’ said Lottie sleepily. ‘You look very peaceful. Younger, too.’
‘Catherine said something like that.’
‘But only a tiny bit younger,’ Lottie said, turning on the narrow stairs, holding her finger and thumb a centimetre apart.
Sara laughed. ‘That much? Wow. Goodnight.’
‘Night. Love you more.’
Chapter Ten
‘This place is going to be heaving in summer,’ Lottie said as they wandered from shop to shop, peering in the windows, zigzagging across the narrow main street which ran through the centre of Fowey. They had had to take a little car ferry to get there, which Lottie loved. She loved the fact that the man in the peaked cap who took your ticket charged you ten pence more if he thought you were a tourist. For the first three trips, before Lottie had arrived, Sara had been charged two pounds and twenty pence, but then on the fourth trip the charge had mysteriously fallen to two pounds ten pence.
‘That means you’re being accepted,’ Lottie said. ‘You’re a local yokel.’
As they floated slowly across the narrow estuary, Lottie wound down the passenger window, resting her elbow on the top of the car door. To her right a huge grey metal ship was moored, a freight liner, with vivid orange stains running down its prow. Beneath the towering keel bobbed several motorboats, anchored to yellow buoys, rising and falling with the tide. The air smelt of salt, and fish, and overhead the gulls wheeled, calling. Small sailing boats chugged up and down the narrow channel, and a sight-seeing passenger boat steamed past the ferry, the cabin crowded with people. A group of teenagers waved at the ferry from the car park on the opposite bank, as they drew near. Lottie waved back.
‘This is, without a doubt, my favourite place,’ she said, ten minutes later, licking clotted cream from the top of a vanilla cone. ‘The other seaside towns round here are a bit “kiss me quick” for my taste.’
‘You’re becoming a dreadful snob. Look out,’ Sara said, as a car inched past them.
At first she had thought that cars were banned from the town, as the roads were barely a car’s width, but already a steady stream of vehicles had passed them, meaning that the pedestrians had to press themselves up against the walls. ‘I wonder how many people get their feet run over?’ Sara said.
‘I think you need to get out more,’ Lottie said. ‘Come on. I want to show you this really wicked shop I discovered when you were getting the ice-creams. I’m sure it’s going to have something even you will like.’
The shop in question had a gaily-painted front window, full of the kind of clothes Lottie loved – strappy little tops, baggy shorts, mini skirts designed to hang low on the waist, brightly coloured flip-flops and cheap, colourful jewellery. Clothes for teenagers and twentysomethings to hang out in, surfer summer clothes for the beach.
‘This isn’t my kind of place,’ Sara said, looking in. ‘Far too young. It’s great for you, though.’
‘Nope,’ Lottie said. ‘This is your missed birthday, not mine. They’ve got some clothes for the more mature lady at the back.’ Sara punched her lightly on the arm.
On racks at the back of the shop were, indeed, some more expensive-looking and generally more subtle clothes. The majority were made of linen, in washed greys, pale oranges and blues, Sara’s favourite colours. Hesitantly, she fingered the material of a pair of wide linen trousers. She realized she hadn’t bought herself anything at all to wear since she had left Matt. She hadn’t cared in the slightest what she looked like, just pulling on whatever was nearest and vaguely clean, usually the same pair of jeans, teamed with a baggy T-shirt or sweatshirt, depending on the weather.
One thing she had noticed recently, however, with a sense of pleasure, was how loose her clothes were becoming. Walking Hector every day on the cliffs, she found she could climb far more easily – reaching the top of the hill, which had left her exhausted and breathless in the first few weeks at the cottage, now barely seemed an effort, and she was rarely out of breath during the entire walk. Nor was she snacking in the way she used to – initially, she had had to force herself to eat, because it seemed so pointless and she had no appetite. Now she was beginning to enjoy her food again – the halibut Lottie had grilled last night had been delicious. But she had lost that rather greedy anticipation of food she used to have when she was living with Matt, when she would wake each morning, and lie in bed for a few minutes planning what they were all going to eat that day. Being at home, pottering around the kitchen so much of the time meant that she seldom passed the fridge without peering in, popping a ball of ham into her mouth, or lifting the lid off the biscuit tin in one of the cupboards, when she sat down to have a coffee. Matt loved good food too, although he never ate puddings, and didn’t put on weight because he had such a fast metabolism and went jogging most mornings. But just looking at a carbohydrate seemed to make her fatter, especially in the last ten years, or so. Growing old, she thought, wasn’t fair at all – food made you fat, coffee gave you a hot flush and just a few glasses of wine produced a hangover.
The linen trousers slid easily over her hips. Fastening the zip, she realized they were far too baggy. ‘Look at this,’ she called to Lottie, having put her head around the changing-room door. Lottie, who was holding a little white top decorated with pink ro
ses against herself, put it back on the rail, reluctantly, and walked over. ‘What?’ She slid into the changing room and closed the door behind her.
‘Too big!’ Sara said, with some pride, holding the waistband inches away from her stomach.
‘Blimey, Mother,’ Lottie said. ‘So they are. I’ll get a smaller size.’
Sara could not remember having been a smaller size for – what – five years? Ten? More? Sliding the trousers off, she looked at herself, critically. In the unforgiving neon light her thighs were still dimpled with cellulite and there was a pad of fat above each knee, but her thighs were definitely slimmer, and her stomach was flatter. She stood up straighter, pulling in her stomach muscles. Goodness – it was nearly flat. She could never remotely be called skinny, but she looked strong, and healthy. She leaned forward, and examined her face in the mirror. Her skin was lightly tanned and freckled, the slight colour making her wrinkles less obvious. She smiled, and the skin at the sides of her eyes creased into crow’s feet, but the skin beneath her eyes was definitely less baggy. She did look better. She ran a hand through her hair. She ought to get it cut, it was falling past her shoulders. Then she thought, I suit it longer. She had always told herself that long hair was for younger women but now she could see that it softened her features. It did need more shape, though – she’d like some layers at the front to frame her face. I’ll book an appointment, she thought. I know exactly what I want.
‘Try these.’ Lottie’s disembodied hand appeared around the door. Sara slid the smaller size pale grey trousers over her hips, and could have cheered as she pulled up the zip without difficulty.
‘Are you decent?’ Lottie asked, through the door.
‘Yup.’
Lottie pushed it open, and she stood with Sara, looking at her reflection. They both smiled. The trousers were definitely flattering, if rather too long.
‘They’ll be OK in heels,’ Lottie said. ‘You always wear your trousers too short. That’s an old-person thing to do. They ought to brush against the ground.’
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