by Lucy Diamond
‘I mean, why does Freya even give her that crap? Is she trying to brainwash her? For an educated, intelligent woman, she can be a bit stupid sometimes, don’t you think?’
‘Don’t you dare say that to her! And how do you know Freya even bought her the Barbies in the first place? They might have been presents from someone else.’
Molly snorted. ‘No daughter of mine will ever play with dolls like that. No way.’
‘Right, well, good luck to you with that one. Sometimes daughters do have minds of their own, you know. Sometimes daughters even ignore the wisdom of their poor, long-suffering mothers, believe it or not.’
Molly rolled her eyes and put her hand in the shape of a beak, opening and shutting. Quack, quack, quack. Whatever. ‘Mum, I just want to stay in London. Why can’t I stay?’
And they’d come full circle. ‘Because you can’t,’ Harriet said distractedly, selecting the series link for The Great British Bake-Off and the sexy detective drama she was addicted to (thank goodness the Sky box didn’t judge a person on their taste).
‘Because I can’t? Is that all you can come up with? That’s really lame, Mum. You’ll have to do better than that. Why can’t I just go to Dad’s?’
Ahh. There was the rub. Because your dad is a tosser who’s heading off to France next week, perhaps? Because he doesn’t seem remotely interested in you, however many times you or I text or call him? Harriet sighed. ‘They’re moving, remember,’ she said gently.
Molly shrugged, but the hurt was visible in her face. ‘I could help them?’
It was heartbreaking, it really was, just how many times a parent could be a shitbag and a child would forgive them, in the hope that everything would change. And Simon simply didn’t get that. He genuinely didn’t seem to understand that he was doing anything wrong. Why didn’t he care more? Why couldn’t he register that their daughter had a full set of intense raw emotions, not to mention hormones rampaging around her teenage body?
Harriet found herself thinking of Molly as a little girl, back when she and Simon were still together. Molly had lived in a joyful, sunlit world, singing and dancing all the time, with umpteen imaginary friends and games. Laughing. She was always laughing. Great gurgling peals as if she found delight in every corner of the universe. She had four favourite dolls – Rosy, Posy, Pinkerbell (don’t ask) and Benny – all loyal companions, with their own personalities, who went everywhere with her. But after Simon left, the laughter ceased. The imaginary friends vanished, even though Harriet asked after them longingly, probably more times than she should have. Molly stopped chattering on about everything and became more fearful, having bad dreams and wetting the bed. Then Harriet had found Rosy, Posy, Pinkerbell and Benny stuffed head down in the kitchen bin one day, along with the potato peelings and empty fish packets and old teabags, and she thought her heart might actually break.
However hard Harriet had tried to fill her daughter up with love, Molly had never quite been the same girl again. There was a sliver of sadness and abandonment locked deep into her soul and Harriet didn’t think she would ever forgive Simon for leaving it there. Not that he had any idea, of course. There was only one important person in Simon World.
‘Mum?’ Molly prompted now when Harriet didn’t reply immediately. ‘Why don’t I help them?’
There were so many reasons why this was a bad idea and Harriet turned away from the screen to give her daughter her full attention. They could be here all morning otherwise and she had a hundred other things to sort out before they could load up the car and leave. ‘Sweetheart, let’s give them a chance to settle in, then I can sort out a date for you to go over there and spend some proper time with your dad. Maybe the end of the holidays, or even the autumn half-term. But not now. Not today when we’re meant to be going to Devon in less than an hour. Go and finish your packing.’
‘But—’
‘Look, we’re going, okay? Robert’s mum is having a hard time after Alec died, so we’ve got to support her.’
Molly groaned, letting her head fall back so that her long hair dangled over the arm of the sofa. ‘Great. Wowzers. You’ve really sold it to me now, Mum.’
‘Don’t be mean. Have a heart.’ Seeing that this had exactly zero effect, Harriet redoubled her efforts. ‘Come on, be positive. Two weeks by the seaside … You can lie on the beach, get a tan, eat loads of ice cream …’
‘Yay. Get fat and develop skin cancer, you mean. Er, facepalm.’
‘No!’ Harriet tried to remember how she’d been at the age of fifteen in the hope of coming up with something even sarcastic Molly might find irresistible but all she could think of was the knicker-melting crush she and her friends had had on Paul McIver, the smouldering sixth-form boy who had worked in Woolworths on Saturdays. Poor lad, they must have driven him up the wall with all their giggling and flirting, flicking their hair and batting their eyelashes as they handed over their paper bags of Pick and Mix in the vain hope – the insane, completely deluded hope! – that he might fall in love with them across a shovelful of jelly babies.
Inspiration struck. ‘You might meet a boy,’ she said, arching an eyebrow. ‘You might have a little holiday romance.’ She grabbed a cushion and pretended to smooch it. ‘Corrr. Those were the days. Mm-mmm.’
Molly was repulsed, leaping up from the sofa in an instant. ‘Mum! You are so gross sometimes, do you know that? Just … ewww. Please never talk like that again. Seriously.’
Harriet’s lips twitched in amusement as her daughter strode indignantly from the room. Gross indeed. She did seem young for her age sometimes, not showing the slightest bit of interest in boys or romance yet. If ever she wandered in on Harriet and Robert having a snog in the kitchen or wherever, Molly would throw a hand melodramatically across her eyes as if the very sight of affection was loathsome. ‘Get a room,’ she’d shudder. ‘Oh, please. Can you two stop sucking each other’s faces for five minutes? You’re actually making me feel ill. Seriously. Vomiting now. Genuine sick in my mouth.’
Harriet finished her TV recording schedule and got to her feet. Time for one last coffee, she decided, then they’d load up the car and go. Whatever Molly might say, they were in for a wonderful couple of weeks. She would damn well make sure of it.
Chapter Sixteen
Libby had been looking forward to the holiday for AGES. She absolutely loved the seaside and was definitely going to live there when she was a grown-up. At home in Oakthorne, her bedroom was at the front of the house and all you could see from the window was the boring road outside and houses and cars, and everything seemed sort of dirty and dull. But when they stayed at Shell Cottage, the window in the children’s room not only had a lovely big wide ledge that you could sit on and make things, or maybe write stories if you felt like it, but also had a view of the beach. Sand dunes and sea and sometimes little boats. When you were falling asleep, you could hear the sea saying shhhh-shhhh-shhhh, and she liked to imagine mermaids out there, leaping and playing and having adventures while she slept.
Libby was also looking forward to seeing Granny again. While it was really, really sad that Grandad was dead, and wouldn’t be there on holiday any more (especially as he told the best ever bedtime stories, with proper voices and everything), Granny had always been her favourite anyway. Libby loved Granny.
Most grown-ups made a beeline for Teddy – Oh, isn’t he adorable? What a little sweetie! That hair! – which was really seriously annoying, but Granny always seemed to notice Libby and have a smile for her. She remembered things, too, unlike Mum, who never seemed to listen to anything Libby said. Granny would ask, ‘How did that gymnastics contest go, then? Tell me those judges gave you first prize, Libby, my darling, or I’ll have to have a word with them.’ Or she would say, ‘How are those sunflowers coming along that we planted? Don’t forget to water them!’ and ‘Did you and Eloise make friends after your argument? Oh, good! I am glad.’
Granny was the best gardener ever, too. Libby hadn’t been very interested in p
lants and nature and stuff when she was little, but on her eighth birthday, Granny had given her a special mini gardening set with packets of seeds to plant, and she’d taught Libby to spot all sorts of weeds – chickweed and groundsel and bindweed (Granny’s arch enemy, she called it) and even dandelions, which were right little buggers, excuse my language. Every time Granny came to the Castledines’ house, she would jump up after ten minutes and go outside – ‘I can’t resist!’ she’d cry, even if Mum started saying, ‘Really, there’s no need, honestly, you don’t have to’ – and Libby would always hurry out to help her.
Sometimes if it was too rainy for even Granny to want to go out, then they did baking instead: fairy cakes and scones and chocolate biscuits. Granny would sing funny old songs and let Libby do all the interesting bits like breaking the eggs and weighing all the ingredients, and she never got cross, even when the mixture was spilled.
Libby knew that Granny had been sad ever since Grandad died. The last time she’d visited the Castledines’ house, she’d just sat in the kitchen the whole time, looking unhappy and old, and didn’t once leap up to inspect the garden like she usually did. Even so, Libby was not at all prepared for the Granny who awaited them at Shell Cottage. Not only was she all cross and sort of wild-looking, but she didn’t seem to listen to Libby when she told her about the end-of-term play and the baby strawberries she’d grown at home. Worse, she shouted at Mum (Granny never shouted – well, only at bindweed and slugs sometimes), and then she actually threw a load of flapjacks in the bin! Nice flapjacks, too. Really yummy ones! Teddy wanted to go and get them out of the bin when nobody was looking and Libby was so longing to have another one herself that she only just remembered about there being germs in bins at the last second and she had to reluctantly tell Teddy that she supposed they probably shouldn’t.
She didn’t even cheer up when Uncle Robert arrived halfway through dinner, with Harriet and Molly, and they were all together around the table. Granny smiled a little bit but it was a strange, not-truly-happy sort of smile.
Poor Granny, Libby thought that night as she lay on the narrow single bed, listening to the faint rushing sound of the sea and the gentle snoring of her brothers. She hadn’t even really laughed at any of Libby’s jokes – not a proper laugh anyway. Was it because of the chopped-down apple tree? she wondered. Was she missing Grandad very, very much? What if she was going to die soon, too?
Libby tossed and turned, unable to drift into sleep. Shhhh … shhhh … said the sea soothingly and she stared up at the shadowy ceiling trying not to think about the horrible ghost story Dexter had insisted on telling them earlier, the torch held spookily under his chin.
Maybe there was something she could do to cheer up her granny, she thought drowsily. Maybe she could think of a way to make her happy again.
Shhhh … shhhh … said the sea again, and Libby closed her eyes and fell fast asleep.
Chapter Seventeen
Freya was up first, thanks to Teddy, who liked to start every morning, holiday or not, on the dot of six, tugging impatiently at his mother’s arm as if he had at least twenty-seven thousand interesting things to cram into his day, and didn’t intend to waste a second about it.
She made him breakfast on automatic pilot, and herself a coffee, then left him to it and padded out into the garden. The rising sun had painted the sea in glittering swathes of tangerine and fuchsia, and the dull red-wine hangover that had been her waking companion seemed to subside obligingly as she breathed in the cool, fresh morning air.
Last night, she’d had two glasses of Rioja at dinnertime – ‘Well, it’s the holidays, isn’t it?’ – and both Libby and Teddy had commented when she said goodnight to them that evening. ‘Poo, your breath is gross,’ Libby had said, backing away and wrinkling her nose, while Teddy collapsed dramatically onto the bed, pretending to be knocked out by the smell. ‘Yuck, Mummy, don’t kiss me,’ he’d said reproachfully, opening one eye.
Freya had laughed it off, but her laugh hadn’t sounded very convincing. She’d gone back downstairs and had another glass to absorb the sting, and then another. She could feel Harriet’s eyes on her a couple of times, questioning and – she winced at the memory – concerned, even, but Freya had smiled brightly on each occasion and made a point of laughing uproariously at the next funny story in their conversation. See? I’m fine, was the subtext. Nothing to worry about here!
The wet grass tickled her ankles and clung damply to her flip-flops as she walked across the lawn, over to the destroyed apple tree stump, so forlorn and battered. Crouching next to it, she reached out a hand and touched the splintered bark. ‘Hi, Dad,’ she said. ‘If you can hear me, that is. If you’ve dropped in for a visit.’ The base of the tree was cold and rough beneath her fingers. ‘I wish you were with us. I could do with one of our chats right now.’
She wrapped her arms around herself, trying not to think about just what an understatement this was. Since Vic had returned from his training course, he and Freya hadn’t really talked at all. Well, he had talked, obviously: about Geezer Dave and all the other people who’d been there, and the riot training they’d done, and how he was being put forward for a Police Bravery Award that autumn, and how Tony and his wife wanted to take them both out for dinner as a thank you, and all the rest of it. The starring role of Victor’s stories was inevitably Victor himself, although when it was her turn to talk, Freya did the opposite and positioned the children at centre stage. And so she had talked of Ted’s first wobbly tooth and Libby’s end-of-term play and Dexter’s request for the new 18-rated Call of Duty game that all his friends had, apparently. ‘I’ve told him he can’t have it, just for the record,’ she had added, in case this wasn’t clear.
That was it, though. General conversations, nothing more. No inkling about how she really felt.
She sighed. ‘I can’t talk to any of the others,’ she went on. ‘I can’t even talk to Vic, Dad. I just feel so … lost. Like I’m about to go over a cliff. Dad, please, if you can hear me, if you’re out there somewhere, then – ’
She broke off, struck by the words that were coming out of her mouth. She was a doctor, for goodness’ sake – she knew better than anyone that when somebody’s heart stopped, their brain died soon after, and it was all over. Gone. There was no afterlife, in her opinion, no heavenly postscript where souls lounged around and chewed the fat up in the clouds. And here she was, speaking to her father, who was long since dead and cremated. As if he could hear her!
The weirdest thing was how comforting it felt. How it had brought her a small shining fragment of solace, just for a few still moments.
Then the peace was broken by a delighted whoop from the house. ‘Ants, Mum! Come and look at all these ants!’
Later on, after the ants had been helped outside and Teddy’s trail of sugar swept up from the floor, Freya found herself with two minutes to spare while Victor supervised the children’s teeth-brushing. Up in her bedroom, she typed the number for the children’s hospital into her phone, wondering if they would tell her how little Ava was doing, if she was on the mend or even back home already. She knew the chances of being given this information were about as slim as a supermodel, though. Close relatives only, they would say, and Freya wasn’t sure she had the necessary chutzpah to try and pass herself off as a concerned grandmother or auntie.
She deleted the number and fired off a text to Elizabeth, her boss, instead.
Hi. Just wondering if any news on Ava Taylor? Freya.
She’d only just pressed ‘Send’ when the two younger children burst in, Libby singing ‘Surfin’ U.S.A.’ loudly and tunelessly as she danced around the room and out again, but Teddy in a sulk because he had been deemed too small to accompany his siblings, dad and uncle on that morning’s surfing lesson.
‘It’s not fair! I am old enough!’ he said as Freya pulled him in for a cuddle. His little warm body was rigid and protesting at first but then he leaned against her and a sob burst out of him. ‘It’s not FAIR.’
Freya smoothed down his unruly curls, which promptly sprang back up again. ‘You can help me do some shopping instead. Harriet and Molly are coming too. Would you like that? You can choose all the puddings.’
A tear glistened in his lashes as Teddy considered the suggestion. ‘Just me choosing? Not the others?’
‘Just you. Whatever you like. They might even have – ’ she paused for dramatic effect – ‘chocolate ice cream.’
Teddy’s sweet tooth made the decision. Who cared about surfing when the delights of the Co-op pudding aisle lay in his control? ‘Okay,’ he said.
Unfortunately, Teddy’s good cheer was short-lived and came to an abrupt halt as he saw his wetsuit-clad brother and sister depart excitedly with Daddy and Uncle Rob soon afterwards. His grump lasted all the way into the Ivybridge post office, as Freya paid to put up a handwritten ad for a cleaner in their window. He sulked around the first few aisles of the supermarket too, kicking at the wheels of the trolley with his arms folded crossly around himself, his lower lip sliding right out just in case nobody had noticed he was in a bad mood. ‘Talamanca,’ Freya heard him muttering darkly under his breath. ‘You total Pritt Stick.’
Dexter and his rhyming slang again. The perils of having an older brother who was a self-appointed Cockney rebel. Freya let the muttering pass without comment but felt her patience stretching thin, especially when he kicked out at a crate of apples and accidentally caught an old lady on the ankle. ‘Teddy! Behave yourself!’ she hissed. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she added to her son’s victim. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Why don’t we go and look at the ice cream now?’ Harriet suggested, ‘and Mummy can catch us up in a bit.’ She shot a questioning look at Freya, who nodded gratefully.
‘Good idea,’ she replied, heaving a raggedy sigh of relief as Harriet took Teddy’s hand and led him away.