by Lucy Dillon
‘Well, if I’m honest, both aspects were a bit …’ Lorna stared at her glass. It had seemed amazing at the time. When Zak the artist she’d ‘discovered’ was explaining it to her. Zak the next big thing, for definite. Ha. ‘I’m sorry I said what I said. You were right.’
‘How much did you lose?’
‘Let’s not discuss that.’
He winced for her. ‘Look, we can all do things perfectly in hindsight. It’s not so easy in the heat of the moment.’
The heat of the moment. Lorna’s mental defences finally cracked under the pressure of the memories. It had been a corner table in a nice restaurant Sam was expensing. She’d felt like his equal, finally, with her own money, her own plan, her own file of paperwork. She’d been asking for his advice, and he’d given it with all the confidence of a thirty-year-old in a thousand-pound suit.
So Sam’s ‘advice’ hadn’t been what she’d wanted to hear, but she’d tried to accept it, telling herself he was only giving her the benefit of his financial experience, he didn’t understand how the art world worked. And he’d smiled and said that was the end of the boring work chat, and he’d ordered another bottle of wine while she was still smoothing her ruffled feathers, putting her brave face back on. More wine arrived, and was poured, and they’d talked about Ryan and Jess – the present-day Ryan and Jess with their three kids, not the old stories – and it had felt as if something fresh was starting. Sam was looking at her in a different way, so different that Lorna had let herself reach out her hand as he was speaking, and she’d touched his beautiful smooth cheek.
That was all she’d done. She’d rested her fingertips on the line of his jaw, the way she’d dreamed of doing for years and years, and he’d – it made her shrivel inside even now – he’d taken her wrist and said, gently, ‘That’s not a good idea, Lorna.’
As though she were a teen who’d drunk too much cider and overstepped the mark.
So yes, she could have done things better. She looked away.
Sam didn’t wait for her to speak. ‘It’s in the past,’ he said, and made a whisking gesture with his left hand. Lorna noticed he still wore the signet ring he’d taken to wearing in London. So he hadn’t jettisoned every pretentious detail of his previous life.
‘In the past.’ But here they were, and the past was all around them.
‘Have you seen Milo and Tyra recently?’ he asked. ‘I have to confess I’ve been a pretty crap godfather. Must be well over a year since I last saw Ryan for a beer.’
‘Oh, they’re fine. Same as always.’ Lorna focused on her drink. ‘Tyra’s six going on twenty-six, and Milo’s into monster trucks. He’d probably love a go on a tractor. There you go! Instant brownie points! He’ll be really excited to have a farmer for a godfather.’
Sam’s smile was polite but this time it didn’t reach his eyes.
‘Sorry, did I say something stupid?’
‘No. Nope, I guess I am a farmer.’ He stroked his chin again; clearly a new nervous tic. ‘Just feels odd, hearing you say that. I think of Gabriel as being a farmer, or Dad. Not me.’
‘You mean you still think of yourself as a property developer? Please God, no. It’s sooo pre-recession.’
He managed a weak laugh. ‘It’s more than that though, it’s more … who I am. Farming’s not a job, is it? It’s not about nine to five, it’s living the farm, living the land.’ He drank more of his pint. ‘I’m not expressing this well. Sorry.’
‘You and Gabe, though.’ Lorna shrugged. ‘You’re made of the same DNA. OK, so he went to Hartpury but you had the same basic upbringing. No reason you can’t do it just as well as he can, in your own way.’
‘You’d say that about you and Jess, would you?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘She could do what you do? Just because your dad was a teacher, she’s had to be one? Just like your mum was an artist, you have to be good at it too?’
It pricked, right at the deepest point of Lorna’s inner soul. Sam didn’t mean it the way she was hearing it, but couldn’t he see that not being like her mum, not having that understanding, was the thing that tormented her most?
Why would he know that, though? She’d never told him. She’d just hoped he understood, somehow. Because he knew her.
They looked at each other for a moment, while a gang from the rugby club made their way over to the bar, young men with tattoos and training tops, barging and bantering like bullocks. Lorna scrambled for words, because she could tell from the way Sam was looking at her that he was expecting her to say the right thing. The trouble was, she didn’t know what he needed to hear, and what she wanted to say – What are you doing back on a farm you couldn’t get away from fast enough? – wasn’t helpful.
And then her phone rang. The selfie of Lorna and Tiffany flashed on to the screen and she picked it up.
‘Sorry for interrupting your hot date at the Yokel Arms,’ said Tiff, ‘but your niece has arrived at the flat.’
‘My niece ?’ Tyra popped into Lorna’s head, in her sparkly gold wellies and pink mac.
‘About sixteen? My height? Blonde hair.’ Tiffany dropped her voice. ‘Not really blonde. More mouse.’
Not Tyra, Hattie. Lorna glanced up at Sam.
‘That’s Harriet,’ she said to Tiffany, and instantly Sam put his pint down and looked enquiring.
‘She looks just like you! Same eyes, same mannerisms. It’s uncanny.’
‘Thanks.’ Hattie was very pretty, with long legs and peachy teenage skin that she preferred to cover with too much make-up. ‘I didn’t know she was coming. Do you want to put her on?’
‘Not sure that’d help,’ said Tiffany. ‘She’s been here in the kitchen rearranging your junk for the past half-hour. She even washed up, can you believe? I let her, obviously. Doesn’t want to chat, and believe me, I’m very good at getting kids to chat. I don’t want to panic you, but I’d say she’s definitely upset about something.’
‘Did you say she arrived half an hour ago? Why didn’t you call me?’
‘I have been trying to call you,’ said Tiffany. ‘But you don’t seem to be answering your phone.’
It had been on silent. Now Lorna looked, there were several missed calls – Jess Home and Jess Mobile, as well as Tiffany Mobile. Lorna racked her brains. Had she agreed to have her for a weekend? Surely not – Jess had one of those family calendars with separate columns for her, Ryan, Hattie, Tyra and Milo. There would have been a reminder phone call, at the very least.
‘Why do you think she’s upset about something?’ Lorna asked. ‘Has she said something?’
There was a pause, as if Tiff was moving further into the hall. ‘Just a hunch,’ she said drily, ‘but she hasn’t stopped crying since she got here.’
Chapter Nine
When Lorna walked into the kitchen and saw the girl sitting staring morosely into a Snoopy mug, she did a double take: Hattie was so like photos of herself during her arty adolescence she was almost a ghost, albeit in a hoodie and Camden Market harem trousers instead of jeans and a Stone Roses T-shirt.
Hattie had dyed her light brown hair paler, and it hung around her face in a fine curtain, as vanilla-blonde as Lorna’s had been naturally at that age. But the way her gaze was boring into the mug, as if she could levitate it with the sheer force of her unhappiness – that intensity was pure Jess. Jess had got that from their mother, who could stare at a canvas so hard Lorna half expected to see hot singed dots appear. Hattie was leaning on her elbows, her chin hidden in her hands; one sleeve was pulled up over her palm like a little girl, and the other had fallen down, exposing a slender white arm, with the faded whorls of a henna tattoo snaking downwards and a few fraying friendship bracelets round her bony wrist.
The long fingers covered with silver rings, the mascara-spiked eyelashes, the hunched shoulders … half-Jessica, half-Lorna. It was hard to see anything of robust country lad Ryan there at all.
Tiffany was sitting next to her, and there were two mugs and the remains of a chocolate cake betwe
en them on the table. As Lorna walked in, Tiffany leaned back on her chair and said casually, ‘Hey, you’re back! Cup of tea? I’ve just made one.’
Lorna wanted to respond in the same relaxed manner but there was something about Hattie’s defensive posture that set her nerves jangling. This clearly wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment social visit. Rudy must have felt it too because he was sitting by Hattie’s feet, close enough to almost-but-not-quite rest his chin on her trainer, something he never did with strangers. When Lorna approached, his body deflated, as if he was relieved she was back.
‘Hey, Hattie! What a nice surprise. I didn’t know you were coming.’ She sat down next to the teenager, and when she hugged her, Lorna felt Hattie’s bones under the sweatshirt. Strong and fragile at the same time. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Yeah.’ It was barely more than a breath.
‘Does your mum know you’re here?’ she asked, looking over at Tiffany, who shook her head.
‘No.’ Hattie glanced up, her blue eyes huge in her heart-shaped face. ‘Don’t ring her yet. Please.’
‘OK. Well, I’ll have to give her a ring at some point,’ said Lorna. ‘She’ll be wondering where you are.’
‘She won’t care.’
‘Oh, she will,’ said Tiffany. ‘I don’t even know your mum, and I know she will.’
‘Just a quick call.’ Lorna stood up and reached for her phone. Jess would be going out of her mind; if she could have attached bungee ropes to her kids to keep them in sight, she would.
She tried to ignore Hattie’s plaintive protests as she made her way into the hall. There was a message on her locked screen from Sam: Hope everything’s OK with Hattie. Say hi from me – tell her that her mum was much worse at her age! Great to see you – you owe me a beer. Keep in touch. S .
Lorna stared at it. Was she disappointed there was no ‘x’? Relieved that seeing Sam again had been easier than she’d expected? It hadn’t been anything like she’d expected. He’d been nothing like as tricky as the last time they’d met, but nothing like the old Sam either.
She didn’t have time to think much further because Jess picked up on the second ring.
‘Lorna? Be quick!’ Her sister’s voice was high with tension. ‘I need to keep the phone free. We’re having a nightmare.’
Lorna sat down halfway up the stairs, so she could still see into the kitchen, but Hattie and Tiff couldn’t hear her. Tiff, veteran of much parent-child conflict, had turned on the radio.
‘I might be able to help you with that,’ said Lorna. ‘Hattie’s here.’
‘Oh, thank God. Thank God.’ Jessica covered the phone, and said to someone, ‘She’s at Lorna’s. I know, I know! I know, I’ll tell her. Ryan, that’s not helpful.’ There was a break in her voice when she carried on, and it jolted Lorna. ‘We’ve been out of our minds . I wanted to call the police but Ryan kept saying I was over-reacting, and it would only make things worse …’
‘How long have you been—’
Jess didn’t even let her finish. ‘Since this morning! I’ve been ringing her all day but the little madam hasn’t been answering her phone. She stayed at a friend’s house last night, but I asked her to be back here first thing, because I was taking the kids into town to get Ryan’s birthday present. Then we were going out for dinner together tonight to celebrate. She knew that, we do it every year. It’s Hattie who usually chooses his cake!’
Argh, Ryan’s birthday, thought Lorna. She never remembered Ryan’s birthday till it was too late, not even when she had a shop full of cards. Jess remembered everyone’s. She had a special birthdays and anniversaries book.
‘So what’s going on? It’s not like Hattie to make everyone panic like this.’
Hattie was a model teen – Saturday job at Wagamama, grade A student, half-hearted flute player, bit on the skinny side but then Jess was always on one diet or another so biscuits were hard to come by in the Prothero household. The young woman at Lorna’s kitchen table looked positively mutinous when she wasn’t crying. Not like Hattie at all.
There was a telling pause on the other end, and the acoustics on the phone changed, as if Jess was moving into a different room for privacy. ‘Well, to be honest, she’s been really moody recently. Not wanting to do things with the kids, answering back to her dad …’
‘Whoa. Hattie answering back to Ryan ?’
‘I know. I get that it’s not much fun, trying to find ways to spend time together that works for the little ones as well as her, but we’re a family , we do things together. I thought she enjoyed it. And I can’t believe she’d miss Ryan’s birthday. I just … I just have no idea what this is all about. Why wouldn’t she let me know if she was going off somewhere? Why wouldn’t she think we’d be worried sick not to hear from her?’
Lorna could think of at least four reasons off the top of her head, starting with friendship fallout, a non-approved piercing, adolescent hormones or a broken heart. And maybe a reluctance to spend Saturday night in a pizza chain with two under-eights and her mum and dad – a dad who often broke out some spontaneous dad-dancing when he was particularly happy. It wouldn’t be too hard to find out which.
‘Oh, teenagers,’ said Lorna, vaguely. ‘You know how bad we were.’
‘Were we, though? We wouldn’t have got away with flouncing off for a whole day. We definitely wouldn’t have got away with answering back …’
‘Jess, you had Hattie when you were only a couple of years older than she is now.’
Silence.
‘Look,’ said Lorna at the same time as Jessica said, ‘With Ryan, who I’d been with since I was fifteen and have been ever since,’ in an outraged tone.
The smell of toast drifted through from the kitchen and in the distance the town hall clock chimed – eight o’clock. The start of the evening, thought Lorna, but it felt like the end of it.
Her brain slid disobediently sideways. Where had Sam gone after she’d left him at the pub? Home, or to a friend’s house? Did he still have friends here? Did he have a local girlfriend? Or one in London? Somehow they hadn’t talked about him at all.
Jess sighed. ‘Sorry. We’ve been so lucky with Hattie. She’s never given us a day’s worry. God. I sound like someone’s mum.’ She paused, then groaned. ‘But I am, aren’t I?’
‘She’s safe and sound and eating cake here, so just have a glass of wine and enjoy what’s left of Ryan’s birthday.’ Lorna straightened one of the framed prints running up the stairs – a collection of vintage fashion prints she’d never had space to hang before. ‘I’ll talk to her. Maybe she’ll tell me if something’s up. I bet it’s nothing, Jess. She can help me in the gallery tomorrow, and I’ll put her on the train home for supper.’
‘Have you got room? Where will she sleep?’ That sounded more like Jess: identifying problems, so she could solve them.
‘There’s loads of room here. Tiffany’s in the spare bed, but Hattie’s fine on the sofa, so long as she doesn’t mind random linen.’
‘Tiffany’s there? What happened to wanting some time and space to yourself?’
‘You can’t plan for other people, can you?’ Lorna could hear animated voices from the kitchen – a snatch of laughter over the music. That was a good sign. ‘Tiff’s not staying long. Just till she gets another placement.’
‘I hope Hattie didn’t interrupt your girls’ night in.’
‘No, actually, I was out – I was having a drink with Sam Osborne.’
‘Ozzy?’ Jess sounded surprised. ‘Is he in Longhampton?’
‘Indeed he is. Taken over the farm from Gabriel.’
‘No!’ Jessica sounded surprised. ‘The farm, seriously? Didn’t Ozzy used to talk about emigrating at one point? Just to make sure his dad couldn’t rope him into calving?’
‘Like I say, you can’t plan for other people – Gabriel fell under a baler and couldn’t manage the farm by himself, so they persuaded Sam to come back and take it on.’
‘Oh, that’s sad. Well, maybe ten years in Lon
don changed his mind about the joys of country life. Must be quite nice for you both then, having a familiar face around. Where did you go? The Jolly Fox?’
‘How did you know?’
‘Where else is there? Do they still have those velvet booths where lads would try to get their arms around you?’ Jess went on nostalgically. ‘And the toilets with the condom machine with the graffiti about Tracey Jenkins?’
‘I don’t know, Jess. I’d only just got my drink when I had an emergency call to come home and deal with the surprise arrival in my kitchen. Do you want to speak to your daughter, by the way?’
She walked back into the kitchen with the phone. Tiffany was showing Hattie how to do some complicated plait on her hair, and they seemed to be getting on like a house on fire. But when Lorna offered Hattie her mobile and mouthed, ‘It’s your mum!’ she looked panicked and shook her head so hard she pulled out most of the plait.
Lorna joggled the phone. ‘Just let her know you’re OK. She’s worried about you.’
Reluctantly, Hattie took it, and closed her eyes. ‘Hi, Mum. Yeah. I’m fine. Yeah.’ There was a long pause. ‘I’m fine . My mobile was out of charge. Sorry.’
Tiffany and Lorna exchanged ‘yeah, right’ looks over her head. She’d been on her phone the entire time – texts, WhatsApp, flicking away with an expert thumb.
Jessica was clearly talking a lot, not that Hattie was responding. Her eyes stayed tightly shut, but the movement under the lids suggested she was trying not to cry. She twisted a strand of hair round her finger and chewed the ragged end. Eventually, she said, ‘Yeah, Mum, gotta go, sorry I missed Dad’s dinner, love you, bye, bye. Bye,’ and handed the phone back to Lorna.
‘… your daddy and I love you very much,’ Jessica was still saying. Lorna waited a beat, then coughed.
‘Hi, Jess, me again. So I’ll let you know what time the train gets in tomorrow, shall I?’