by Laura Kemp
Time had been on her side, too, because she’d stay in when she wasn’t working to keep Mum company. And her mother absolutely loved it, especially the cherry lip gloss, made from mashed-up strained fruit added to melted beeswax, cocoa butter and olive oil. Whenever Ceri had touched colour to her lips, Mum would come alive: it was their way of connecting as mother and daughter, even if it was only for a split second. That joy, plus the compliments she received not just for her own made-up face but from those who received her gifts, spurred Ceri on to develop DIY blusher, mascara and eyeshadow. She began to sell some on eBay and came up with the idea of doing online tutorials, loading them onto YouTube, racking up views, likes and shares. Then the cosmetic companies had come calling and the big bucks began to roll in. And yet, still, she saved hard and swore by her own lip gloss. She’d called the business Cheap As Chic, for goodness sake, of course she bloody remembered what it was like to be skint.
‘What are you on now? Ten grand a month …?’
In adverts on her website alone. Never mind the extra when she recommended a product online.
‘I’m chuffed to bits for you, I really am. But—’
‘But what? I haven’t changed.’ It came out defensive but Ceri almost believed it, she really did.
Tash’s eyebrows lifted ever so slightly. Enough to make the temperature of Ceri’s blood rise. ‘What are you saying?’
Because she’d worked her butt off for success. She had spent hours and days and weeks and dozens of months making something of herself: cramming in research and ingredient testing while at the same time tending to Mum. A labour of love which had grown and become big enough to earn her a living. More than a living, actually, and more than a way to leave the soggy beer mats behind: a contradiction of her previously held belief that she was no good at anything apart from serving others. She had a business head and could strike a deal.
‘You want for nothing,’ Tash threw out bitterly.
Yes, this was true. Ceri had so much stuff she didn’t know what to do with it. Her apartment was full of handbags, posh frocks and shoes worth what a family would spend on their monthly food shop – and she hadn’t even bought most of it. Every day freebie samples would arrive by courier, with invites left, right and centre to events in Manchester, Liverpool and beyond: it was part of the game of ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’. Getting paid ten grand for personal appearances was pretty obscene when all she had to do was turn up wearing a full face of slap.
And it dawned on Ceri, glancing into her mum’s little kitchen, where it had all begun, this lifestyle was the opposite of what she had created and what she stood for. Her aim had been to make folk happy and confident, for a fraction of the price you’d pay in the shops. Now she was raking in large sums of money from big corporations. Over the past six weeks, she had started to worry her work was no longer the passion nor the saviour it had been when Mum was alive. Rather, since she’d gone, it had started to feel meaningless and shallow. Ceri had hoped it was just her grief that was making her so unsettled, but it was keeping her awake at night: in the dark she’d question what was next for her in life, and wonder at the state of her integrity. She hadn’t known what she wanted to change only that she no longer felt she wanted to go on doing the same. Tash was making out Ceri had lost sight of herself. Was there truth in that?
‘Your life, it’s all surface,’ Tash jabbed again.
Ceri took a shaky breath as she considered the evidence: the hangers-on who’d expected her to pay for the drinks at the best nightspots in Manchester. The men, for once less interested in her bra than her brass. Getting slagged off by so-called friends on Facebook. Her old haunts going quiet when she walked in. Knowing this wasn’t all new to her – she’d taken it on the chin when she’d needed her escape. But looking at it now, she was connecting the dots and understanding she was unhappy and had been for a while. This was a reckoning that had been coming for months. And she would’ve given everything to be back behind the bar when she had been broke but cheery.
‘I bet you got a million Valentine’s Day cards today but you’ve not a soul to share it with.’
Tash was right. The office had been filling up with Valentine-related promotional crap all morning – helium love hearts, fancy chocolates, and a teddy bear handed to her by some poor student paid to dress up as Cupid by one company. But there wasn’t anyone special. And she wouldn’t remind herself by going along to one of a load of 14 February balls or date nights. Dave had been the last man to love her, back when life had been straightforward. When they’d ticked along and it was all laid out for her. The plan to get hitched on the pitch at the Crewe Alexandra ground, a finger buffet at the Gresty pub after, to move in together and have kids. Actually, she was relieved she hadn’t been landed with the married name Ceri Berry. And while Dave had been reliable and grounded, he hadn’t liked her new lifestyle: he was the traditional type, who wanted a chippy tea on a Friday and his woman beside him. She craved being with someone she could trust. That was why her sister’s opinion mattered to her so much, because Tash wasn’t afraid of falling out of favour or losing a slot in her schedule: she was one of the few who could still tell her like it was. Ceri was approaching rock bottom now but there was an inch of fight left.
‘I’ve got Jade.’ Her best friend with whom she’d worked at the bar, and who made Adele look frumpy. And who’d been the first one to tell her that maybe her make-up could lead somewhere.
‘She’s your PA,’ Tash said sadly. ‘She’s staff.’
Ceri’s stomach dropped and her head whirled: she felt a husk of the person she was, the person she’d been just that morning.
‘You think you can fix things with a flash of cash,’ Tash said, not unkindly. ‘And that’s fine for you, you’ll not be pulling up the sofa looking for spare change. Never. You’re not like the rest of us. You’ve got everything. But this, now, this is our one shot. Our potential.’
The blunt admission made Ceri’s shoulders heave with sobs. Suddenly, drowning in the bleakness, everything she had felt insignificant and pointless. From the expensive clothes on her body to her own Cheap As Chic brand mascara on her lashes. It had always been her goal to give something back, yet she remembered now how she had been too overloaded to answer that charity’s call for some donated goodies to use as a prize in their raffle; and the way she had let down the local sixth form college, who’d asked her to talk to the kids about making something of yourself.
Tash’s arms enfolded her until Ceri had run out of crying. Her sister pulled back and looked into her eyes.
‘Me and Kev, we need to do this. For us. We have to get this house on the market. Please, Ceri. I’m begging you.’
She heard the words rebounding off the naked walls, and as she sniffed, she could still smell Mum’s presence. The essence of her had been kindness, that’s what she’d stood for, thinking of others. Mum would’ve wanted Ceri to do this for Tash, to look after her. When it came down to that, how could she refuse?
‘Course,’ she said, barely a whisper. Not knowing how she was going to get through this. Because she’d had everything. But really she had nothing. No blessings to count at all. She had to go. To a place where no one knew her. To escape the torment of losing not just her mother but her way.
Eleven days later …
1
Ceri blew her cheeks with relief as she turned the hairpin bend after four and three-quarter hours behind the wheel.
Thank God, she thought as the rain lashed down on the windscreen, I can’t wait to get in a hot bath to warm myself up and – Woah!
The road plunged suddenly and the sea came at her, smacking her right in the chops. She slammed on the brakes, feeling the wheels skid, wondering if she was hanging off the edge of the land, teetering over water. Her head banking left then right from vertigo, this felt like the end of the world, not how Mum had described it at all.
Her feet were rooted to the pedals but still the car shook from the gusts which came from all around and the wipers, which had been on full since Mid Wales, were screaming in panic.
The terrifying waves were so angry they thrashed against themselves, sending up white spray like furious spittle. What did you expect, you fool, she thought. The warnings that she was entering the wilds had been there – down ski-slope dips and up learning-curve climbs, through snaking lanes tunnelled beneath canopies of twisted bare branches and nerve-wracking mountain paths which zig-zagged so perilously close to sheer drops her knuckles had turned white.
The constant ‘recalculating’ of the sat nav, the asking the way at strange petrol stations and eerie tea rooms. For this was the land M&S and Costa Services had forgotten.
And no wonder, because she was staring at the bleakest excuse for civilisation she’d ever seen.
‘You. Have. Got. To. Be. Joking. Mum,’ Ceri said to the tea caddy in her bag on the passenger seat.
It was a one-street muddy puddle of a village which hugged a crescent of sea the colour of fag ash and ended in a treacherously steep headland of rock and bracken.
In contrast to what Mum had claimed in her final groggy days full of medication, there was neither sand nor an apple green, sky blue, royal purple, bright white or flamingo pink row of homes to be seen. Instead, the tide threw up on the shore and the handful of dirty death-pallor buildings with harsh black guttering looked like a bad set of teeth. Ceri had the urge to get the Domestos out – no wonder Mum had been obsessed with cleaning if she came from a place like this.
What appeared to be a shop, tongue-twistingly named Caban Cwtch, however you said that, overlooked the so-called beach. It had an empty forecourt save for a prostrate sandwich board which, no doubt, had passed out from boredom. As for the palm trees and ferns and Welsh wildflowers Mum had described, there were dead pots by a broken bench and brambly hedges keeping everything in – or out, it looked that unfriendly.
‘I’m sorry to say this, Mum, but what a shithole.’
How differently today had started. Her breezy road trip in the soft Cheshire sunshine had begun just before midday, when Jade had waved her off from the office in Alderley Edge where Ceri had gone early doors to tie up some loose ends; including recording a video for her YouTube channel to say she was having a little break to get herself ready for the new range. She’d felt upbeat that she’d finally made the decision, for she’d wrestled with taking time off in the days after Tash had asked to sell Mum’s house. Ceri had made excuses – the business needed her; she had too many appointments to cancel. But the sadness of life without Mum and the bitter taste when she shook hands with yet another person who’d smelled money didn’t subside. It just rose higher. And when a ‘for sale’ board went up in the tiny square of Mum’s front garden, well, she thought she’d drown. Fight or flight had kicked in. A holiday wouldn’t kill her, because she felt dead already. So she’d booked a cottage from Friday to Friday, told Jade she was having a week away and messaged her sister to say she was off to Wales; if they received an offer on the house then whatever Tash decided was fine by her.
‘Enjoy yourself, cocker!’ Jade had said, her immaculate blonde hair swinging around a face so feline it purred. ‘I’ll look after everything. Don’t worry, I won’t have my nose in bridal mags all day; only lunchtimes! See you soon!’
Her full tank of excitement had lasted as long as the heater on Mum’s car, which conked out an hour in at Oswestry, putting an end to Ceri singing along to the radio into a hot blast of air as if she was Beyoncé. She’d brought the red Fiesta instead of her own racy silver Mazda for the full ‘get away from it all’ experience.
By lunch, she was in the thick of Wales, so there were no nutty grain and vegetable salads or vitamin-enriched smoothies, and she ended up with a stewed baked-bean pasty from a tray marked ‘popty’ in a garage. She had no idea what ‘popty’ meant but she’d have bet her life on it translating as ‘don’t leave me here to die alone’. And she’d never seen so many consonants – you’d be banging the desk with frustration if you were on Countdown.
Trying to pronounce the name of Mum’s village was a nightmare too: Dwynwen wasn’t pronounced ‘Duh-wuh-yuh-nnn-when’, so she was informed at the petrol station, but ‘Der-win-when’, although you had to say it quickly, like Dwinwhen.
It was quite a shock: she’d only ever been to Rhyl before, where everything was quite normal. There’d been people around and chain shops she recognised.
But the deeper she’d got into Wales, her teeth chattering from the drop in temperature, the more it felt like a foreign land, populated by sheep and cattle grids, squat run-down bungalows in the middle of nowhere and mind-boggling signs for Llanmerewig, Caersws, Llanidloes, Eisteddfa Gurig and Capel Bangor. The blessed A487 from Aberystwyth made her feel briefly that she was re-entering the twenty-first century, until she found herself on the lonely coastal drive south, with trees bent into crones by the wind and glimpses of a sea the colour of nails. The Dwynwen turn-off had become a helter-skelter of potholes, punctuated on either side by derelict barns and farming sheds. There’d been a shabby-looking caravan park on her right, a decrepit rugby club, then on the left a homemade arrow pointing to The Dragon, which she’d hoped – although she doubted it – would have a roaring fire and a cracking seafood risotto. She should’ve guessed the truth when she saw the battered Welcome to Dwynwen sign.
Why the flip had Mum wanted to return here? If only she’d asked to be flown first class to Marbella. Mum’s sister, Aunty Delyth, had always said the only thing she could recall about this place was that it made Crewe look like Las Vegas – they’d left when they were teenagers, when Grandad found a job on the railways. Ceri could see what her aunt had meant.
Dumbfounded, she sat there gawping until a horn sounded from behind her. That probably counted as rush hour here. Flustered, she looked around but the road was so narrow she couldn’t just pull up anywhere. The only option was to go into the car park of the pub, which was so dilapidated it looked suicidal. In fact it didn’t even look like a pub: it was more like a kid’s drawing of a house with one door and four square windows. Plastered a wishy-washy grey like fog, the walls were worn and in parts fractured to reveal uneven brickwork the colour of earwax.
Its swinging board was hanging off one hinge and the image of a dragon – with its head seemingly buried up its arse – was more Puff than proud. She navigated herself into a wrecked square of broken tarmac and checked the time. Almost five, it’d be dark within the hour.
Needing to get a move on to get the key to the cottage, she got out her phone to get the details of her booking. A ‘charming rustic property in a traditional setting’, it’d said. She thought she’d been lucky that it’d been free at such short notice. Now, being here, she feared her bed would be made of straw and her nose would be up a ram’s bum. But her mobile had no service. What the heck was she going to do? The van behind her had obviously got lost because it had done a three-point … no, make that a seven-point turn, and revved off. There were no lights anywhere. She was all alone.
Ceri flopped her head on the steering wheel and considered how long it would take her to get home. If she left now, she’d be back by, what, ten? But would the closest petrol station, about forty miles away, be open? Oh my God, she was doomed and—
A rap on her window brought her to.
‘You can’t park here, you can’t,’ blared a foghorn through the streaming glass. ‘This is our courtyard. Spaces for guests only, it is.’
A pursed scarlet cat’s-bum mouth stood out from a waterproof hood and instantly got Ceri’s back up. Opening the door a bit too suddenly so the gob had to leap back, she got out and straightened herself up to her entire five foot five – make that five foot seven if she counted her two-inch Ugg soles – and was almost knocked sideways by an icy blast, which scalped her with spiteful rain.
‘
Gimme a chance! Who says I’m not a guest?’ she said, eyeball to eyeball with this weirdo.
‘You can’t be, you can’t!’ the woman cried.
‘And why’s that?’ Ceri said, wishing she’d brought a coat as she cowered under her poxy poncho. At least she was wearing her own range no-run mascara which would’ve held its own under Niagara Falls.
‘Because we haven’t had a guest since October, we haven’t!’
Ceri wanted to laugh at the woman’s emphatic victory cry – it was nothing to brag about. But her humour was dampened by a wind-blown cold shower of salty spray that covered them both.
‘High tide, it is. Come in, come in, we’ll be drowned rats out here, we will,’ the woman said, grabbing Ceri’s hand. Drowned rats? If bloody only – it was a far more tempting prospect than her invitation.
But before Ceri could resist, the lady tugged her to a quivering stable door which flew open and banged left against a peeling varnished turd-coloured bar decorated with some faded beer towels and one drained empty. The Dragon was deceptively large on the inside, with a threadbare banquette of seating running along the right, the middle filled with round tables and chairs, the exact same colour and condition of the bar. There was a mounted menu announcing Today’s Specials of absolutely bugger all, a swirling red and brown carpet and wood-chip walls. A blackboard declared ‘Dolphin Watch’ with a tally count of times and dates – from 2007, it seemed. A huge tattered Welsh flag hung at the far end above an open fire beside which was an ancient tiny telly with a wonky aerial. What was this place? And who was this person who’d been telling her to get lost before dragging her in? Ceri watched as she took off her coat to reveal a snakeskin leather skirt, immaculate white silk blouse, pearls and black patent heels the height of Blackpool Tower and patted her perfectly styled platinum hairdo.