The Happy Glampers

by Daisy Tate

  ‘Ooohoo! Touché!’

  And then the words sunk in.

  Oh, shit. She was right. Emily took a swig of wine.

  Freya took advantage of her silence to push the knife in further. ‘And whether or not you care to admit it, I think you are jealous that Charlotte and Izzy are coming to Bristol as well. Foolhardy or not, we’re all proactively changing our lives, when all you’re doing is playing out the script your mum and dad wrote for you the day you were born.’

  Emily grabbed her coat, fully prepared to storm out f-o-r-e-v-e-r when Freya hoinked her shoulders up to her ears then heavily let them drop. ‘I’m sorry. That was really mean. I’m too tired to argue. Can we be friends again?’

  They stared at one another.

  Emily didn’t want to fight either, but she wanted Freya to admit she had a point. Following their hearts wasn’t foolproof. Freya wanted her family to be whole again. Izzy wanted to live. Charlotte didn’t want to stay in a house suffocatingly full of memories of Oliver, even if it legally was hers (score one to Hazel the Lawyer!).

  But Emily felt as though she was the only one dealing with the practicalities of making each of those dreams a reality. She’d been the one to get Izzy into the trial when it became apparent the chemo wasn’t working. She’d hooked Charlotte up with Hazel the Lawyer when Oli was primed to steamroller her into a divorce on his terms. Okay, she hadn’t done much for Freya, but she was helping her pack. That was something.

  Her chest began to constrict as Freya’s accusation took root.

  She wanted her friends to be happy but they weren’t all meant to move on without her.

  She thought of Tansy’s number stuffed into her purse, the ink fading with each passing fistful of coins.

  ‘C’mon, Emms.’ Freya pushed the wine bottle towards her. ‘Let’s be friends. I don’t want to move with us being all …’ She waggled her fingers and made a plerfzzzt noise. ‘Let’s make up?’

  Emily shifted her hip so that she looked super nonchalant, but her insides were vibrating. She’d never had a fight like this – if you didn’t count the time she smashed her violin in front of her mother. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Hug it out?’

  Emily made a face.

  They both started giggling. Nervously.

  ‘You’d let Izzy hug you.’ Freya didn’t sound cross about it. It was just a fact.

  ‘Izzy’s—’

  Freya waved her hand between them. ‘I know. I know. You and Izzy have your thang. C’mere.’ She opened up her arms. ‘I’m gonna hug you anyway.’

  Emily didn’t move. She hadn’t finished being furious yet. But when Freya wrapped her arms around her, she did her very best not to squirm.

  Who’d forgotten to tell Bristol it was summer?

  If only Izzy could find a way to blast the vicarage’s central heating without banjaxing Charlotte’s bill, life would be perfect.

  As it was, layers would be the name of the game. Izzy tugged up the zip on the puffer jacket Emily had bought for her in the sales. A thick neck-to-knees number with built-in pocket warmers. Cosy toasty. Most likely she’d be tearing it off in a few minutes when yet another hot flush hit, but for now? Perfection in a down cocoon.

  ‘Just pop that one over there, Izzy.’ Charlotte put down her own box then frowned. ‘If it’s too heavy, leave it.’

  ‘I’m perfectly capable,’ Izzy groused as she went to pick up the box and couldn’t courtesy of the pins and needles in her hands. Unwilling to admit as much to Charlotte, she sat down and unpacked it where it sat. Inside was a jumble of books and framed paintings that looked very much as though Izzy had packed it. Nothing like the neat and tidy boxes Charlotte had put together. She picked up a loosely wrapped object. Sugar and spice she was tired. She’d finish this box then sneak away for a nap in her lovely quiet ground-floor room that Charlotte had insisted she accept.

  After Charlotte watched her for a bit she put on her ‘let’s talk positive’ voice. ‘Did Luna tell you what was on her programme today?’

  Izzy had to laugh. ‘Combat archery chased up by street dance and Parkour, if memory serves. There might be some maths in there but I’m not one hundred per cent on that.’

  Charlotte shook her head. ‘Honestly. Schools these days.’

  ‘No, Charlotte,’ Izzy corrected. ‘Very fancy school summer camp which Luna and I shall be eternally grateful for. Thank you.’

  She meant it. From the bottom of her heart.

  The chemo had ended just over a month ago and when the scans had come back? Virtually everything had changed in the blink of an eye.

  Freya had given up her shop and was already working as an office manager at an artists’ co-operative here in Bristol.

  Emily was working all hours at her very grown-up sounding job.

  Charlotte sold the Sussex house, not because Oli had pressured her to but because, in her words, ‘There was simply no way the children could move on if they were living in that pristine shrine to what didn’t work.’

  And Izzy still had cancer.

  In fairness, she felt a million times better than a few weeks ago when she was a vomiting, aching, crippled chemo mess. But now that she was about to go into the clinical trial? Bit of a yo-yo.

  Unlike in Hawaii, when her doctors had whipped off her breast and taken nearly all of her lymph nodes along for the ride before the standard rounds of chemo and radiotherapy, the team in Sussex felt she should have the opposite protocol. Chemo first. Lumpectomy second. This, of course, was dependent on her tumour shrinking.

  Not only was her disturbingly large tumour still very much in place (evil, deeply burrowed beast that it was), it had decided to forge new frontiers threatening encroachment on her skin, her lungs and her brain. Score one to tumour.

  All of which made agreeing to the clinical trial Emily had wormed her onto a no-brainer. Six to eight weeks solid in hospital that would make or break the cancer. Which was where fancy summer camp came into play.

  After selling her house for quite the breathtaking sum, Charlotte had asked if Luna would like to join Poppy at Badminton’s summer school. It was lush. The girls swotted in the morning then threw themselves into archery, swimming, riding, flute (Poppy), and ukulele (Luna). They even had a special week of survival skills in August. All this and the girls could return home every night to the vicarage.

  Izzy absolutely loved the house and, more to the point, so did Charlotte.

  It was already completely different to her marital home. The sitting room was strewn with brightly coloured throw pillows. Soft blankets were invitingly draped over sofa arms. Verdant houseplants gave the whole place a vibrant, botanical flair. Not a grey thing in sight.

  It was, effectively, an homage to everything Oliver had disliked. Joy, mostly, if the report on their lunch was anything to go by. How had the man only just learned that babies were peeing, pooing, barf-monsters? And what was he doing whining to Charlotte about it? She didn’t knock Xanthe up. Izzy had loved seeing Charlotte’s mouth twitch when she showed her the latest Instagram post from CheekyLawGirl. The kitchen looked as though a bomb had hit it and, more astonishingly, Xanthe had appeared sans make-up, hair like a rat’s nest and bags under her eyes. #mumslife #needamanny

  ‘Thank you, by the way,’ Charlotte gave Izzy a gentle pat on the shoulder, wary, as ever, of hurting her.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Helping with this. I know the children should be giving me a hand with it all, but …’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Izzy waved her off. She got it. Jack was always in London. Poppy was struggling to make yet another set of friends. Oli was a wanker. Divorce sucked.

  Izzy unwrapped a small painting and held it out at arm’s length. The gilt-framed canvas was quirky. And strangely moving. ‘Is this yours?’

  It wasn’t at all like the art that had been hanging in the Sussex house.

  Charlotte knelt beside her and took it in her hands with a soft ohh, I remember you. The painting featured a cuckoo clock
but, instead of a wooden cuckoo, there was a little girl in a suit emerging from the tiny door.

  ‘Goodness,’ Charlotte pressed her fingers to her mouth as she put the painting down then unwrapped a second one. It was plainly framed and had a much more modern aesthetic than the first. There was a girl falling from the sky in the foreground with some cotton wool clouds far out of reach. You couldn’t see the girl’s face. Just her hair. From the looks of things she was falling at an accelerated rate. Izzy knew the feeling. Some birds were swooping in. To the rescue maybe? ‘Are those goldfinches?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charlotte answered distractedly. ‘Yes they are.’

  ‘I’m going to guess these aren’t Oli’s.’

  ‘Mmm. No.’

  ‘Poppy’s?’

  ‘They’re mine.’ Charlotte sat back on her heels and smiled. ‘I bought them before I met Oli at an Affordable Art Fair. They were going to be the first things I hung up in my art café.’

  ‘The one you always wanted to open?’

  ‘Yes.’ Charlotte beamed at the paintings. ‘The one I always wanted to open. You know, Izzy?’ She gave Izzy’s shoulder another light squeeze. ‘You’ve just given me a wonderful idea.’

  Freya had been right not to let Monty and the children stay. They had protested. Said they should do the reverse of a ship’s christening and perform some sort of silly ritual to bring good luck along with them to Bristol. But something deep inside her had needed to do this on her own. So she’d told them not to be ridiculous, it was just a pile of bricks. Their future home was where their energy should be spent. Besides, she pointed out. Who else was going to drive the removal van to Bristol?

  It had been a lie, of course.

  She wasn’t meant to be attached to material things but now that it was no longer theirs, the house symbolized much more than she had thought. Their hopes and dreams as a family. Goalposts they had hit. Shelter in good times and, more recently, some very bad.

  Mostly, though – now that she was calling a spade a spade – it had been a drain.

  Up until now, she thought her adult life had been devoted to her family, her business, her principles, her moral core, the stand she took. On everything. But in reality? Her entire adult life had been devoted to buying, then keeping the house. Saving for the deposit. Paying the mortgage. Financing repairs. Remortgaging for the extension. Scraping together more money to cover the drains being refitted, the bathroom retiled, the boiler replaced. Doubling her efforts to pay the catapulting interest rate. Negotiating a mortgage freeze. Deciding to sell.

  And now it was all over.

  The hopes. And the dream. All to make way for new, more realistic ones.

  Somebody else would live here from tomorrow. They’d have their own rose-hued vision for the future, no doubt. And she could, at long last, look towards the future clear-eyed.

  She walked through each of the bare rooms, scooping up a final set of memories as she went. Felix’s broken tooth. Regan’s ‘incident’ with the candle. Monty’s height chart for the kids and Dumbledore. When she hit the landing, the woman that the estate agency had recommended ‘to guarantee that “ready to move in” look’ appeared at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘You want anything else? Last chance.’ The cleaning lady looked at her expectantly.

  Yes, she did. She wanted her family.

  And they weren’t here.

  It was all a bit of a shambles really. This great denouement. What had she expected? To be handed a prize for having bought a house? People did it all the time. The same way people changed the goalposts on what was important.

  The cleaning woman eventually made her mind up for her, shooing her out of the hallway and onto the frayed welcome mat. Freya watched as she mopped backwards down the corridor, out of the front door, put the mop in the bucket and, in one swift move, closed the door for good.

  In that moment Freya felt an instant, blissful sense of freedom.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘Hey! Look at you with the new hair!’

  ‘Yeah.’ Emily touched her slightly mellowed avatar look, equally surprised by the changes in her Nordic cuddler. Well, not hers, but … ‘I thought it was time for a change.’

  ‘Nice one.’ Noomi the Cuddler put her hand out for a fist-bump.

  Emily didn’t want to fist-bump. Nor did she really want to be hugged by Noomi now that she was here. Perhaps it was time for another change.

  ‘What do you think of my new do?’ Noomi tugged her hair out of the high ponytail.

  Not much if she was being honest.

  ‘Nice.’

  It wasn’t.

  Rather than the whimsical ‘I’m half butterfly’ effect that she presumed Noomi had been going for when she’d requested blue hair, the dye job made her look more … mortal. Which was a shame. The whole reason Emily had entertained this whole ‘money for hugging’ thing was because Noomi had seemed other-worldly. The golden hair, the willowy limbs, the whole lemon-verbena vibe. A vibe that came with a price tag, obviously, but at least it had allowed Emily to kid herself that the sessions were not part of her real life.

  Noomi shook her head. ‘I can’t believe how different you look. Any other big changes in your life?’

  Apart from the fact that all her friends had moved to Bristol leaving her to wallow in an ever-deepening pool of self-pity? Nope. Nothing new to see here. Apart from the hair. Obvs.

  Emily looked down the street and saw a smattering of normal people doing normal things. Taking out the rubbish. Waving goodbye to a friend. Talking on their mobile phones. Laughing.

  She would bet any amount of money that none of them had ever paid a person to cuddle them.

  ‘Emily?’ Noomi swept her My Little Pony forelock up and out of her eyes.

  What on earth was she doing paying someone to hug her?

  It wasn’t fulfilling. It wasn’t real.

  The revelation hit her like whiplash.

  It wasn’t an absence of cuddling that was creating that vast, gaping, black hole in Emily’s soul. It was proactively closing herself off from everyone she cared about.

  Her parents. Izzy, Charlotte, Freya.

  It didn’t take a shrink to point out that she hadn’t needed pound-a-minute cuddling when she’d been whizzing back and forth to Sussex for Izzy, helping Freya out with the move, meeting Hazel the Lawyer to hand over documents for Charlotte. It was, she believed, what most people called Having A Life.

  Once they’d all headed to Bristol, she’d withdrawn into the same ol’ same ol’ patterns. Work, sleep, repeat.

  She’d not seen Callum for months. Well. They’d met once for brunch with Ernesto and she’d faked an emergency surgery page halfway through. (A trick she’d learnt from Callum, so the ruse was short-lived.) All of those gooey doe-eyes had felt like lasers obliterating the remains of their friendship. On reflection, she hadn’t been annoyed; she’d been jealous. Just as she had been when she’d helped Freya pack up, watched the Sold sign get nailed up outside Charlotte’s and packed Izzy off in her new coat. It had been like sending everyone off for a grand adventure on the Yellow Brick Road while she stayed behind to toe the line because that’s what she did.

  But why?

  Because it seemed easier than jumping into the roiling pit of emotional chaos they were all battling their way through.

  Noomi held out her hand.

  Emily didn’t take it.

  Freya was right. She was a dried-up, bitter prune of a tiger baby who’d never learned to connect the emotional dots.

  She was brilliant at telling everyone else how fucked up their lives were, but if she ever bothered to turn the mirror on herself? She knew exactly what she’d see. Abject, bone-deep terror that Izzy’s new treatment wouldn’t work. Same again when she told her parents she was never, ever going to marry The Wang Boy, no matter how many flipping degrees in biochemistry he had.

  Noomi waved her hand in front of Emily’s face. ‘Sweetie? Should I call someone? An ambulance, maybe?�
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  ‘No. Thank you.’ Emily had trains to book. Parents to sit down. A life to live. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  She turned and walked straight back to the high street, picked up her pace as she hit the stairs into the underground, then, when she arrived at her stop, she hit the ground running.

  ‘Mum? How long do we have to stay?’

  Charlotte put her finger to her lips. Surely Jack knew it was rude to speak during a recital. His own sister, no less! Never mind that Poppy didn’t appear to be exactly gifted with the flute, but … she showed mechanical flair.

  ‘See you outside.’ Jack climbed across her and into the aisle then sloped out of the auditorium.

  Honestly. Where had his manners gone? His father, from the sounds of it, had been letting him run feral. Not that Oliver had been all that explicit about his parenting regime when he’d ‘returned’ Jack for a bit of ‘quality time with his mother’. (No. He hasn’t run away, Charlotte. He just wants to see his mum.) At least Jack had actually come to Bristol and not swanned off to Magaluf or wherever it was boys on the edge of making some very bad decisions went. He seemed to have an awful lot of spending money for a lad whose summer internship at his father’s law firm had ended in the space of a day and a half. (Not for me, Mum. Bunch of tight-assed know-it-alls.)

  The moment Poppy finished, Charlotte too sneaked out, nipped round to the stage door, whispered something vague to the music teacher about a family emergency, and marched out to the car park, only to find Jack stubbing out a cigarette round the back of the Land Rover.

  Rather than tell him off for something he clearly knew he shouldn’t have been doing, she thought it best to bring the entire matter home where they could discuss things sensibly. They’d have the house to themselves, as Luna and Izzy were in Devon for a bit of mother-daughter time before Izzy went into hospital.

  ‘Jack? Poppy? In the car, please. It’s time to go home.’

  ‘Mum!’ Poppy was indignant. ‘I told Riley and Teigan I’d go to the village for ice cream after and Teigan still has to do the a cappella choir. Can’t you pick me up later?’