When Celia went to live in Southport with him I really missed her, so at least once the flat’s sold and we’ve moved in with Ma I’ll be living near her and I can file my Sweet Home articles from Lancashire like they do. Stella always seemed both happier and healthier in Sticklepond, too.
I was pretty sure Ma was dreading it even more than I was, so it was with mixed feelings that I picked up the phone on the same brisk March day that the Sweet Home magazine came out, to tell her I’d had offers on the flat at full asking price – luckily two people had wanted it – and accepted the one who could complete quickest.
‘I’m flabbergasted you’ve sold it so fast,’ she said. ‘Fancy someone paying all that money for a space no bigger than a shoebox, and down a hole, too.’
Ma had never been a big fan of basement living … and come to think of it, neither had Toto, since we only had the little paved area at the front for him to go out into, the garden belonging to the flat above.
‘It’s still not going to be quite enough,’ I said. ‘The expenses for the trip seem to go up all the time – lots of things I hadn’t thought of before, like finding insurance and paying for somewhere Stella can convalesce before coming home.’
‘What about those people at the magazine – weren’t they supposed to be doing some fundraising?’
‘Yes, and they raised quite a bit, but now they’ve moved on to the next Big Cause,’ I said. ‘Celia and Will are planning some fundraising events, and there’s been a steady trickle of small donations into the Stella’s Stars website – that had quite a boost when the evening paper did a story about us – but once we’re in Sticklepond I’ll have to come up with a few new ideas for the rest.’
‘And when do you think that might be?’ she asked.
‘Well, that’s the thing: it’s a cash buyer who just wants a pied-à-terre in London, so it should all go through very quickly.’
‘Well, I don’t know, he must have more money than sense,’ she said, slapping down the flat vowels like so many wet fish onto a marble slab.
She sounded more Lancashire every time I spoke to her. Despite her cottage being on the outskirts of the village, and her reclusive streak, when she moved there she’d slipped straight back into the fabric of Sticklepond like a hand into a glove.
‘Ma, I can’t help thinking it’s a major imposition,’ I confessed. ‘And I feel so guilty, because you’ve made everything just how you like it and are enjoying your life up there.’
‘Well, you’re not going to put the dampers on that, are you? We all get on fine when you and Stella come up to stay, and the studio is separate so you won’t affect my work. And if I want a bit of peace, I’ve got my garden room at the back of the house to escape into.’
This was true: and when we stayed she often vanished in there in the evenings, where she read old crime novels or watched endless battered and slightly fuzzy Agatha Christie videos.
But it was very much my mother’s house and besides, both of us were used to having our own space. I would so miss my little flat …
‘Oh, well,’ I sighed, ‘at least you know it won’t be for ever.’
‘True. I expect when Stella’s had her operation and is well again, you’ll want to move back to London and pick up your career. But I won’t be putting you out on the street, however long it takes.’
‘Yes …’ I paused. ‘Ma, we do seem to have a lot more possessions than I thought we did, once I started tidying up the flat to show buyers around. Perhaps when we move up I could rent a storage unit somewhere nearby.’
‘There can’t be that much in such a little flat.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ I told her.
‘My car can live outside then, and we’ll store some of your things in the garage. It’s dry in there and we can cover it all up with dustsheets.’
‘That’s true: it must be the only carpeted garage in Lancashire … and possibly the country.’
‘Don’t mock my garage,’ she said severely. ‘I happened to have the old carpet when I had the sitting room one replaced and it seemed like a good idea.’
‘I’ll buy your car one of those waterproof covers,’ I promised, because I knew she loved her little black Polo hatchback.
‘It’s only a car, love – you save every penny for Stella’s fund. I got the librarian to show me the Stella’s Stars webpage when I was down there earlier. She wanted me to sign up for the Silver Surfers First Wave course, so I could check it myself, but I told her there was nothing else on the internet I wanted to look at.’
My mother is not much past sixty and her short mop of curling hair isn’t silver, but hennaed a red so vibrant that she practically fluoresces in the dark, but I suppose they have to call the course something. This was the first sign of interest in computers that she’d ever shown.
‘I can show you anything you wanted to look at on the internet anyway – and we could do with having broadband put into the cottage quickly.’
‘Could we?’ she asked vaguely. ‘I’ll leave that to you. When do you think you and Stella will be moving up here?’
‘The end of April, I should think, if all goes well. They said Ormskirk Hospital could carry on giving Stella her regular check-ups, though if there are any problems she might be referred to Alder Hey.’
‘We’ll hope there aren’t any problems then, and soon she’ll be on that plane to Boston for the operation,’ Ma said stoutly.
‘If I can raise about another twenty thousand pounds, or so.’
‘That’s a drop in the ocean, compared to the amount you’ve already raised from selling the flat. I could take out a loan against the cottage for that much, if we need to.’
‘You know I won’t let you do anything like that,’ I said firmly. ‘One of us needs to have her own home and be financially secure.’
She had a good widow’s pension from Dad, but income was falling along with everything else. Still, her paintings sold modestly well and her retro exhibition a couple of years ago had been a sell-out.
‘We’ll see how the fundraising goes, but one way or the other we’ll get Stella to America and then she’ll be as right as rain, you’ll see. After that, I expect you’ll be fretting to get back to your career full time. I know how important it is to you.’
‘Actually, none of that seems important any more,’ I confessed. ‘I mean, I love making cakes and writing about baking, but I don’t miss all the urgent deadlines for the freelance articles.’
‘Priorities change a bit when you’ve a child to consider, especially a poorly one. Nature seems to have preprogrammed we mothers to put our offspring first – or most of us. Even me,’ she added, ‘to the extent where I knew I’d be rubbish at the maternal stuff, so I made sure you always had someone motherly looking after you.’
‘Moses is going to be disgusted when Toto moves in permanently,’ I said.
We’d been out for a Boxing Day walk two years previously when we’d fished a picnic basket out of the river at the edge of the Lido field and found the black kitten inside. Toto had made it abundantly clear then that he’d thought we should just toss it back. His opinion didn’t seem to be much changed since.
‘They’ll shake down together: we all will,’ Ma said, though with more hope than conviction in her voice.