‘You don’t sound too good either.’
‘It seemed to take hours to get up here and to be honest I was knackered before I left,’ Kate hedged.
‘So have you rung the hospital?’
‘No need to. When I let myself in Mum was already here.’
‘Bloody hell, that’s awful. I didn’t think they’d discharge her if she hadn’t got anyone there to look after her.’
‘They didn’t – she has. His name’s Guy.’
‘A man? Her neighbour?’
‘Her boyfriend.’
‘Wow! You didn’t tell me she was seeing someone.’
‘Because I didn’t know and no, it’s not “wow”,’ snapped Kate. ‘He’s the same age as I am. Younger probably – with a tattoo.’ And then Kate told Chrissie all about meeting Guy, very quietly and very quickly, because she wasn’t sure if her voice would carry and if Mum and Guy could hear her from their room.
Curled up, warm and whispering in the gloom, her clothes neatly folded on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, wrapped in a duvet, Kate felt like a kid all over again, wondering if Mum and Dad could hear the radio. It was a disturbing sensation, sitting there in her old bed, staring at the same four walls that had surrounded her for the best part of her childhood.
Although at least her parents had had the decency to decorate the room since the whole Adam Ant, Duran Duran, New Romantic phase, thought Kate ruefully. It was cream now with a navy blue picture rail, and curtains and bedclothes to match, her shabby teenage skip-chic replaced by handsome reclaimed pine furniture. A large mirror hung on the wall where her giant poster of Spandau Ballet once was, although screwing her eyes up, Kate could just make out the heart shape on the back of the door, carved into the soft wood with a dead biro, where she’d pledged her undying love for Tony Hadley, Spandau’s tall dark lead singer, the one with the floppy hair. It took her a moment or two to realise she’d stopped talking and at the far end of the ether Chrissie was still listening.
‘So, I’ve decided to come home tomorrow.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Chrissie snorted. ‘You’ve only just got there. Bill, Joe and the boys are planning a pizza and video fest tomorrow night. Blood, gore and lashings of extra pepperoni. It’ll be like the Mutiny on the Bounty here if you come back before Monday at the earliest. Besides you’ve already said your mum wants you to stay. I think you ought to – everything is going just fine here. What’s she going to do next week when this guy Guy isn’t around?’
It wasn’t the question Kate particularly wanted to answer.
‘I don’t know, I haven’t even thought about it. I wish you could’ve seen him. He’s got a tan and works out. You don’t get a six pack by accident, and he’s in bed with my mother, a woman whose idea of exercise and a good time used to be throwing a stick for the family Labrador.’
Kate took a long pull on her tea.
‘My mother is sleeping with a man whose body is in better shape than any man I’ve ever been out with. A Chippendale is screwing my mother. My mother is having sex, for God’s sake.’
Wisely, Chrissie said nothing, so Kate continued in a hoarse whisper, ‘He calls her “Mags-baby”. There is just no way I can stay here with the pair of them, Chrissie. It’s sickening. He was dotting about making tea in his knickers. I’m going to tell them that I’ve spoken to you and that you need me to get back for the boys, and besides that I’ve got work to do – clients that I can’t possibly let down.’
‘Right.’ Chrissie didn’t sound convinced.
‘Chrissie, I’ve just driven up here, worried sick about what I’m going to find, all set to play Florence Nightingale, only to discover that when I wasn’t looking my mother transmogrified into Mrs Robinson. And I can’t believe that this guy Guy has moved in here with her without her saying so much as a word to either me or Liz.’
‘I read somewhere that the original Mrs Robinson was only about thirty-seven or thirty-eight.’
‘I’m thirty-eight,’ Kate hissed, ‘and I’ll tell you now I am certainly not Mrs Robinson material. My mother is fifty-eight. She should be making jam and doing yoga, going to evening classes to expand her mind not be, not be –’
‘In bed with some good-looking guy and his suntanned six pack?’ said Chrissie.
‘Exactly,’ hissed Kate.
Chrissie sighed. ‘Look. If it wasn’t your mother and I wasn’t meant to say how disgusted and horrified I am, which I obviously I am, I’d cheer and so would you. If you could just see beyond this whole mother daughter thing, you’d go out and buy a roll of bunting and a couple of bottles of fizzy pink plonk, celebrating the breaking down of sexual mores and God knows how many years of indoctrination and sexual repression.’
There was a long pause and then Kate said, ‘You’ve been reading Cosmo again, haven’t you?’
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Chrissie.
‘Do? What do you mean, do?’
‘While Guy is away in Germany?’
‘He’s already said he’s going to cancel his trip.’
‘And you think she’ll let him?’
‘All right, all right – but I do have work to sort out and I can hardly leave the boys there with you all week, it’s not fair.’
‘Don’t worry, Joe and I will manage between us and Bill offered to lend a hand if the going gets tough. We’ll be fine. Honest. I’d stay where you are, at least over the weekend until you see how they manage. Oh and Kate –’
‘Yes?’
‘Enjoy the view.’
Kate snorted and as she said her goodbyes made up her mind to go home the next morning, whatever Chrissie said and come back again on Monday, if and when Guy flew off to wherever it was he was going.
While it was true nobody was going to die if Kate took the week off, all the projects she was working on did have a deadline. Kate was justifiably proud of her reputation for delivering on time, even – in the long distant past – if it meant composing copy while breast-feeding. Her job had paid the lion’s share of bills for years. If she really was going to be away for a few days, Kate ought to sort work out. All of which could have been done at her mum’s if she’d had the nous to pack the laptop. Once she had sorted out the justification for going home Kate began to relax.
As she switched off the bedroom light and settled down, she heard the bed squeaking across the hallway, which very briefly conjured up an image which was just too horrible to contemplate.
‘Are you certain that you have to go home? It seems such a pity.’ Maggie was sitting up in bed, flanked by a set of crutches, drinking tea. In the daylight her bruises looked more painful, bright navy in contrast to her pallor and so violent that Kate couldn’t look at them directly without wincing. It was around ten the next morning, not that it really mattered what time Kate left for home; the boys were staying with Chrissie, and Joe would be off schmoozing some Yank but it felt like the right time to leave.
‘I’ll try and get back next week. I need to sort my client list out and make arrangements for the kids.’
Maggie painted on what passed for a brave smile. ‘Okay, if you’re sure. Thanks for coming to the rescue, darling. It was so nice to see you. Ring me when you get back.’
Kate kissed her goodbye and then jogged down the stairs, fighting with her guilt, not protesting when Guy offered to carry her bag out to the car.
At the car, to her