“Well, separated. They’re filing for divorce as soon as they’re allowed to. Ross just casually dropped it into conversation today as if he thought I knew.”
She shook her head. “See, this is why everyone should be on Facebook. How else are you supposed to stay on top of 500 old schoolfriends’ relationship statuses?”
“And last night… God, I was this close to going to bed with him, Jess. I feel awful.”
“You didn’t know, did you?”
“I should’ve. Molly must’ve mentioned it a dozen times.”
We both went silent for a minute, and I knew we were thinking the same thing.
“Are you remembering –”
“– when Corinne came?” I said. “Yeah.”
We never met our dad, James, before he died; not even once. Mum’s relationship with him had been all over by the time she found out she was pregnant, which according to family legend hadn’t stopped Grandad having to be narrowly restrained from punching the guy, and he’d never shown any interest in us after that. When we got older and learned the whole story, the feeling became more than mutual. But the day Corinne had come to visit loomed large in my little kid memory.
She’d been pretty – beautiful really: a tall, willowy woman in middle age, with silvery skin and long, silken hair, prematurely white, like something out of a fairytale. We were only seven, but we could tell by the way Mum paled when she answered the door that it wasn’t a welcome visit.
They’d been closeted in the kitchen together for nearly an hour when they eventually emerged. Mum’s cheeks were wet, and Corinne’s eyes looked red-rimmed too.
“Can I have five minutes with them?” Corinne asked Mum quietly. And there was a sort of hungry, longing expression in her eyes as she looked over to where me and Jess were watching cartoons obliviously on the rug.
Mum looked uncertain, but eventually she gave a slight nod, and Corinne came to kneel by us. I don’t remember all she said, but I remember her hugging me, and a whisper, very faint: “You should’ve been my little girl, you know.” She pressed a tenner each into our hands – more money than we’d ever had in one go, back then – and she was gone. Although she and Mum grew close in later years, the two of us never saw her again.
After she left, Mum called us to her on the sofa and cuddled us like she’d never let go. It scared me. I think I was half afraid Corinne was going to come back and take us away, for some reason I didn’t understand.
“Who was that lady, Mummy?” Jess asked.
“A kind person I hurt once. Her name’s Corinne.”
“How did you hurt her?”
“Well, chickie, her husband lost his job because of something I did and it made her very sad.”
“Why did you do it then?”
Mum smiled and stroked Jess’s hair. “Oh, I was too silly to know better. It was a long time ago.”
“What did she hug us for?” I demanded.
“Didn’t you want her to, my love?”
I shrugged. “It was ok. She smelled nice. She doesn’t know us though.”
“She’s lonely, that’s all. The man she’s married to goes away a lot, and she doesn’t have any children.”
“That’s mean to leave her on her own.” Jess looked thoughtful. “If I was her, I’d get married to somebody different.”
Mum sighed. “So would I, Jessie.”
“Did you know her a long time, Mummy?” I asked. She always encouraged us to ask any question we liked, and gave a frank answer whenever she could.
Mum shook her head. “This is the first time we ever met. I used to know her husband.”
“Was he your friend?”
“Sort of. He’s your dad.”
“Oh.” I pondered this new information for a second. “Hey, can I have a Jaffa Cake?”
And that was that.
“But this isn’t like that, Bobs,” present-day Jess reminded me. “Ross is getting divorced.”
“So was James. That’s what the lying git told Mum, anyway.” I shook my head. “I know it’s not the same, but… well, I think the two of us know better than anyone that you don’t mess about with married men. People get hurt.”
“He’s only married on paper though. If he’s here and she’s in Sheffield, it has to be over, doesn’t it?”
“Still, it’s not right. You wouldn’t.”
“No. I’d want to wait till it was all signed and sealed, I think.” She examined me carefully. “You’re just friends then, are you?”
“We’re… partners.”
“And this lighthouse malarkey is nothing to do with you fancying him?”
“I do like his company,” I confessed. “He’s a good laugh, easy to be with. But that’s all there can be, at least until he’s actually divorced.”
She sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. Better to wait till it’s simple.”
I summoned a smile. “Well, let’s cheer up. Go on, chuck us those Maltesers and I’ll play your manky doctor game.”
“All right. So. Parsnip.”
“Bum?”
“Correct. Butternut squash…?”
***
It was a spectre-grey Thursday afternoon when I met Ross outside his Uncle Charlie’s bungalow on the outskirts of town, ready to sign the deeds that would make the lighthouse ours.
The ivy-covered house looked the same as always. It never did change much except for an occasional addition to Charlie’s collection of lecherous-looking garden gnomes on the front lawn, the ones he’d been using for years to wind up his property-value-conscious neighbours.
I’d been a pretty frequent visitor once upon a time. When Jess and I were small our grandad, Charlie’s long-time drinking buddy, used to bring us round to be plied with Madeira cake and pineapple squash by Charlie’s wife Annie while the two men watched football. But Annie and Grandad were gone now, and Charlie was all on his own.
He and Annie had never had kids, so, at 83, he was left at the mercy of his brother’s children – a niece and nephew. That was Ross’s dad Keith, well-known tight bastard and all-round mardy arse. I wasn’t quite sure how the same genes had managed to produce someone like Ross.
“Ivy only grows for the wicked,” Ross muttered as we stood in front of the curling tendrils twining themselves around Charlie’s front door.
“Sorry?”
He smiled. “Oh, nothing. Something my aunty used to say to wind the old boy up when he was working out in the garden, a silly superstition. Just came back to me.”
I examined him with concern. He seemed vacant, purple rings bruising his eyes.
“You ok?”
“Just tired,” he said, flushing slightly. “Up late on a design job.”
“Hi, Uncle Charlie,” Ross said when the door eventually opened, pumping the old man’s hand heartily. “Good to see you, you old bugger.”
“You too, lad. Come on in.” Charlie ushered us into the dimly lit house that for some reason always made me think of soup – something in the musty smell – and closed the door behind us.
Charlie