‘Don’t even think about it,’ Isla warned. She was already in her warm-day work uniform of a black vest top, jeans that were cut off just above the ankle and black Vans.
Aggs automatically adopted a face of innocence. ‘Think about what? Brad Pitt on a sunlounger, wearing nothing but suncream and a smile?’
‘No and eeeew, that’s so inappropriate. Mothers your age are not allowed to have sexual fantasies. I’m sure there’s a law about it somewhere,’ Isla winced as she placed the tray down on the empty side of Aggs’ new double bed. It was laden with a huge mug of coffee, two slices of pumpkin-seeded toast and a glistening apple Danish that Aggs knew would have come out of the oven five minutes ago.
‘Fine. I won’t tell you about what Matt Damon might get up to in my utility room then. Anyway, what have I not to think about?’
Isla made gagging sounds before dissolving into giggles. ‘Don’t even think about getting up and coming downstairs.’
‘I wasn’t even contemplating it.’ Blatant lie number one of the day was met with a knowing grin, hands on hips and raised eyebrows of doubt. Aggs immediately buckled. ‘God, I’d be a rubbish spy. One sign of a sceptical look and I fold like a deckchair. Okay, so I was planning to come down. But only because I don’t want to leave you on your own in case it gets busy.’
‘I’m not on my own. Val and Yvie are downstairs. They came to help because they knew you wouldn’t be able to relax. Val says if you come down before noon she’s shutting up shop and picketing the front door with placards saying we’ve got mice.’
Despite the undoubted authenticity of the threat, Aggs found herself laughing at the thought of her two friends pitching up and doling out orders. And she knew better than to call Val’s bluff.
Isla squeezed onto the bed next to the tray, tucked a tendril of red hair the same shade as her mum’s behind her ears, then leaned over and gave Aggs a hug. ‘Happy birthday, Mum. Are you okay? Are you missing Gran?’
Aggs hesitated, giving her time to swallow the lump in her throat. This time last year her mum had still been with them, although she’d been in the final stages of her illness. Now, the pain of watching her suffer had been replaced by the pain of losing her, but her mum, more than anyone, would be telling her to ‘just get on with it, love’.
‘I am, but you know what she’d be saying…’
‘Just get on with it, love,’ Isla said softly, her impersonation of her grandmother’s voice absolutely on point. Isla had been in the fifth year of high school when they’d discovered she’d been bunking off lessons for years, by calling the school and using her gran’s voice to claim Isla was sick. Aggs had been furious, but her mum had thought it was hilarious. She never could get upset with her granddaughters. Isla shifted the mood back to happiness. ‘So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re planning to give you your presents later when Skye gets here, but in the meantime please stay here. Relax. You deserve it.’
Isla’s last word was restricted by the tightness of the squeeze Aggs was delivering, her heart bursting with gratitude. ‘I love all this. And you. Thanks so much, sweetheart. How did I get so lucky to get you?’
‘Because God had to make up for Skye somehow,’ Isla shot back with a grin.
‘Hey! Don’t talk about your sister like that.’ Aggs feigned outrage, but Isla was already up and out the room, chuckling as she went.
‘Tell you what – if she decides to grace us with her presence, I’ll be nice to her all day.’
‘Best birthday present I could have!’ Aggs shouted in her wake.
Twins. Double trouble. Isla and Skye definitely had a love, irritate, love, relationship. It didn’t help that while they looked undeniably alike, with their flaming hair (Isla’s falling past her shoulders in waves, whereas Skye had a more reserved chin-length bob) and green eyes, their personalities were completely different. Isla was more of a free spirit who had taken a couple of years out after school to volunteer with a school-construction charity in South America. On her return, she’d come to work in The Ginger Sponge for a couple of weeks until she decided what to do next. A year later, she was still there, still undecided and that showed no sign of changing any time soon. The fourth generation of the Sanders family to work in the café. After running it for a decade on her own, Aggs harboured a hope that Isla would one day take over from her, but she’d leave that up to her daughter to decide.
Skye, on the other hand, was following in her father’s footsteps and studying law at the University of Glasgow. She had already mapped out the next ten years of her life, set on being a top-flight international property lawyer by the time she was thirty. Moving in with her dad the year before had been a strategic decision and Skye made no secret of the fact that she’d done it so that she’d have his brilliant legal mind on hand to help with her studies. Aggs completely understood, and saw the sense in it, but the house was definitely too quiet without Skye around. Aggs even found herself longing for the familiar sound of her girls bickering about the most inane and trivial stuff. If it wasn’t for the resemblance and the fact that Skye dropped into the birthing pool just two minutes before Isla, Aggs wouldn’t be convinced that there was any genetic link between them at all.
The coffee scalded her lips as she took a sip, but she barely noticed, enjoying the heat of the mug on her hands as she stared at the tiny specs dancing in the rays of sun that were forcing their way through the slats of the shutters on the wall next to her. A sunny day. She’d hoped it would be. Although, this was Glasgow, so there could be torrential rain by lunchtime, a heatwave in the early afternoon, and a warning of frost by dinner time.
A sigh escaped her. So here it was. Her forty-fifth birthday. She was normally far too busy with the café, the accounts, the ordering, the invoices and the other hundred jobs she did every day, to allow herself the indulgence of introspection, but now the peace and silence was giving her way too much time for reflection. This was the first year without both Mum and Dad, the first one since the flat and café had officially passed to her, the first one since Skye had moved out, but definitely not the first one without someone lying beside her in bed.
It had been ten years now since the divorce. Ten years since that crushing betrayal that had spurred her to return here with the twins. Ten years with no time to herself to think about the simple things like getting her roots done, never mind the big stuff like personal relationships and life plans.
History had shown that neither were exactly her areas of expertise, but it wasn’t too late, was it? Decorating her bedroom had been a first, tiny step towards doing something for herself. It was a notion that had grown since her mum’s funeral.
She missed her every single day. Missed her laugh. Missed her company. Missed her love. Missed chatting over cups of tea in the morning and getting told off for not making the most of herself. ‘The day I go out without my lippy is the day it’s over for me,’ her mum would tut.
Aggs doubted that there would ever be a day that she didn’t think of her, but over the last few months she’d worked on picking up the pieces of her life. Now, for the first time in twenty years, she didn’t have the responsibility of looking after other people. The girls were taking care of their own lives, her parents were gone and there was no one depending on her but herself.
Her eyes went to a photograph that the girls had found in an old suitcase when they’d been clearing out this room to decorate it. They’d slipped it into a new white satinwood frame and put it on her dressing table.
It was a picture of Aggs. Around twenty-three. In a white bikini on a Malibu beach. Head up. Hair blowing behind her in the wind. Arms outstretched. Laughing at the sky. That’s who she used to be. And that wild, free, young woman bore no resemblance to the exhausted, depleted, weighed-down person that she’d become, someone who went through the motions, did what was required of her, but put herself at the bottom of the priority list.
After laying her mum to rest, though, she’d gradually taken steps to heal the scars left by too much loss, and after