‘Excuse me, but are you Auntie Meg?’
‘Er, yeah?’
‘I’m Connor. Mum said I had to hang around here this afternoon, see if you needed a lift home.’
‘Well, yes please,’ said Auntie Meg. ‘I’d love a lift. Thank you, Connor.’ He was so tall, this lad, she thought. Well, Sarah was, and she wondered if Olivia was, too. Was it just Meg who had inherited the short-arse genes from their mother’s side?
‘It’s nice to meet you,’ added Connor and he stuck out his hand, giving Meg the impression he was doing what his mother had always taught him to do: be polite.
‘You too,’ said Meg. She felt a little guilty this was the very first time she’d ever clapped eyes on her sister’s son. That it was a shame. There was no aunt–nephew hugging, no laughingly telling him how much he’d grown. It was sad, really. Regrettable. That she and Sarah had made each other so bloody miserable they never wanted to set eyes on each other again once Meg left Tipperton Mallet.
‘Let me take your bag,’ said Connor. He had a very deep voice; he sounded like a Suffolk Morgan Freeman.
‘Thank you.’
Connor took Meg’s bag for her and put it in the boot of the car. When they got in the car, Connor’s legs were so long and his seat so far back it looked like he was sitting on the back seat; Meg had to turn her head a forty-five-degree angle in order to talk to him.
‘Has your mum left yet?’ she asked innocently as Connor motored up the road. She prayed Sarah had; being this close to her made her feel suddenly uneasy.
‘Yes, ages ago,’ replied Connor. He did another hair flick and his fringe landed back where it had started.
‘Great,’ said Meg. ‘I hope she likes my flat. It’s really tiny. Fancy her getting her old job back like that!’
‘Yeah,’ muttered Connor.
‘Do you mind?’
‘Mind what?’
‘Your mum going up to work in London and me coming here for a while?’
Connor just shrugged, then indicated left, navigating a woman on a bike with an enormous shopping basket. Two chickens appeared to be flapping in it.
‘I’ve left my job for two months,’ Meg added.
‘Oh, right.’
‘I own a model agency in London. Tempest Models? Perhaps your mum’s told you?’
‘Nope.’ Connor shook his head and didn’t look remotely impressed.
‘I look after models.’ Still nothing. God, she was at an awkward angle trying to talk to him, with him almost sitting in the back and everything. ‘One of my girls – my friend, actually – is Clarissa Fenton-Blue. Have you heard of her?’
‘Everyone’s heard of Clarissa Fenton-Blue,’ said Connor, finally showing a flicker of animation. ‘She’s hot!’
Meg felt gratified Connor was showing a bit of an interest at last. In London she was used to people being excited to meet her. She wondered exactly what Sarah had said about her successful sister. ‘Does your mum talk about me much?’ she ventured. ‘Mention me at all?’
‘No, never,’ replied Connor, keeping his eyes on the road. ‘I’d forgotten you existed until yesterday, to be honest.’
‘Oh,’ said Meg. Still, she shouldn’t be surprised, should she? She never mentioned Sarah to anyone, either. ‘What do you do?’ she asked.
‘I work in a sandwich factory.’
‘Oh, OK.’ Meg nodded. ‘Management?’
‘No, production.’
‘Oh, right. Well, cool. Good money?’
‘No’ – Connor smiled – ‘but it suits me. We’re here.’
That was quick. She’d forgotten how near the cottage was to the station. Connor pulled up onto the short gravel drive and Meg stared at the front of the house. It was how she remembered it, but different. Before, years ago, the mottled brick stonework had always looked grey and chilly, now it had more of a soft honey glow. Had something been done to it? Repointing or whatever it was called? The cottage looked homely and pretty in the afternoon sun, especially as it had pink roses winding round its chocolate-box leaded windows and window boxes bursting with all kinds of flowers she would never be able to identify. Meg was surprised by a wash of feeling. A feeling that she had missed this place, very much, which was ridiculous as she obviously hadn’t. She didn’t dare think of Mum and Dad. Mum, at the window, waving like a lunatic as she walked to school every morning. Dad, in the front garden with his top off and his chest all tanned, mowing the lawn to a backdrop of Radio 2 from a tinny transistor radio on a stretched-to-capacity extension lead. No, no, she would not think of them. She couldn’t. Oh god, it had been a big mistake coming here; what on earth had she been thinking? She should have just maxed out her credit card and gone to Antigua.
‘Well, are you going to come in?’ asked Connor. He was standing outside the passenger window, her suitcase in his hand.
‘Yes. Yes, of course I’m coming in.’
Meg got out of the car and walked up the drive. The cottage still looked like one of those make-believe houses children draw. Red front door – now a little faded – a garden that wrapped all the way round, a winding path down to the front gate. She’d drawn it herself many times, as a kid. With them all standing outside.
Meg looked up at the top window, in the eaves, with the floral yellow curtains. That would be her room, wouldn’t it? It had been hers as a child and a teenager; she presumed the gothic stars and crescent moons had been painted over by now, the ancient tins of stinky, contraband tobacco removed from their hiding places. She certainly hadn’t cleared out the room properly when she’d left. Done a bunk, that’s how it was referred to. By her, anyway. She’d stayed in another attic room recently, in Kensington – with a man she saw casually for two weeks: a man who thought Lynx Africa was a room spray and not a body one.
Meg followed Connor to the front door, which he unlocked. She stepped over the pile of shoes that were styling the porch and into the small front hall, where she almost gasped at how familiar the smell was. It hit her like a tomahawk, that slightly musty, unmistakable odour of Old House. She breathed it all in; the wonky walls, the wall-mounted family photos she knew she wouldn’t be in; the potpourri. She could see beyond into the sitting room. It looked the same – sunflower yellow walls, oak floorboards obscured by the ‘posh’ ‘Persian’ rug Mum had loved so much – yet distinctly more cluttered: a hoodie thrown on the back of a sofa, magazines lying on the floor; mugs and plates and glasses everywhere. Mum had never allowed clutter downstairs; neither had Sarah, back in the day. It was so, so weird to be back. Meg felt like grabbing her suitcase from Connor and running away all over again. Instead, she watched as a tall girl as graceful as a gazelle came wafting down the stairs in front of her. Thick, wavy honey-hued hair. Not a scrap of make-up but it was a face that didn’t need any. And the legs on her! Meg’s model scouting radar was twitching.
‘Olivia?’
Olivia stepped forward to give her aunt a vague, barely touching hug; she smelled of raspberries and freshly washed hair. ‘Hello, Meg. Auntie Meg.’
Again, Meg was assaulted by guilt and sadness that she’d never met her niece and nephew, had missed so many years of them. They were her flesh and blood. Olivia had the same wide-set eyes, the same brown hair as Connor. But how could she have had a relationship with them when she didn’t have one with their mother?
She smiled at Olivia then noticed something. A note of suspicion. Olivia’s wide-set eyes were narrowed, her head was slightly tipped to one side; Meg