Stella’s landline rings and she picks it up to embark on a long and involved conversation about a mindfulness workshop she’s hosting, and a few minutes later a young woman comes in, dark-haired and painfully thin, her small awkward frame a collection of sharp angles clothed in black. She startles at the sight of Vivienne, her eyes darting from her to Cleo with a look of panic as she backs away. ‘No, please don’t go,’ Viv says gently. ‘Are you OK? Would you like something?’
The woman plucks anxiously at her skirt. ‘No. I …’ She turns to leave, but just then Stella hangs up the phone and goes to her. ‘Jenna, how are you feeling?’ She puts an arm around her. ‘Headache gone now, is it?’
Visibly relaxing, she looks at Stella gratefully. ‘Yes, thank you,’ she whispers. ‘I thought I’d make a cup of tea.’
She has that effect on people, her mother, on the waifs and strays that she collects, has always collected, in one way or another. They all adore her. Even before she turned this house into a refuge, they would find her, seeking her out, sensing within her a place of comfort and safety. Viv watches as the young woman is steered towards the kettle, Stella’s hand upon her shoulder.
Cleo looks up to check that her mother’s attention is elsewhere, then turns back to her phone. It vibrates to indicate there’s a new message, and her heart leaps.
Cleo?
Hey.
Hey. Where were u yesterday? Missed u.
She stares at the words in surprise. He’s never said anything like that before. Had to do something with Mum, she writes.
K. Wot u up 2?
Nothing much. Homework.
She beams back at the little smiling face. They met on a Fortnite board on a gaming site a few months back. It’s only recently they’ve begun private messaging. His name is Daniel and he’s a year older than she. He’s told her he lives near Leeds and she’s told him she’s in London. Yesterday he sent her a picture of himself – a blond-haired boy smiling shyly beneath a beanie hat – and she’s been thinking about him ever since.
U there?
Yeah.
Thought I’d scared U off wiv my pic. Lol.
Course not. It’s nice.
Thanx. U got one?
She hesitates, but nevertheless her thirteen-year-old heart feels a thrill of excitement. Maybe, she writes. She glances at her mum, sees that she’s watching her, and hastily drops the phone.
‘Who’s that you’re texting, love?’
‘Just Layla.’ She’s a bit scared how easily the fib trips off her tongue. She doesn’t usually lie to her mum, or that is, only about how many sweets she’s had, or if she’s got any homework to do. But her mother only nods and turns back to the weird thin lady who looks terrified of everything.
Cleo knows she’s not got much time. She wants to give him something more and quickly writes, Gtg, spk 2mrw and then, before she can stop herself, she adds a
‘Come on,’ her mum says to her, handing her her coat. ‘It’s time to go.’
Viv watches her daughter gather her books with painful slowness and tries to hide her agitation. She can hear Shaun’s voice from somewhere above, a door opening and then closing again, the sound of footsteps on the stairs. She resists the urge to drag Cleo away, her coat half hanging off her.
It happened a few weeks ago. Stella had gone away on a weekend yoga retreat and, as Cleo was on a rare visit to her father’s, had asked Vivienne to look after the house and guests in her absence. She’d been doing the books for the café at the kitchen table with a glass of wine when Shaun appeared.
He’d been staying there for a month by then, but they’d never made much more than small talk before. She tried to remember what Stella had told her about him: a recent spell in rehab for drugs, she thought. He had walked into the kitchen and stopped when he saw her, then leaned against the fridge, appraising her, a rather cocksure smile upon his face. ‘You in charge of the asylum tonight then?’ he’d asked.
She’d laughed. ‘Something like that.’
He sat down opposite her then, and she was slightly taken aback by his sudden proximity. He was tall and well built, with a broad Mancunian accent and was, she would guess, in his late thirties, tattoos covering his muscular arms, a somewhat belligerent air.
She’d looked back at him levelly. ‘So, how’re you finding it here? Settled in OK?’
He shrugged. ‘Yeah, it’s sound. Your mum’s all right, ain’t she?’ He stretched and yawned, the hem of his T-shirt rising up to reveal a flash of taut stomach. ‘She’s a character, any rate. Looks like a right old hippy and talks like the queen. What is she, some kind of aristo, slumming it with the proles?’
Viv had smiled and murmured a non-committal, ‘Hardly.’ The fact was, Stella’s parents had most certainly been wealthy, but Viv had never met them. Stella had been estranged from them since before she was born, and her and Ruby’s childhood had been anything but privileged.
‘Well, any road,’ Shaun said then, ‘knows what she’s about, don’t she?’ He nodded at her ledger book. ‘What you doing there, then?’
So Vivienne had told him about her café.
‘Done all right for yourself, haven’t you?’ Though he’d been smiling, there was a hint of resentment in his tone. He’d pulled out a tin of tobacco, begun rolling a cigarette, and started telling her about his misspent youth in Manchester. He was entertaining; funny and quick-witted, though she sensed this was a well-worn charm offensive, that there was an unpredictability hiding behind his smile and his mood might change in an instant. She’d met men like him before. She had, too many times in her youth, slept with men like him before, the sort whose swagger and bravado was a front for damage and gaping insecurity, who triggered her instinct to appease, pacify and bolster.
He was exactly the sort of man, in fact, that she had trained herself to avoid. ‘Your problem is, you go for lame ducks,’ Samar told her once. ‘It’s your saviour complex. You must get it from your mother.’ It was unfortunate that Shaun was so very good looking.
He had just finished telling her about how he and his school friends had stolen a milk float when suddenly he’d disarmed her by saying, ‘You’re one of those women who don’t know how fit they are, aren’t you?’
And it was so clichéd, such an obvious line, yet even as she’d rolled her eyes she’d felt a reluctant thrill. Probably because she’d recently turned forty and no one (apart from Walton) had said anything even vaguely complimentary