Chapter 3
3
After finishing my pot of tea, I wheeled my trolleys back to the van and drove home, stopping at the tiny supermarket in Middlebeck, the village nearest my cottage, to grab appropriate makeover snacks. That then sent me into a near panic attack over whether to go for crisps, biscuits or ice cream, something more substantial like pizza or fancier like cheese and crackers. In the end, I threw them all in my basket along with bottles of wine, gin and lemonade.
‘Having a party?’ The fifty-something cashier, who liked to describe herself as a ‘local character’, asked, loading up two bulging bags. ‘Bit of a change from your usual healthy crap.’
‘Um. Something like that.’
‘Ooh – I know, you just got dumped!’ She winked at the teenage boy waiting in the queue behind me. ‘Break-up snacks.’
I almost retorted that if I had, then I’d hardly appreciate her announcing it to the whole shop. But then the thought flashed into my head that, if I’d been dumped, at least I’d have had a more recent boyfriend than William, who I broke up with on my twenty-first birthday after a lecture from Mum about priorities.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I had been on dates since then.
Three, in total, with Stefan from the wholesalers. All in the month after Mum’s funeral, and all about as ill-judged and awkward as the cheap black heels I’d tottered about in at the wake.
Instead, I mumbled something about having a ‘girls’ night’, and gave a watery smile that became a tentative grin when I realised that this was sort of true.
I had a couple of hours to mush the marrowfat peas I’d soaked overnight with fresh mint leaves and lemon juice, ready the other items Parsley’s was running low on, shower and flap about making sure the house was tidy.
The last one didn’t take long, given that the whole cottage consisted of five rooms, which had all been tidied and cleaned the day before. Which was fortunate, as choosing what to wear for the first time Blessing had seen me out of uniform since Mum’s funeral took me forever. However many times I scanned my wardrobe, aside from my work clothes, there were still only the three pairs of jeans I’d ordered online and kept despite them hanging off my hips, four T-shirts in varying shades of dark blue, depending upon how faded they’d become in the wash, a grey cardigan and navy jumper, plus a black dress that looked as if I’d borrowed it from one of the stuffiest Apprentice candidates.
Surprise, surprise, I opted for my least saggy jeans and bluest T-shirt, jazzing things up with the cardigan and some stripy socks that Gregory had given me in last year’s secret Santa.
By the time Blessing arrived, I was debating whether to hide behind the sofa and pretend not to hear her knocking.
The section of brain that was still able to think rationally forced me to go and let her in, Parsley’s Pasties smile firmly in place.
‘Woah. What’s up?’ Blessing asked, wheeling a small suitcase into the living room. She’d swapped her work tunic for a black calf-length leather skirt and metallic jumper with matching ankle boots. I wondered if I should have worn the funeral dress after all.
‘I’m fine,’ I squeaked.
‘Girl, you are not fine.’
‘This is just… the first time I’ve had a friend over to my house.’
Blessing studied me carefully for a long minute. The gentle expression on her face was about the only thing preventing me from running upstairs and locking myself in the bathroom until she went away.
‘I hear you. After a shift surrounded by strangers rushing about, constant noise, Gavin droning on over the tannoy every thirty seconds, I’m straight in the bath, earplugs in, eye mask on. My sisters have learned that to interrupt me risks death by exfoliation. If I could come home to a quiet house, I’d never ask anyone over.’
‘Yeah. Most nights, I’m prepping for the next day, visiting the wholesalers and stuff anyway.’
‘Nell didn’t really believe in a social life, did she?’
‘Time off is for the lazy or feckless.’
She plopped onto the sofa. I forced down the prickle of anxiety caused by her taking my usual seat.
‘Anyway, that’s why I’m here, isn’t it? So both of us can get off the Sherwood Airport Travelator of Endless Monotony. I’m thirty in a few months. Still sharing a bunk bed with my littlest sister. Maybe if I was a bit more like Nell, I’d have my own place, too.’ Blessing caught herself. ‘Sorry, was that totally tactless? Living alone because your mum died is nothing to be envious of. Crap. I’ve said something stupid again…’
‘No, it’s fine.’ I missed Mum, but nothing like I’d used to, and had heard enough about Blessing’s two sisters and three brothers to appreciate my own space.
She didn’t look as if it was fine. I almost told her where the bathroom was, in case she wanted to hide in there for a bit. Instead, I asked if she wanted any food.
‘What have you got?’
I bobbed my head a couple of times. ‘Might be easier to say what I haven’t got… or at least just show you.’
I led her through the tiny, decrepit kitchen where I made hot drinks and prepped my evening meals, into the sparkling chef’s kitchen where the real magic happened.
‘Wow.’ Blessing did a slow spin, taking in the stainless-steel worktops and appliances, the pots of herbs on a shelving unit positioned to soak up sunlight from the huge windows, and the top-of-the-range equipment arranged to maximise the space. My mother might have balked at paying over a pound for a tube of toothpaste, but when it came to her kitchen, no expense had been spared.
‘This is where miracle pasties are born.’ She opened one fridge to find stacks of large tubs containing various fillings, then the one beside it, full of raw ingredients. I hovered nervously behind her, feeling not dissimilar to if she was going through my underwear drawers or bathroom cabinet. ‘Is this evening’s choice of food pasty or pasty, with a side of pasty?’
‘No.’ I took the giant wheel of Stilton cheese out of her hands and carefully pushed it back on the shelf, before closing the fridge door. ‘The last time I ate a whole pasty was for school packed lunch.’
‘Understandable, I guess.’ She nodded, picking up my favourite chef’s knife and inspecting the blade.
‘Besides, I make the pasties fresh every morning, so there won’t be any more until tomorrow.’
‘Really?’ She surrendered the knife to my outstretched hand and wandered over to the herbs. ‘I never knew if that was just something people said: “freshly baked today”.’
‘This is what I’ve got.’ I gestured to where I’d neatly laid out the food I’d bought on a worktop, causing Blessing to brush off the rosemary leaves she’d just crushed in her palm and come to take a look.
‘Ooh. Okay. This is quite a feast. I grabbed a burger on the way over, so I hope you didn’t get all this just for me.’
After I fobbed that question off, we decided to take a couple of bowls of crisps for now and put a pizza in an oven for later.
‘Right. Let’s get down to business,’ Blessing said, once she’d taken a seat in Mum’s armchair and opened her suitcase. ‘I’ve got a few foundation testers. If we go even a shade too dark, you’ll look orange.’
She handed me a tiny tube, the shade of which was named ‘porridge’.
‘Try it on your jawline.’
I opened the lid and squirted a blob onto my finger, then dabbed it on. Blessing looked up from where she’d been sorting through other packages in the case, then glanced at me, her eyes widening for a second before the previous look of compassion took over.
‘You’ve never done this before.’
I shrugged. ‘I’ve worn lip gloss a couple of times.’
Reaching over, she gently smoothed the blob across my jawline. With a start, I realised it was the most physical affection I’d had since Stefan gave me a clumsy hug and peck on the cheek on our final date.
‘Hmmm. That’s not quite it.’ Oblivious to the tears now prickling behind my eyes, she busied herself finding another colour – ‘let’s try Arctic hare’ – and applied it to the other side.
‘That’s better.’ She glanced around the living room. ‘Where’s your downstairs mirror?’
‘I haven’t got one.’
She narrowed one eye. ‘Then how do you check if you look okay? You have to keep running upstairs?’
I shrugged.
‘That explains why you’re the skinny one. Okay, go and grab one from upstairs and I’ll show you how to use primer.’
‘No… I don’t have one, at all.’
‘You can’t not have a mirror. Even if you literally don’t care about your appearance, what if you get something in your eye or have a weird bump on your chin? What if you need to…? I don’t know. How do you even know what your own face looks like?’ She shook her head in bewilderment.
‘There’s one fixed on Mum’s bedroom wardrobe. If I need to, I use that.’
‘Right.’ Blessing started packing pots and creams back into the suitcase. ‘Lead the way.’
‘Um, it smells like the pizza is ready.’
We ate the pizza sitting at the tiny table in the cottage kitchen, Blessing explaining different products to me in between shaking her head at my woeful mirror situation. I didn’t bother pointing out that since Mum had died, her mirror was my mirror now. I was too busy trying to find a reason why we couldn’t go upstairs. The only one I could come up with was the truth, so I went for that one.
‘I’m not sure about us going in Mum’s bedroom. It feels like invading her privacy,’ I blurted, once Blessing got on to something called finishing spray, so I figured I was running out of time.
‘You never go in there?’ she asked softly.
‘Well. I do sometimes use the mirror.’
‘Have you sorted out her things yet?’
I shook my head.
‘Okay. I guess everyone is ready for that step in their own time. I thought it was extreme when my auntie threw all Uncle Derek’s possessions in the wheelie bin the day after his heart attack, but then we found out he’d been having an affair with the guy who jet-washed the bin, so it made a lot more sense.’
‘It’s not that I’m not ready. I just… don’t know what to do with it.’ I shook my head; that wasn’t quite right. ‘Not her clothes and toiletries, but the personal things. Presuming there are any, of course. This is Mum we’re talking about.’
‘You can keep whatever you want to.’ Blessing took hold of my hand. It felt so lovely, a tear finally slipped out and rolled down my cheek.
‘She wasn’t my birth mum,’ I said, my voice hoarse. ‘I was her cousin’s daughter. Mum left me everything in her will, but… I don’t know. She never spoke about her family, apart from passing comments about what lowlife criminals they were when she was lecturing me about something. My birth mother died when I was a baby, so I never had to worry about who she was or whether she’d ever come back for me. But what if I find something with Mum’s possessions?’
‘Something proving your family were as terrible as she said?’
‘Or the complete opposite.’ I sighed. ‘You knew Mum. She was uncompromising. Everything was right or wrong, good or bad. No excuses and no second chances.’
‘So, you might have a lovely pair of grandparents somewhere, their dodgy days long behind them. An aunt who’d love to meet the niece who’s her biological granddaughter. You might have a whole family waiting to love you.’
I couldn’t speak, but Blessing knew what I was thinking.
‘And every time you look in her mirror, which I’m guessing isn’t often, you think about whether the evidence is buried in that wardrobe, behind it.’
‘Something like that.’ I sniffed.
She dropped my hand and leant over for a proper hug. ‘Well, that explains why your T-shirt is on back to front.’
Blessing fetched the rest of the snacks, waiting until three quarters of the chocolate-chip cookies were gone before asking whether I wanted to finish the makeover, keep eating or brave a look in Mum’s bedroom while she was there to provide moral support.
‘I don’t really want all those layers on my face. Even that bit of tester felt weird. But could you show me how to use the mascara and lipstick, maybe a bit of eyeshadow, while we finish the cookies?’
‘Emmie, I’ve eaten two of those cookies.’
‘What?’
She laughed. ‘I’m not judging. I had a burger on the way here, remember? But I don’t hate discovering that underneath the cool, calm exterior is a real-ass woman who feeds her emotions with chocolate.’
‘That’s the thing,’ I said, although it was hard to decipher because I’d somehow ended up with another cookie in my mouth. ‘I don’t eat stuff like this. I don’t wallow in my feelings. I’m usually too busy to think about them.’
Blessing handed me the last one in the packet. ‘Here. You’ve got some catching-up to do.’
Blessing stayed for another hour, fetching a spare mirror from her car before showing me the right shades to complement my Arctic-hare complexion, and how to add a ‘healthy glow’ rather than ‘Barb vibes’. We then moved to the kitchen so I could make up batches of sweet and savoury pastry for tomorrow’s pasties while Blessing messed about with my meat thermometer.
‘Do you have anything else needs doing tonight?’ she asked, while helping me wrap the pastry so it could be stored overnight in the fridge.
‘Not a lot. I didn’t make as many pasties today, so have plenty of fillings for tomorrow. I’ll water the herbs and that’s about it.’
‘What do you do in the evenings, apart from food prep?’
‘A couple of times a week, I go to the wholesalers. I clean the ovens, check up on stock. Sometimes have time to do some admin, accounting, that sort of thing.’
Blessing frowned. ‘No, I meant apart from work. What do you do for fun?’
‘Oh.’ This conversation was reminding me why not having friends outside the airport was a good idea. Apart from when they hugged me, said kind things, taught me new skills and helped me wash up, of course.
‘I don’t get much chance for fun in the evenings. I’m usually in bed not long after nine, so I can get up at four-thirty.’
Blessing waited; she wasn’t letting me get out of this.
‘I read. I might go for a walk in the summer. But really, running your own business doesn’t leave a lot of time for fun.’
‘Hmph. Sounds like exactly the type of thing Nell used to say.’ She handed me the giant ball of pastry. ‘Or not exactly. Didn’t she used to say, “Running your own business doesn’t leave any time for fun. Fun is for loser wimps”?’
‘She did not say that!’
‘Actions speak louder than words.’
We walked back into the living room, where Blessing collected her things, insisting I keep the mirror. She then came to a stop, holding my front door half open.
‘You said earlier today that you wanted to try being someone different. I’ve been friends with you for thirteen years, and this must be the first time you’ve tried anything new. You eat the same lunch, tie your hair up with a beige bobble, wear the same ugly style of shoes that Nell wore. And while I love you as you are, I can tell one thing is changing. I think underneath your endless hard work is a woman who’s growing unhappy with the person her mother insisted she should be and becoming exhausted by a life she never had any choice about. A fun evening with a friend is a start, but mascara isn’t going to solve this. You need to pick one of those places you’re always reading about, and go there. Forget Parsley’s Pasties for a couple of weeks. A couple of years if that’s how long you need to decide whether running a pasty stall is what you dream of doing for the next forty years.’
‘I can’t just up and leave,’ I stammered.
‘Plan it, then. How long have you got left on the kiosk lease? If it’s ages, there must be a get-out clause.’
I didn’t dare tell her it was up in two weeks. She’d have gone upstairs and started packing my suitcase.
‘If I’m not open for business, I don’t make any money. I can’t afford that.’
Again, this was not entirely true. While Parsley’s made enough to keep me going day to day, I had also inherited a hefty lump sum from Mum. I was saving it for an emergency, as I knew she’d want me to. Another pandemic, or a kitchen fire that for some reason wasn’t covered by insurance. I could become seriously ill and need months off to recover.
‘You dragged yourself in two hours late with half your stock this morning. Carry on along the Sherwood Airport Travelator of Monotony and you might find yourself falling off the end. Into a complete breakdown.’ She stepped out into the darkness, walking down the path to the narrow road that led up to my cottage, only turning back when she reached her car. ‘Are you happy, Emmie?’
For the second time that day, I had to squeeze back tears. ‘What’s that got to do with anything? Being happy isn’t the be-all and end-all.’
Oh, my goodness. She was right. I had turned into my mother.
‘No. But it’s something. One of the most important things. If you aren’t even happy, if you can’t even look yourself in the mirror, then what’s the point?’
The second Blessing’s car disappeared into the night, I raced upstairs, flinging open the door to Mum’s bedroom, and marching over to the full-length mirror that formed one of her wardrobe doors.
‘There,’ I told the part of myself that had refused to get out of bed that morning. ‘Happy now?’
No. Not happy.
And in that moment, standing there, looking at my same old ponytail and faded T-shirt, smoky-grey smudged around my eyes, I accepted that I’d forgotten what happiness felt like.
I took a deep breath and opened the wardrobe door.