Chapter 9
Hotel Annie:
Wine and plum patterned blouse
Plum wide-legged trousers
Wine patent Mary Jane heels
Gold clutch bag
Gold and orange earrings
Gold chunky chain necklace
‘What do you think?’ Ed asked her as they walked into the lobby of the exceptionally nice hotel he had booked for them to stay in tonight.
‘Babes, I am pleasantly surprised,’ she admitted. ‘Very pleasantly surprised. You were in charge of booking, so I was expecting a stinky studio apartment with a fold-down bed,’ she joked, as she was ever the splurger while Ed was always saving.
‘I thought you might need a treat tonight, because you might be feeling a little sad, so this is your treat, darling wife,’ Ed explained.
‘Now, that is a very nice-looking bar…’ he pointed in the direction of the hotels’ very own dark, snug space, already cheerfully lit up against the late afternoon gloom.
‘Maybe before we lug the bag upstairs and start unpacking our toothbrushes, maybe we should go in there for a little relaxer.’
This was one of the best ideas she’d heard all day.
So, she threaded her arm through his and together they walked into the bar, took a seat in one of the comfortable booth seats and scanned the delights that the cocktail bar had to offer.
‘I was out with Connor for cocktails not that long ago,’ she confided, ‘we snuggled up in a booth seat too.’
‘In danger of turning into a total lush then,’ Ed warned her.
‘Yes… that is my worry. What about the West End Negroni?’
‘Now, do you want me to have the same? I could because it sounds very nice. Or do you want me to have something different, so you can try mine? And then consider swapping, then regret it halfway down and want to swap back?’
Annie looked at her husband fondly. ‘You know me so well, it’s honestly frightening. Let’s get the same thing.’
A few minutes later, a smiling waitress was ferrying their drinks over to them. ‘Cheers,’ Ed offered and gently clinked his glass against hers. With a smile, he offered his toast: ‘Here’s to Owen getting on just fine without us. And here’s to us getting on just fine without him.’
‘Do you think he will? Do you think we will?’ she asked, feeling twitchy at the thought of them leaving Owen here in this city that she hardly knew at all. This was only her third visit here.
‘I know it’s my job to be reassuring and say of course he’s going to be fine but I’m human, I love Owen… I feel sad too and it’s normal for us to have a few worries.’ Ed admitted.
‘Now I feel worse…’
‘We’ve given him love, advice, money, a phone, a safe place to stay… now, it’s over to him,’ Ed said. ‘And I’m sure there might be a scrape or two, but overall, he’ll be fine, Annie. I’m sure he will. And if he’s not, he’ll almost definitely call and ask for help. Because he loves and trusts us.’
She rested her hand over Ed’s on the table and for a moment, she thought she might cry, so instead, she took a little sip at her drink.
‘Oooof,’ she declared, after the unusually strong mouthful had made its warming way down towards her stomach.
‘That is delicious and comforting and could be the way to iron out all my little worries about leaving him here.’
‘Maybe you have to think of it as bringing him here to start his new adventure… not leaving him here,’ he added gently.
‘Good advice,’ she said and took another fortifying sip.
In her head, she knew Owen was eighteen and street-smart and a people person and loved music and was going to absolutely love being here studying music and economics and making new friends, becoming his own, independent, grown-up person.
But also in her head, Owen was all the boys she’d known in those eighteen years, the colicky baby, the adorable toddler, the lost little boy who’d hardly been able to talk above a whisper for months on end when his first dad had died.
‘First Dad’, that was an Owen invention.
Whenever he referred to Roddy, Annie’s first husband and father of Lauren and Owen, he said ‘First Dad’ because Ed had been his dad for so many years now and he never wanted one to overshadow the other, when both were so important to him.
‘It’s going to be so quiet without him,’ Annie said, ‘the drums, the guitar, the music playing full volume… the Owen gang.’
‘You’ll get all that back in the holidays,’ Ed reminded her. ‘Uni terms are short. He’s only going to be away for about half of the year. And Max and Min will only get noisier. It’s going to be a long time until they’re leaving the house.’
‘Thank God for that… and surely someone will stay in London, won’t they?
’ was Annie’s next thought. ‘Owen will come back, won’t he?
Everyone won’t disappear off to New York like Lauren…
or somewhere like Australia?’ She had to take a gulp of her cocktail just at the thought of this.
‘I don’t know how parents can stand it. When they’re all grown up, my children can live wherever they like, as long as it’s within a ten-mile radius of me. And that’s final.’ This made Ed laugh.
‘You’re a brilliant Mum,’ he told her. ‘And no matter where they live, all the children know that. Now, I think we should stop talking about Owen and start thinking about our lovely hotel room upstairs and the very nice restaurant that we are going to later.’
‘I am a little disappointed Owen’s decided not to come out with us,’ Annie had to admit.
‘Yes, me too,’ Ed agreed. ‘But let’s focus on having a very nice time. You do remember it’s our wedding anniversary coming up?’
‘Yes…’ she said cagily, wondering if he knew she was not going to be free that day.
‘I already know you’re going to be busy. But we’ll celebrate afterwards, OK?’
* * *
Once they were in their room, Annie spotted the little minibar tucked in under the counter when she was setting out her toiletries and make up.
‘We could start with a little anniversary celebrating right now,’ she suggested.
‘You just lie back on the bed and get comfortable and I am going to mix us up a delightful little cocktail from the bar.’
‘A cocktail?’ Ed sounded doubtful. ‘From the minibar? I don’t think a tiny Pepsi with a thimbleful of Jack Daniels counts as a cocktail.’
‘No, no,’ Annie assured him. ‘They have quite the collection in here. Pimms… orange juice, lemonade, erm gin…’ she squinted at the label. ‘I could definitely rustle us up a little pre-dinner surprise,’ she said, setting the little bottles out along the countertop.
‘OK, you do that,’ Ed told her, folding his arms under his head. ‘Then bring them over here and let’s see if we can rustle up another kind of pre-dinner surprise on this extremely comfortable bed.’
‘I hope you’re meaning a nap.’
Annie poured from a range of little bottles and mixed until her drinks looked suitably pink and sparkly.
Then she carried them over and sat on the edge of the bed beside her husband.
‘Nice to see you, babes,’ she said, putting a glass into his hand.
‘It’s lovely to be here with you. An oasis of calm in the daily life storm,’ she said with a smile.
He held up his glass. ‘Cheers to that,’ he said and their eyes met and held. I absolutely love this man, she thought to herself. No need to say it aloud because he definitely knew.
‘Cheers to us,’ she said.
Ed took a drink, swallowed, made an astonished face, then burst out in a spluttering cough. ‘Don’t drink that—!’ he warned.
‘Too strong?’
‘No! Shampoo! There’s shampoo or body wash or something totally wrong in there.’
‘What!’ she exclaimed, horrified at her mistake.
‘Annie, you have to get a pair of reading glasses and that is final!’
* * *
‘Mum, I honestly think this is enough. More than enough,’ Owen insisted, looking down at the basket stuffed full of the food Annie had picked from the shelves on this trip around the Lidl supermarket across the road from Owen’s accommodation.
‘I’m not going to be able to eat all of that in a fortnight!
’ he protested. ‘It will go off! We should probably put some of it back.’
‘No… I want to buy you plenty of food,’ she insisted, feeling the most overwhelming maternal protective instincts. ‘I don’t want to think of you being hungry, or eating badly… you will look after yourself, won’t you?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ Owen said, looking at her with something of a surprised expression. ‘Mum, I can make burgers, cook chicken, pasta, baked potatoes… I’ll be fine. Honestly.’
‘Let me buy you this basket,’ Annie insisted. ‘You can put some of it in the freezer if you like.’ Because it suddenly seemed so important to make sure that he had enough, more than enough and that she could stock up his fridge before they left.
‘OK,’ Owen shrugged, ‘we’ll buy this and put some of it into the freezer. If you insist.’
‘Yes, please.’
When they were back in the kitchen of his flat, they put things into the fridge, the cupboards, the freezer compartments.
Annie spent another few moments straightening out his room.
Lining shoes up neatly against the wall, smoothing down the duvet on the bed, tidying away the shirt he’d worn yesterday into his new laundry bag.
‘Can we take you for lunch?’ she suggested. Owen and Ed, who’d been sitting quietly at the desk chair in Owen’s room while all this tidying had been going on, seemed to exchange something of a glance at this.
‘Annie…’ Ed began gently, ‘I think we should probably be hitting the road. It’s a long old drive back to London and we can always stop for something to eat on the way.’
‘Yeah…’ Owen agreed. ‘I’ve got some plans with some new mates for the afternoon anyway. And we want to go exploring… check out this new town.’
So, here it was rushing right up at her, faster than she could possibly want, the moment when she really would have to say goodbye and leave Owen.
It was much, much harder than she could have imagined.
She hugged him hard, running her hand over the back of his frizzy, sandy hair – the hair he’d inherited from her.
She issued more instructions and endearments and was grateful that Owen let her, without shrugging her off or making too much of a fuss.
He came downstairs and watched as they got into the car.
He gave both Ed and his mum one more big hug.
Then, Ed behind the wheel, they drove off.
Annie put her head out of the window and craned around to look at her tall, handsome boy waving her cheerfully goodbye.
Until her eyes were so blurry with tears that she couldn’t see him any more.
Then they rounded the corner and he was out of sight.
It was all so much harder than she’d expected.