Chapter 3
3
BALMORAL ROAD, SALISBURY, WILTSHIRE, UK
I met someone last night at this really cool club called Vipers. Michel De Vos!!!! An artist!!!! He looked a bit like Johnny Depp and he was foreign too. Exotic!!!! I think Dean would probably fancy him. We danced and talked and he told me all about his paintings and photographs. He’s going to be exhibiting at these cool galleries – New York Life and the Tilton. New York is giving me all these completely amazing opportunities. You just don’t bump into sexy artists in Wiltshire.
I can’t remember the hotel we went to. It began with ‘t’ I think or it could have been ‘the’ something. It was nice, though. Like a Hilton. And there were chocolates on the pillow. I ate them all and he didn’t mind. And then he kissed me and I kissed him and we did EVERYTHING… twice. And I lay there thinking, this is one of those perfect moments I’ll remember forever. Me, in New York with an artist called Michel.
In Dean’s old bedroom, Hayley snapped her ten-year diary closed. She’d read enough. The memories were good but the feeling they left her with didn’t feel nice; it felt… dirty. She pushed the diary on to the bookshelf between a Jill Mansell and a Jilly Cooper. Not content with how it looked, she set a toy elephant and half a dozen fairground Gonks in front of it.
‘Mum!’ Angel called from the other bedroom.
Hayley pushed two Gonks closer together so the diary was no longer visible and checked how it looked. Obvious because of the furry guardians? Or invisible?
‘Mum!’ Angel called again.
‘Coming!’
Hayley couldn’t help the smile forming on her lips when she got to the other bedroom. Angel was diligently putting things inside her suitcase, her pigtails bouncing as she moved from drawers to case and back again in the smallest bedroom of the house.
Angel turned, a thick dictionary in her hands. ‘I do have twenty-three kilos, right?’
‘Yes but, Angel, seriously? A dictionary?’
It was a hardback. She could see Angel struggling to even hold it in one hand.
The reply came quickly. ‘It’s my favourite.’
Her daughter had a favourite dictionary. Why didn’t she know this? It was a proud mother moment despite how much it weighed. Hayley sat down on the edge of what had been her childhood bed. The duvet cover with swirls and graffiti logos on had long since been replaced by something clean-lined, neutral and perfectly prim – ideal if ever the Queen or Mary Berry needed a bed for the night.
‘They do have books in New York, you know.’ Hayley patted the duvet next to her.
Angel put her hands on her hips and struck a surly pose. ‘Does that mean I can’t take my favourite dictionary?’
What did you say to moves like Beyoncé from a nine-year-old ?
‘What if I want to know what sidewalk means?’
‘You know what sidewalk means.’
‘That’s not the point.’ Angel stuck her head forward like an ostrich getting interested in prey. ‘There will be things in America I might not understand.’
‘They speak English, Angel.’
‘American English is very different to British English. They practically never use a “u” in anything and they prefer “z” to “s”.’
‘See how much you know already,’ Hayley quipped.
‘I need my dictionary.’ Angel pouted better than Naomi Campbell.
‘Your British English dictionary.’
Angel let out a growl akin to an irritated beast on a nature documentary. Definitely more bear than ostrich. ‘I bet you’re taking that massive diary.’
The words pinched but Hayley did her best not to let it show.
The diary she’d just hidden was practically an undetonated grenade. She didn’t know why she even kept it. Most entries these days were a couple of lines, sometimes only a few words. Angel’s tooth came out when she ate the yellow Quality Street. Mother made another crack about single mothers – she’ll be asking Denise Robertson to give me advice soon. Greg bought me a sausage roll from Greggs, it would be funny if he wasn’t expecting his sausage to be rolling around somewhere near me and the trouser press.
Hayley forced a smile. ‘I’m not taking it.’ There was no way she could take it now.
Angel plumped herself down onto the cover, crossing her legs underneath her body in a show of flexibility to rival an experienced Pilates class attendee. ‘You should get a new diary.’
‘What for? There’s nothing wrong with the one I have.’ The one she hoped to God Angel hadn’t been reading. Along with the random sentences of life events she’d been writing in there this year, there were nine other years, including the very beginnings of Angel’s existence. And it was those entries that were the most controversial, as well as being the most helpful when she had been researching their upcoming trip.
‘You should bring your ideas book then. The one with all your drawings and designs and the bits of material in,’ Angel suggested.
Her ideas book. She’d had so few ideas lately, she’d turned the back of the book into notes for her party-planning exploits. Most people wanted the packages set out on the website but occasionally, every now and then, someone would ask for something a bit different and then she pounced on it, like a hungry lion who’d been starved for an age.
‘What would I need that for?’ She swallowed.
‘To note down all those designs you give people.’ Angel smiled. ‘Like that woman in McDonald’s. Imaginary scarves.’ She wafted a hand in the air. ‘Berets and buckles. There’s going to be so much inspiration in New York.’
Hayley smiled, enjoying Angel’s enthusiasm. ‘You’re changing the subject, young lady, when we’re meant to be getting ready for our trip,’ Hayley reached out her fingers and nudged Angel’s ribs, tickling.
‘Stop it!’ Angel squealed.
‘Sorry, didn’t hear that.’
‘Mum!’ Angel screeched, falling backwards on the bed and trying to get away from the attack. ‘You’ll make Nanny come up here and you know she doesn’t like to be interrupted when she’s watching Coronation Street .’
Hayley removed her hands with the speed of a mousetrap mechanism. The last thing she needed was her mother on the warpath.
Her eyes went from Angel to the thick book laying on the bed. She picked it up and opened it .
‘Ah, here’s a word I might need to get familiar with.’ Hayley cleared her throat. ‘Bodega – a cellar or shop selling wine and food, especially in a Spanish-speaking country.’
Angel snapped the dictionary shut and claimed it back. ‘I hope we’re not going to spend all our time searching for fizzy white wine.’
‘No, once we’ve established our local seller, we’ll be loyal.’
Angel crossed her legs again, placing the dictionary in the middle of her lap and fixing her eyes on Hayley. ‘Do you think Nanny will be OK on her own at Christmas?’
There was deep sincerity in the question. Angel loved Rita. She was the only other person who had always been there for her. And she had been there. In body, if not in spirit.
Rita wasn’t coming because she had a hospital appointment on Christmas Eve. She’d been waiting over six months to see one particular consultant about her ongoing arthritis that she didn’t dare reschedule. Hayley felt guilty for two reasons. The first was that perhaps she should be here to take Rita to the appointment and the second was that it had been a perfect excuse to not invite her on the trip. She swallowed as the last thought hit home.
Hayley put her arm around her daughter and drew her into her body, kissing the top of her head. ‘I think Nanny is going to be just fine on her own. Haven’t you seen the salmon head in the freezer? And she’s hidden Bendicks at the back of the larder.’
‘Are those the minty dark chocolates?’
‘Yeah, the ones she usually keeps by the side of her chair under deep security at Christmas.’
‘If I have more than three, they make my mouth spicy.’
‘Reasons Christmas is going to be better in New York number forty-nine: not having to share chocolates with Nanny.’
‘But we will have to share them with Uncle Dean, Vernon and Randy. ’
‘Are you sure Randy’s a dog?’
‘Yes…’ Angel paused. ‘Well, I heard something barking in the background on Skype. And there was definitely a leather collar on the coat rack behind Uncle Dean.’
Hayley swallowed. ‘Dogs are allergic to chocolate,’ she said quickly. ‘Just like Nanny’s allergic to clothes from the charity shop.’
Angel let out a sigh. ‘Nanny’s a good person. She’s just different to you, that’s all.’
That simple sentence from the lips of her offspring cut deep. Because it was the truth. Her mother wasn’t an ogre. She hadn’t beaten her, or deprived her of material needs; she just hadn’t ever been spontaneous with emotion. That didn’t make her bad. They were just opposites.
‘Sorry,’ Hayley said in little more than a whisper.
‘So, can I take my dictionary?’ Angel batted her eyelids up and down, poking out her bottom lip and looking suitably like a cast member of Annie .
Hayley sighed. ‘You can take the dictionary as long as you promise not to take that ancient old Christmas storybook. I can’t take another year of Alfie falling into the toymaker every night for a week.’
She looked at Angel, waiting for her to relinquish the dictionary. Her daughter’s face was expressionless.
‘OK.’
‘OK?’ Hayley checked. ‘Are you sure? This must be one special dictionary.’
‘The dictionary comes and, for being an awesome mum, I think you should have some fizzy wine,’ Angel said, checking her watch. ‘It’s past eight o’clock and it’s nearly Christmas.’
‘Quick! Where’s the nearest bodega?’ Hayley smiled. ‘Come on, it’s late. Let’s move the case off the bed and tuck you in.’
She strained to pick the case up lengthways but managed to slide it down onto the floor without losing any contents or banging the floorboards too hard. It was a double Coronation Street night. When she straightened herself back up, Angel was slipping down under the covers, eyes wide open, but the first signs of sleep showing. She yawned.
‘Time for sleep,’ Hayley said, brushing a hand over Angel’s hair.
‘I don’t really mind if they don’t have Yorkshire puddings in New York, you know,’ Angel said.
Hayley looked at her daughter’s expression. There was concern in her large, blue eyes. She didn’t want that. Whatever life threw at them, none of it should ever come to rest on Angel’s shoulders.
‘I have good news.’ Hayley smiled. ‘Google tells me they do have them and they’re called popovers.’
‘Really?’ Angel looked less than convinced.
‘Really. And the best news of all is they sell them in a ready-made mix.’
Angel broke a smile then and clenched her fingers into excited fists.
‘Reasons Christmas is going to be better in New York number eighty-four: they have Yorkshire puddings.’ Hayley grinned. ‘So, let’s recap. We know what a bodega is and we can probably pick up the Yorkshire pudding mix while we’re getting the fizzy wine.’
‘Mum!’ Angel said, swiping a hand at Hayley’s arm and laughing.
She kept the smile going but inhaled a long breath and watched the happy expression restored on her daughter’s face. This trip was all about Angel and she didn’t even know it yet.
Hayley leaned forward, kissing Angel’s forehead. ‘Go to sleep now. No reading up on George Washington or how many types of squirrel there are in Central Park. ’
‘Only one: the grey squirrel and they’re in decline. Apparently?—’
Hayley put a finger to her lips and Angel stopped talking.
‘Time for sleep now but tomorrow, I want to hear all about the little critters.’
Angel smiled. ‘Night, Mum.’
‘Night, Miss Mensa.’ Hayley went to the door, turned off the light and stepped onto the landing.
She waited a few seconds, just wanting to stay in this happy bubble before everything in their lives changed, and then she heard the softest of voices.
‘Dear God, or Father Christmas, it doesn’t matter which… If you’re listening, I really, really want to find my dad.’