Chapter 27
I think we should meet up to talk and I propose we do this on neutral ground.
Geoff has messaged, finally. Celia re-reads it several times as if a hidden meaning might float to the surface if she stares at it hard enough.
A week after their cinema trip, she is relieved that Amanda is out – on another shopping mission, probably.
Because she wants Logan to read it too. With their houseguest here and him hiding away in his room – plus picking up some shifts at a restaurant in the city centre – she feels as if she has barely seen him lately.
‘“Neutral ground”?’ Logan looks at her and then peers back at the message. ‘What does that mean? Switzerland?’
‘I assume he means a coffee shop or something,’ Celia says.
‘God, Mum. Are you going to do that? D’you want to meet up with him?’
‘Not really. No, I don’t.’ She actually wants him to choke on a sausage roll.
That would be a fitting end, she thinks.
Death by reformed meat product and saturated fat.
‘But I’ll have to at some point,’ she adds.
Celia looks at her son, pale as milk, parked at the kitchen table with a slice of uneaten toast in front of him and a knife plunged vertically into an open jar of peanut butter.
‘Logan, are you all right, love?’ she asks hesitantly.
‘Uh-huh.’ He shrugs.
Celia studies his face, trying to read his expression.
They really do need to have a proper heart-to-heart, but right now she is hardly detecting encouraging vibes.
‘I know there’s been a lot going on,’ she ventures.
‘I don’t just mean the stuff with Dad. I mean Amanda turning up out of the blue like that. I’m sorry if it’s been?—’
‘Is she staying much longer?’ he asks suddenly.
She frowns, startled by his bluntness. ‘Erm, I wouldn’t imagine so.’
‘Haven’t you asked her?’ His directness is cutting. He doesn’t usually speak to her like that.
‘Well, no,’ she starts. ‘At least, not directly. It’s difficult.’
‘But it’s been three weeks now, Mum! Who just turns up and stays with someone for three weeks?’
She opens her mouth to speak but then stops.
He’s right of course. It’s a total imposition.
Yet in some ways, for Celia, Amanda’s timing was perfect.
Although Terri is around, she has a busy work schedule.
It’s Amanda who’s insisted that Celia should still shower and get properly dressed every day, and ask for time off from the shop until she was ready to face customers again.
‘I know it’s weird,’ is all she can say.
‘So why can’t you just ask her when she’s going home?’
Perhaps because I don’t want her to just yet? ‘I will,’ Celia says. ‘I promise. But you know, she’s actually been a real help…’
‘What, by buying you all those clothes?’ His mouth sets in a grimace.
Celia winds her hands around her coffee mug. ‘In lots of ways, love. But, yes – I have to admit they weren’t really me.’
‘You wore them, though,’ he says – which is true.
Dutifully, Celia had allowed herself to be ‘styled’ for a midweek pub night, and hoped that with each glass of wine her self-consciousness would ebb away a little.
Picking up on this, Amanda had promised to ‘keep an eye out for pieces that are more you. You’re a work in progress,’ she’d added with a chuckle.
Celia isn’t quite sure how she feels about this.
Was Amanda right, in that she won’t recognise herself?
Surely, after being confronted by Geoff’s hairy arse in Ailsa View, the priority is to somehow piece herself back together.
But becoming a different person entirely?
Celia doesn’t know that she’s ready for that.
‘Amanda’s made me a hair appointment,’ she adds, trying to lighten the mood.
‘What, with that woman you go to?’ Sue, he means. She started off as a houseplant customer and for years now she’s been giving Celia the same dry cut in a kitchen that always smells of poached fish. As she snips away, she details the current state of her husband’s gout.
‘No, at a salon,’ she replies.
‘Why did she do that?’
Celia smiles. ‘She said she’d like to see me with a cut with a bit more drama.’
‘Haven’t you had enough drama lately?’
She laughs, relieved that he can still make a joke, and then turns her attention to the cactus sitting in the middle of the table.
She brought Spike into the kitchen in order to ‘get to know him’, as she privately terms it.
So she can study him in different lights, and at various times of day – because for once, the cause of the problem isn’t obvious to her.
A week now, she’s had him in her care. She has already repotted him but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of under- or over-watering or root rot.
Nor can she find any signs of pests or disease.
With Enzo and Mathilde due to pop round soon, she was hoping to see a marked improvement and hates to think of Mathilde’s disappointment, as if she has failed her somehow.
She needs a flash of inspiration in the form of refined carbs and rummages in the cupboard for biscuits.
Syrian pastries aside, Amanda seems to not possess a sweet tooth so there are no fancy treats on that score.
Damn, there aren’t even any custard creams. Just those cheap pink wafer biscuits that Celia is partial to and which she knows Amanda would recoil from.
She opens the packet and munches several, one after another, then turns her attention to the freezer, tugging open the bottom drawer. ‘Oh God. What am I going to do with these?’ she says, as much to herself as to Logan.
‘With what?’ he asks.
She crouches down and peers into the drawer. It’s entirely full, packed meticulously to maximise space. ‘All these haggis-en-croutes. Remember the luxury snack range they did, trying to tap into a high-end market?’
‘No, I don’t remember,’ Logan says curtly.
‘Oh, you must! When they came up with the idea of taking the sausage roll format, re-engineered to encase the hag?—’
‘Mum, I don’t care!’ He jumps up, pushing back the chair with a clatter.
Celia stares at him, shocked by his outburst. ‘I was only saying…’
‘I’m not really into discussing the luxury snack range.’
What’s going on here? What is this really about? She shoves the freezer drawer shut. ‘Look, I know it’s been a terrible time,’ she starts. ‘I’m sorry that it’s your summer, and it’s been ruined. Honestly, if I could somehow manage to fix things?—’
‘You always want to fix everything,’ he declares, blue eyes flashing, ‘but you can’t fix this.’
She blinks at him and tries to steady her breathing.
‘I can try, Logan. And I don’t want you to worry because I will meet Dad and start to sort things out.
We need to talk about what we’re going to do, to make sure we’re secure here in this flat.
For the time being, at least. And whatever happens, darling, I promise we’ll be all right?—’
‘Will we though?’ he blurts out.
‘Of course we will!’ And then suddenly his face changes, and from being milky pale, his cheeks flush and she sees that his eyes are wet. ‘Oh, Logan. What is it?’ She goes to hug him but he shrinks away. ‘What’s going on, love? What’s wrong?’
His mouth twists and he reaches for a pink wafer and snaps it in two. ‘This thing with Dad.’ The halves of biscuit drop onto the table.
Celia stares at him but he is avoiding her gaze. ‘What about Dad?’ Now her heart seems to have stopped.
He glances down at the broken wafer, then shoves his outgrown hair from his eyes and, finally, he looks at her. ‘I actually thought there was something going on. I mean, I knew .’