Chapter 8
BETH
When Immy floats into our large kitchen, my son’s eyebrows lift. ‘Hello,’ he says. ‘Who’s this?’ He sees her beauty, too. And if it were a girl he’d brought home, I’d say, what a great choice. But he didn’t bring her here. His father did.
Connor, our only child, inherited his father’s looks.
The square jaw. The fine cheekbones. Along with the photographic memory and brain like a sponge, he’s got it all.
Chip off the old block. The whole goddamn lot.
But his kind soul, he got from me. This boy is my world.
I love him more than life itself. I’d die for him. Literally, I would.
‘This is Immy,’ Justin announces. ‘We saved her from the distress of sleeping rough on a bench at Stansted Airport.’
No, Justin, I want to scream. We didn’t. You did.
Immy turns to him. ‘Again, I can’t thank you enough.’
‘Nice to meet you, Immy.’ He turns to me. ‘How long will the takeaway be?’
‘Shouldn’t be too long,’ I say.
He’s looking at Immy out of the corner of his eye in exactly the same way Justin was looking at her on that plane. He fancies her.
This is hell. Both my son and husband are trying their damned hardest not to stare at her. The familiar tumble of Chopin flows through from the living room, where Justin has put a record on his turntable. ‘Minute Waltz’. He knows how much I loathe this piece, despite its lively tempo.
Keep busy. Keep busy, Beth.
I head to the dresser in the large kitchen/breakfast room, a high-ceilinged room with a network of stunning, exposed beams and a polished wooden floor.
A modern fitted kitchen fills one side, and the dresser and a matching farmhouse-style table and chairs fill the other.
I don’t know why we bothered to buy such a large dining suite. Apart from Connor, no one ever visits.
Except… except… No, Beth. Don’t go there.
Blue follows me to the dresser where I yank open the double doors and pull out a half-empty bottle of whisky.
I used to drink heavily, mid-afternoon until evening turned to night, every day.
But that was before my diagnosis. Alcohol has rarely passed my lips since my treatment began.
It heightens my anxiety in the middle of the night and gives me a dreadful headache in the morning. ‘Drink, anyone?’
‘Mum?’ Connor raises an eyebrow. ‘I thought you gave up?’
‘It’s my birthday weekend.’
‘Pour me one, too, would you? I’ll put some wine in the fridge.
’ Justin throws out a hand, gesturing for me to return the bottle to the dresser.
‘Actually, no, I’ll do it. You relax.’ He swings around to the fridge.
‘We can have that bottle of champers. The Dom Pérignon 2010. The vintage one that’s been sitting here chilling for Lord knows how long.
’ He pulls out the black-green bottle, unpeels the shiny wrapper from the cork and untwists the wire cage.
‘Good shout, Dad,’ Connor says. ‘I’ll get the glasses.’
I tighten my grip around the neck of the bottle of whisky.
I don’t want champagne. I want to rip the top off this bottle and down the contents in one.
‘Sure.’ I smile. ‘Why not?’ Connor is always up for being social.
He attended a private boarding school in the south of England from the age of eight.
Justin’s wish, not mine. I didn’t want my boy being away for extended lengths of time.
But I soon had to learn in our marriage that what my husband wants, my husband gets.
I catch a glimpse of my puffy face in the oval mirror. I’m as green as one of the apples in the bowl in the centre of the dresser. The bloody steroids. If it weren’t for Connor, I’d never have agreed to further treatment. I’d have let the cancer take its course.
‘How was the Fringe Festival, then?’ Connor asks.
Justin makes a point of attending the Edinburgh Fringe Festival each year. He says he can’t afford not to have a presence at the largest arts festival in the world, even though his speciality is more of a holistic approach to self-development.
‘Good,’ Justin says. ‘I met a great bunch of new people.’
‘And you, Mum? Did you have a good time?’ Connor asks.
‘Yes, it was lovely,’ I lie.
My son doesn’t need to know the truth. That it was miserable.
For me, anyway. Justin flew to Edinburgh on Tuesday, the day before the conference started.
I had to go for treatment, so I didn’t arrive until Friday.
The journey took it out of me. I went straight to bed after a room-service dinner.
And yesterday, after I’d fallen back to sleep to the sound of his keyboard, he woke me with a birthday kiss and a bunch of red roses, before disappearing to the conference.
I spent the day in bed, mustering up the energy for the dinner he’d arranged that evening.
And that was it. One meal, where he mainly talked about work.
The rest of the time, he was at the venue, or his head was buried in his phone or laptop. Same old. Same old.
‘Are you sure I’m not intruding?’ Immy stands by the cooker, fiddling with the locket around her slim neck. She shifts from one foot to the other.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Justin says before I have a chance to speak.
‘This is a family celebration,’ Immy says.
‘The more the merrier, then.’ Justin tilts the bottle at an angle, effortlessly twists the cork and eases it out until it gently pops. How can he act so cool, when he knows what he’s planning? ‘Beth doesn’t mind, do you?’
I paste another fake smile on my face. ‘Of course not.’
‘Can I do anything?’ Immy asks.
Yes, run away from here as fast as you can. That’s what you can do.
‘You could lay the table.’ Justin points to the unit at the right of the cooker. ‘Chopsticks are in the third drawer, or knives and forks are in the top one if you’d prefer.’ He nods at Connor, who places four flutes on the kitchen worktop for him to fill.
‘Cheers.’ Justin’s glass of bubbles does the rounds, clinking against our three.
It takes all my restraint not to slosh the contents of mine into his face.
How dare he invite this girl back here? On my birthday weekend, too.
He places his glass on the kitchen counter and holds up his phone.
‘I need to make a quick call. I’ll be back in a jiffy. ’
I glare at him leaving the room as Connor explains how difficult his grandma has been this weekend. He’s a very personable soul, and before long, he and Immy find common ground centred around caring for sick relatives and strike up a conversation as if they’re old friends.
I pour myself a glass of Coke. It always settles my stomach.
I busy myself, tidying the kitchen, listening to them.
It’s not untidy. Far from it. Connor wouldn’t leave it in a mess.
But I’m a control freak when it comes to the house.
Everything has its place, and every place has its order.
It’s the only control I have in my life.
‘So what are you studying at uni?’ Immy asks.
‘Psychology and Criminology,’ Connor replies, taking a sip of his drink.
‘That sounds interesting,’ she says.
‘Keeping it in the family. It’s what Dad studied, too. I’m working in a disabled kids’ day care place over the summer. And you?’
‘Social work,’ she replies. ‘I want to be a social worker.’
The doorbell rings. ‘That’ll be the takeaway,’ Connor says but doesn’t move to go and answer it.
Blue springs from his bed and leaves the room. Justin still hasn’t returned. He never does at this point. I know where he is. He’s in the annexe, going through her belongings, planning his approach.