Chapter 2
Cheryl Young’s alarm went off, as usual, at eight thirty, vibrating away beneath her pillow. She woke with a start.
She didn’t always dream, but earlier that morning she had, and it had been a good one.
A young man she remembered from years ago, who’d smiled at her more than once as they’d cleared the glasses in the beer tent.
He’d been tall, handsome and dashing, a little like a buccaneer of old.
She’d never spoken to the man, didn’t even know his name.
He might not even be alive any more for all she knew, but he came back into her head from time to time.
The man, whom Cheryl had named to herself Nicholas, because that had always been her favourite boy’s name, belonged in the realm of what might have been.
In the dream, she and the man – Nick – had been behind the tent, he’d stepped closer until she could feel his arms around her, his lips pressing closer to hers, the bubble of excitement in her stomach.
She didn’t care what anyone said, she knew what romance felt like.
But the dream was slipping away, as most dreams do, and so she got up, pulling on a dressing gown and stepping into slippers. The heating never came on until nine thirty when her mother woke. For the next hour the house would be cold, and it had to be silent, but the hour was hers.
Cheryl stepped carefully downstairs, knowing from long practice which stairs creaked.
As the years and the pounds had accumulated, more of them made more of a noise, but her mother slept more deeply these days.
The house smelled of stale smoke, as it always did in the mornings, but opening windows would make it too cold.
In the kitchen, she boiled water on the hob, because it made less noise than the whistling kettle, and took her tea through to the sitting room.
She didn’t risk lighting a fire – Mum would know – but she wrapped herself in the throw from the back of the sofa and was cosy enough.
She switched on the TV, using the subtitles app, until the post arrived at nine.
As the hour drew near, her heartbeat began to build.
It was rare for the post to be late. When their usual postman was away and his replacement wasn’t familiar with the route, it happened; also, sometimes when the weather was bad, but Cheryl had a plan for those times.
Anything she didn’t want her mother to see went straight into the meter box by the front door.
Her mother checked the meters every day, but not usually until the evening.
The brochure from Saga was due. At fifty-one, Cheryl wasn’t sure she was quite old enough for Saga holidays, but she loved the photographs of people who, although older, were still so glamorous, with their beautiful hairstyles and clothes.
The men always had hair – silver, true, but perfectly styled – and no one was ever fat in the Saga brochure.
The Saga brochure wasn’t about what might have been; the Saga brochure was about what could still be.
Today was going to be a late-post day. She wouldn’t have time to look at it before she had to see to Mum.
Her morning would be tied up doing chores and then there was the solicitor’s appointment in the afternoon.
Her mother, it seemed, was finally getting round to making her will.
For some reason, the thought made Cheryl nervous.
Back in the kitchen she filled the kettle and had just switched it on when the alarm, loud and demanding, went off in her mother’s room.
Footsteps on the path outside. She heard the letter box opening and post dropping onto the floor. Cheryl dashed out and gathered it up. The brochure had arrived, plus a gas bill that her mum would want to see and grumble over. And an envelope, a posh one, addressed to her, not her mum.
The envelope was cream and textured, and her name and address on the front seemed to have been handwritten, until you looked closely. And it was heavy. There was something inside other than a letter.
‘Cheryl!’ Right on time.
‘Coming, Mum.’
Cheryl gathered the post up and pushed everything but the phone bill into the meter cupboard.