The Day She Came Back(2)

‘Earl Grey.’ Prim raised her finger.

‘Gran, I have made you a million cups of tea – you think I don’t know it’s Earl Grey by now? I know everything about you.’

‘Well, you say that and yet still you have not learned, apparently, how much I detest the word “Gran” – makes me sound ancient.’

‘You only don’t like it when I call you Gran in front of Gerald!’ she teased. Gerald was her gran’s dapper toy boy, who at seventy-four was ten years younger than her and who accompanied Prim on regular trips to the theatre and out to dinner and was a dab hand with a hoe when the need arose.

Prim wrinkled her eyes in amusement. ‘Well, that might be true . . .’

‘There’s no “might” about it. And by the way, I hate to break it to you, but you are ancient.’

‘Only compared to you. Good lord, eighteen! What wouldn’t I give to be eighteen again!’

Victoria liked the small spread of a smile on Prim’s face, as if a memory had hooked itself to the outer extremities of her eyes and mouth and lifted them up. She loved spending time like this; she’d miss her gran when she and Daksha went travelling, which was the plan for six months’ time, give or take.

‘What was so great about being eighteen?’ Victoria asked dismissively. Based on her own rather mundane existence, eighteen was nothing special. Once, when she had complained about her rather bland, mannish face as she looked in the mirror, her gran had informed her reliably and without sentiment that all Cutter women looked like potatoes until they blossomed, and suddenly one day they would look in the mirror and realise they had evolved into a chip.

In fairness, it offered little solace.

Victoria, aware of her low ranking in the Instagram-worthy world of her peers, did very little other than study and spend time with her one good friend, Daksha. In truth, life scared her – or rather, making the same mistakes as her mum scared her. Not that she voiced this, and certainly not to Prim. But it bothered her nonetheless. What was the thing that turned Sarah from a bookish scholar into an out-of-control junkie? And if it was something in her mother’s DNA, what was to say Victoria didn’t possess it too? It was a frightening thought, and as a result she had up until this point lived a rather solitary, buttoned-up existence in the shadow of the popular set. The ones who cluttered up the corridors of school, seemingly more concerned with perfecting the swing of their hair extensions and capturing the best selfie than actually getting an education. All that, however, was about to change, as she and Daksha were off to see the world! The plan was to take twelve months, but the reality was they would be away until their funds ran out, which could happen a lot sooner.

‘So come on.’ Victoria refashioned her hair into a bun, capturing the long tendrils that had in their usual manner worked their way loose from her hairband. ‘What did you do that made eighteen so great?’

‘What did I do?’ Prim fixed her eyes on the middle distance. ‘What didn’t I do? I flirted with inappropriate boys, swam braless in my underslip – very daring at the time – and then danced in front of a bonfire until I dried off with a very large mimosa in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I was quite magnificent.’

It was Victoria’s turn to smile. She loved the woman’s lack of modesty, in every sense. Staring at her gran’s profile, she took in the sharp edges of her cheekbones, which always seemed dotted with the apple-red hue of health; the thick wave of grey hair that still, despite her age, sat alluringly over one eye, giving her an almost starlet quality; the large, baguette-cut emerald that was never from her finger; and her good teeth. Yes, Victoria could imagine that Mrs Primrose Cutter-Rotherstone had indeed been magnificent.

Once she had gone full chip.

‘How inappropriate, exactly?’ Victoria was curious. Boys had to her always been an enigma. An alluring enigma, but an enigma nonetheless. Shaking her head, she erased the face of Flynn, the boy in her chemistry set who filled her daydreams and on occasion her night-time musings too. The chances of anything actually happening with him were slim. They had been in the same class for the best part of five years and had exchanged only six sentences, which were indelibly etched in her mind.

Flynn: ‘What did he say?’

‘I think he said three parts water.’

Flynn: ‘Can I borrow your ruler?’

‘Yes, it’s in my pencil case – help yourself, I’ve got another one.’

Flynn: ‘I forgot to time it, how much longer?’

‘Fourteen minutes.’

‘Well,’ Prim began, but was quickly interrupted by the front doorbell.

‘Daksha!’ they chimed.

‘You put the kettle on, I’ll get the door,’ Prim instructed as she lumbered from her chair. This was how they did most things, as a team.

You wash the dishes . . . I’ll dry.

You strip the bed . . . I’ll pop the sheets in the machine.

You make the toast . . . I’ll fetch the tea.

It was a nice way to live.

Victoria filled the kettle and popped it on to boil before rushing into the hallway; the cool interior of the old house was a wonderful relief for her sweat-covered skin and her eyes were glad of a break from the sun’s glare.

‘Come in, Daksha dear, how are you?’ Her gran opened the solid oak front door wide and stood back in the square hallway, where anaglypta paper bearing an ornate fleur-de-lys pattern inside raised squares had covered the ceiling for as long as Victoria could remember. When needed, Bernard-the-handyman, as Prim referred to him, climbed up on the stepladder and pasted any edges or corners that had lifted. It was currently painted the palest shade of Indian gold.