The Switch(18)

I open my mouth to protest but find myself smiling instead.

‘You’re going to do just fine in London,’ Leena says, giving me a squeeze. ‘Now. Let’s find you the perfect outfit for your debut as a London lady, shall we?’

*

I stand in the hallway of my daughter’s house and hold her too tightly. I can see the living room over her shoulder; Carla’s bed is gone, but the chairs still arc around the space where it lay. The room has never really gone back to its old shape.

‘I’ll be absolutely fine, don’t you worry,’ Marian tells me firmly as we pull apart. ‘This is a lovely idea. You so deserve a break, Mum.’

But she’s tearing up again. It’s been so long since I’ve seen those brown eyes clear; there are dark blots underneath them now, like little bruises. She was always so beautiful, Marian – boys chasing her down the street, girls copying her hairstyle, parents looking at me and Wade and wondering where we got her from. She has the same golden-toned skin as Leena, and her wavy hair is streaked through with honey, the envy of hairdressers everywhere. But there are new lines on her face, tugging down at the corners of her mouth, and through the tight yoga leggings she’s wearing I can see how thin she’s become. I don’t want to leave her for two months. Why am I even considering this?

‘No, don’t you even think about it,’ Marian says, shaking a finger at me. ‘I’m fine. I’ll be fine. And Leena will be here!’ She gives me a wry smile, and there’s a hint of the old Marian there, mischievous and impulsive. ‘I have to say, I didn’t think even you could persuade Leena to come up and stay within a one-mile radius of her awful mother for two whole months, Mum.’

‘She does not think you’re an awful mother. And it was her idea!’

‘Oh, was it now?’

‘It was!’ I protest. ‘But I do think it’ll be good for you both.’

Marian smiles, more faintly this time. ‘It’s wonderful, Mum. I’m sure by the time you’re back, she and I will have sorted ourselves out again, and everything will be better.’

Marian – ever the optimist, even in the depths of grief. I squeeze her arms and kiss her on the cheek. This is the right thing to do. We’re stuck, the Cotton family. If we’re going to get anywhere, we need to give things a shake.

*

To my surprise, most of the members of the Neighbourhood Watch are waiting on the platform when we arrive at Daredale station – Dr Piotr drove them down in the school minivan, bless him. It’s a long journey for them all to take from Hamleigh, so I’m touched. When a rather teary Betsy presses her home phone number into my hands – ‘in case you haven’t got it written down anywhere’ – I find myself wondering why on earth I’m leaving Hamleigh-in-Harksdale at all. Then I look at Dr Piotr, and at Basil with his Union Jack pin on his tweed lapel, and at Leena, standing alone, thin and drawn. My resolve returns.

This is the right thing for my family. And besides, I’m turning eighty this year. If I’m going to have an adventure, it has to be now.

Leena helps me on to the train and hefts my luggage on to the rack, extracting promises from various fellow travellers that they’ll help me get it down when we reach London. We hug goodbye, and she slips out of the train doors just in time.

I wave to my friends from the window, watching Yorkshire slide away, and as we streak through the fields towards London I feel a sudden flush of life, a quickening, a new kind of hope, like a greyhound just let out of the gate.





7


Leena


My mum’s house is on Lower Lane, semi-detached, with a dove-grey door and a brass knocker. I wait on the doorstep for a moment, then fish out the key Grandma gave me – I left mine in London. Definitely a Freudian slip.

It feels weird letting myself into Mum’s house, but it feels weirder to knock on the door. A year and a half ago I would have barged in without blinking.

I stand on the threshold, trying to keep my breathing steady. The hall is horrible in its sameness: the faint smell of cleaning products, the old wooden side table, the plush carpet that makes you feel like you’re walking across a sofa. Mum’s always liked houses – she’s an estate agent – but it occurs to me now that this place actually feels a little out of date: she never changed the previous owners’ decor, and the warm yellow-cream on the walls is nothing like the bold wallpaper of the house where I grew up. This house was bought for convenience – it was bought for Carla, not for Mum.

It’s awful, being back here. I feel that same lurch in the gut that you get when you spot an ex-boyfriend at a party, a sense of your two lives colliding horribly in the present.

And there it is at the end of the hall: the living-room door. I swallow. I can’t look at it. Instead I focus on the huge framed photograph of Carla on the table at the bottom of the stairs. Mum put it there when Carla died, and I hate it – it makes coming to Mum’s house feel like arriving at the wake. Carla looks nothing like herself: she’s dressed up to go to her prom, her hair pinned back with two straightened stripes falling forwards à la Keira Knightley in Love Actually. She’d removed her nose piercing, and the photo was taken before she had the eyebrow ones done; she looks weird without them. She always said her face never looked right without a few studs here and there. It’d be like you going out without five coats of hairspray, she’d say teasingly, giving my ponytail a tug.