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‘Darling, I just got a flight in from Rio. How are you?’
Cara winced at the term ‘darling’.
‘Fine.’ She cleared her throat and made no attempt to embrace her mother.
‘It’s so good to see yer!’ Kitty said, suddenly switching into the not so posh accent Cara was more used to. Kitty opened her arms for an embrace but, as Cara wasn’t moving, the older woman enveloped her in a stiff hug.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ asked Kitty.
‘I said I’m fine. It’s Lena we have to worry about.’ She was definitely fine, even if her tummy was in the middle of some type of semi-spasm. ‘Where have you been?’ she asked curtly.
‘I was in Brazil.’
‘Lena’s been in here for over two weeks.’
‘I only got the message about twenty-four hours ago. Hortense had heard from Ade. Luckily, I was just about to leave the hotel and move on to…well, that doesn’t matter…I’m here now and I just want to see my daughter.’
They had reached Lena’s hospital room now, and as Cara pointed to the door, Kitty slowly opened it, with Cara following slowly behind her. A good position it would seem, as she was the one to catch her as Kitty’s whole body collapsed towards the freshly cleaned hospital floor.
‘Are you okay? Let me get a doctor,’ said Ade. Kitty had been ‘out’ for about three minutes and, after the initial moment of panic, they had managed to move her onto one of the chairs in Lena’s room. Cara was soon wondering what she’d been playing at. Fainting indeed! Any excuse to upstage Lena!
‘Oh…I…I just wasn’t prepared to see my baby girl laid out in the hospital bed like the dearly departed. That’s all,’ she said breathlessly, that posh voice returning.
‘Of course not,’ said Ade, sympathetically.
‘I told you she’d be all right,’ said Cara, who had retreated to the other side of the room in sceptical mode.
‘I’m all right, no need for a doctor,’ insisted Kitty, straightening her hair which Cara now realised with mild horror, was actuallly a wig.
‘I’ll get us all some tea,’ said Ade.
‘I don’t want tea. I just…I just want to see my child.’ Kitty attempted to get up, wobbled a bit, then sat back down dramatically as soon as she clocked Lena again.
‘Take it easy, Mum, please,’ said Ade. Cara tried really hard not to snort at the word ‘Mum’. ‘Let me get you something.’
‘There is something you can do for me, son.’
‘Anything,’ he said, brushing her arm.
‘Just call me Kitty. I know you liked calling me Mum when I used to live here, but, well, you know…’
‘I thought, well I know me and Cara aren’t married yet. I just thought–’
‘Put a sock in it, Ade. Even I call her by her name and I’m her real daughter! It’s what she prefers.’ Cara said briskly.
‘And you have never complained about it before,’ chipped in Kitty.
‘I’ll get those drinks.’ Ade sighed, not sure what to do with himself. ‘Now, are you sure you don’t want me to get a doctor?’ he asked Kitty.
‘I’m in the best place if something were to happen. I just want to be with Lena.’ Kitty slowly stood up and moved over to Lena’s bed. And Cara heard a quick gasp as Kitty slid into the chair and placed her hand on her daughter’s forehead, slowly running her fingers across her skin. With her other hand, she stroked Lena’s frizzy curls and ran a finger across the Alice band that held the strands back from her face.
‘Oh my little sweetheart, what happened?’ She sighed as a single tear plopped onto Lena’s pillow. Cara turned to Ade, who seemed to be taken in by this display, as he looked close to tears himself. Cara didn’t quite know what to say to her mother, who had disappeared for weeks without even bothering to phone or send a postcode. She suddenly felt claustrophobic, and longed for the frenzied normality of A&R.
Ade finally went for the teas as the two women sat in silence, both staring at Lena, Kitty holding onto Lena’s hand.
‘I am so sorry I didn’t get here sooner.’
‘Nothing much else you could have done. We have it covered.’ Cara said curtly.
‘Even now, your mouth is spiteful. Why can’t you be nice, just this once? Your sister is lying here after all!’ Kitty cried out.
Cara wasn’t sure how to answer that, as she was all too aware that she couldn’t think of anything nice to say to Kitty. Some things were best left unsaid.
‘Maybe me being here will help her,’ Kitty added hopefully. ‘What do you think?’
Again, Cara tried to bite her tongue, for Lena’s sake. Because if she did open her mouth she feared she would tell her mother that her presence would probably not help rouse Lena out of the sleep. Why would it? Kitty had hardly ever been around the last few years. And, in fact, even when they were growing up, her presence and input had been minimal.
‘You know where I can find the toilet?’ asked Kitty.
‘Turn right, straight down, first left.’
‘You know your way around here.’
‘I’m here every day,’ she replied, her tone accusing. She wanted to throw missiles at Kitty and she wanted them to hurt.
‘I don’t want to argue with you, Cara.’
‘She’s been here for almost two weeks!’
‘I didn’t get the message! I told you that!’
‘What were you doing, anyway? Gallivanting around Brazil? I thought you’d just got back from Las Vegas a few months ago!’
‘I don’t have to check in with you, Cara.’
‘Of course not, because that would be changing a habit of a lifetime, Kitty!’
‘I got on a flight as soon as I could, with no sleep, and at my age it’s no joke,’ they locked eyes and Cara knew she’d won that round.
‘This is silly. I haven’t got the strength to fight with you, Cara. Please save it for another day.’
Kitty sounded defeated and this put Cara off guard. She was ready to have it out with her, more than ready. It was as if seeing her mother again had bought all the long-since-buried ‘stuff’ to the surface.
* * *
Millie on the other hand, arrived at the hospital dressed in her ‘interview gear’ (skirt and blouse). She was finding it increasingly hard to contain her excitement at the arrival of her mother Kitty. She hadn’t seen her in ages–well not for six months at least, when Lena had insisted that Millie and herself make the trip up to Southampton to see her. She’d gone and spent the day with her mother and Lena and had enjoyed it. The only missing piece of the puzzle, as usual, was Cara.
Millie was glad Kitty was back and they could sort of be a family for a while. The four of them together for the first time in well…ages. However, as Cara was not talking to Kitty and Lena was unable to talk to anyone it didn’t exactly feel like the perfect reunion.
Millie cleared her throat. ‘I wish Dad was around.’
‘What, so we could all be one big happy family?’ replied Cara.
‘He may be a useless excuse for a man, but he has a right to know,’ said Kitty. Even though she was probably right, and even though he’d never made any effort to get in touch over the years, Millie had felt that comment hard, wishing and still hoping after all these years that it wasn’t true. That he wasn’t ‘useless’ and most of all, he still loved them. Loved her.
‘Maybe Lena has his new number,’ offered Cara as she moved a stray curl away from Lena’s closed eyes.
‘In the notebook? But no one’s seen it,’ said Millie.
‘No, in her phone.’
‘Has anyone checked?’ added Kitty, fixing some dangly earrings into her ears.
‘If he gave a damn about anyone but himself, he’d have phoned at some point and we could have told him. Fact is, he just isn’t interested in us. Never has been. Face it,’ said Cara.
Millie felt as though she’d been punched in the face. So what if she wanted her whole family around Lena’s bedside, talking together and being together? Was that so bad? Millie had wanted to call her father as soon as they’d all found out about Lena, but he’d left the country and their lives ten years ago and had not made much contact since. She was only fourteen at the time and on the cusp of womanhood, trying to discover the nature of boys and desperate to leave the confusion of adolescence behind. It had been totally bad timing.
But walking in and seeing her mother had been a nice shock. She’d embraced her tentatively at first, not sure what to say really, but instantly familiarizing herself with Kitty’s usual smell of jasmine. Kitty’s face, as always, was defying the years, but she wore a little more make-up than she really needed.
She was still Kitty, though. Her mum, who for as long as she could remember never really wanted to be called Mum. On the acting circuit she was known as just Kitty and she insisted her kids called her the same. Not that Millie minded, because at school, before the breasts and shapely thighs, Millie’s popularity was through having an actress mum. She wasn’t on the telly, but she’d done a few plays, and once appeared in the background of an orange juice advert. Kitty often flounced into parents’ evening wearing a long dress and frilly hat and talking about auditions and name dropping famous actors who had helped her with her lines. It had all seemed cool at the time, but as Millie grew up, a lot of things including calling her Kitty just felt more and more alienating and maybe just a bit cold.
But none of that mattered now. Kitty was home.
She glanced at her watch, knowing she had missed the interview for the job at Dorothy Perkins and felt a mixture of guilt and relief wash over her. It’s not that she didn’t want a job–she just knew that retail wasn’t for her.
‘So how have you been, Mills?’ asked Kitty.
Her mother had always called her Mills as a little girl and Millie was touched that she was calling her that now.
‘Apart from…you know, everything that’s happened with Lena, I’ve been okay. It has been hard, though.’
In fact, Millie’s life had been more about getting to and from work and trying to keep up with the rent on her bedsit, getting kicked out of said bedsit, getting sacked (again) and moving in with Lena. But Kitty didn’t need to hear all that.
Cara took out a copy of Pride magazine and buried her head in it as Millie updated Kitty on what her life had become–minus the really crappy bits.
As soon as they got back to the house, Kitty went to sleep, jetlag, sadness, and age having taken hold. Millie threw herself onto her bed, strangely yearning for the atmosphere of togetherness that she’d felt in Lena’s hospital room. They were messed up, but they were still a family, she thought as she looked up to the cracked ceiling. Since Lena’s accident, and even before it, the nights had been the worst. With too much time to think, she often wondered whether anyone would ever be capable of loving her.
Or perhaps she was just unlovable.
Perhaps that was it. Her parents had kind of proved that theory a long ago when they’d both upped and left. First their father, Donald Curtis. A towering six-foot-three chunk of a man who never seemed to show them any affection when they were growing up. In fact, Millie had thought their lives quite normal, until one day she’d managed to blag an ‘excellent’ grade for her spelling test whilst her friend Margo only got a ‘satisfactory’. The way Margot’s dad almost hugged the life out of her outside the school gates was a scene Millie would never forget. Especially as when she’d handed over her own certificate to Donald that evening, he’d smiled awkwardly and said ‘Good job’ before going back to his newspaper. At the time, those two words had meant everything to the eleven-year-old Millie and she’d treasured that sky blue certificate as evidence that she could actually please her dad. But three years later, when he divorced the family, those words meant nothing.
It was all right for the other two, they were adults and living away from home, plus, judging from their reactions, they hadn’t seemed that surprised at the split. But to Millie it had been a complete and utter shock. She’d returned home from doing a mock exam to see her father packing his things clumsily into a holdall, driving away in the family Volvo, and promising to call her.
She had felt Donald’s absence hugely–it was a pain that never went away. Kitty on the other hand seemed to be energized by divorce, strutting her stuff around the world before finally escaping to Southampton to ‘find herself’, no doubt. But who was looking out for Millie?
Who would find her?
She turned her gaze to a group shot of her and her mates larking about at a club wearing orange feather boas and bright lipstick. Nikki and Tosin were her friends and they loved her, didn’t they? Or was it all about getting drunk and falling out of nightclubs on the arms of various guys? Lena loved her. But Lena wasn’t here. Not really. And not for the first time in her life, Millie felt incredible pangs of loneliness as she pulled out her mobile and slowly punched in the number, which, unfortunately, she’d come to learn off by heart.
Two rings later. ‘Can I come over?’
‘You can always come over,’ replied the deep voice.
She wiped her face and applied a fresh coat of lip gloss. She’d remain in the clothes she’d worn to the hospital, all too aware that dressing up would be pointless. Stewart would provide her with the company she needed. Make her feel loved, wanted and whole–if only for the night. And she would deal with the revulsion in the morning. She wrote a note for Kitty and pinned it onto the fridge door with the orange Kidzline magnet.
Gone out. Back tomorrow morning.
Mills x
EIGHT (#ulink_642d8865-c714-52d2-8361-9b8b6467baa0)
The next morning, Millie walked into the house to the sound of a singing Kitty crouched on all fours.
‘I wanted to make myself some breakfast this morning, went to the fridge, and was almost knocked out by the smell!’ she said, head deep into the fridge.
‘It’s not that bad!’ said Millie, placing her handbag onto the wooden table.
‘It is!’ replied Kitty as she stood up and clocked Millie.
‘You look worse than me and I’m jetlagged. Partying, were we?’
‘Of course not!’ replied Millie, a little offended as to why Kitty would think she’d be partying whilst Lena was still in hospital.
‘Millie, surely you’re not so lazy that you can’t clean the fridge?’
Millie stared at the batch of sweet potatoes and the thick ashy mould congregating on them. The garlic and apples were still okay, but the potatoes were definitely on the turn. Kitty grabbed the sponge again and got to work, as Millie remained rooted to the spot. Kitty assumed Millie must have got very slack over the years. But to Millie, these were some of the last things that Lena had bought before going to sleep. She’d picked them out, paid for them, and loaded them into the fridge with her very own hands. Chucking them away would be like chucking out something that Lena had been a part of.
Millie knew it probably wouldn’t make sense to anyone but her, but it was simple; she hadn’t been ready to take that step. Just as she didn’t want to go into Lena’s room.
As Kitty tied up the large bin bag containing the rotting groceries, Millie thought her heart would break. ‘Can you take this downstairs to the wheelie bins?’ Kitty asked her.
Outside, Millie heaved the ‘rubbish’ into the big green bin and slowly shut the lid. It was a sunny day and a car whizzed by with its bass line blasting out. A neighbour two doors down was loading glass bottles into the recycling bin. Life was ticking along as it always did but for Lena, it was as if everything had frozen in time.
If Millie had done a superficial clean of the house, Kitty had made it sparkle. They spent the day together and went food shopping.
‘Lets cook up something lovely for dinner. Cara could come over, too. Would be like old times, us all eating together!’
Millie cast her mind back to their childhood, and remembered the umpteen TV dinners that Lena would dish up whilst their mother went to another audition or just shut herself away in her room. She was too polite now to taint her mother’s rose-tinted memory and didn’t want to spoil what had been a really nice day together.
Millie called Cara, who said she didn’t want any dinner but would need to come over later anyway.
Kitty was packing away the last of the dishes as Cara walked in.
‘I saved you some chicken,’ said Kitty.
‘I’d better not thanks though. Ade’s cooking later. I just came to check things like the bills and bank statements. I’m not even sure if there’s enough money in her account to pay for everything and keep things ticking over while she’s…away.’
‘She’s still getting paid, so there should be,’ added Kitty rather carelessly.
