‘Wow.’ Blessing did a slow spin, taking in the stainless-steel worktops and appliances, the pots of herbs on a shelving unit positioned to soak up sunlight from the huge windows, and the top-of-the-range equipment arranged to maximise the space. My mother might have balked at paying over a pound for a tube of toothpaste, but when it came to her kitchen, no expense had been spared.
‘This is where miracle pasties are born.’ She opened one fridge to find stacks of large tubs containing various fillings, then the one beside it, full of raw ingredients. I hovered nervously behind her, feeling not dissimilar to if she was going through my underwear drawers or bathroom cabinet. ‘Is this evening’s choice of food pasty or pasty, with a side of pasty?’
‘No.’ I took the giant wheel of Stilton cheese out of her hands and carefully pushed it back on the shelf, before closing the fridge door. ‘The last time I ate a whole pasty was for school packed lunch.’
‘Understandable, I guess.’ She nodded, picking up my favourite chef’s knife and inspecting the blade.
‘Besides, I make the pasties fresh every morning, so there won’t be any more until tomorrow.’
‘Really?’ She surrendered the knife to my outstretched hand and wandered over to the herbs. ‘I never knew if that was just something people said: “freshly baked today”.’
‘This is what I’ve got.’ I gestured to where I’d neatly laid out the food I’d bought on a worktop, causing Blessing to brush off the rosemary leaves she’d just crushed in her palm and come to take a look.
‘Ooh. Okay. This is quite a feast. I grabbed a burger on the way over, so I hope you didn’t get all this just for me.’
After I fobbed that question off, we decided to take a couple of bowls of crisps for now and put a pizza in an oven for later.
‘Right. Let’s get down to business,’ Blessing said, once she’d taken a seat in Mum’s armchair and opened her suitcase. ‘I’ve got a few foundation testers. If we go even a shade too dark, you’ll look orange.’
She handed me a tiny tube, the shade of which was named ‘porridge’.
‘Try it on your jawline.’
I opened the lid and squirted a blob onto my finger, then dabbed it on. Blessing looked up from where she’d been sorting through other packages in the case, then glanced at me, her eyes widening for a second before the previous look of compassion took over.
‘You’ve never done this before.’
I shrugged. ‘I’ve worn lip gloss a couple of times.’
Reaching over, she gently smoothed the blob across my jawline. With a start, I realised it was the most physical affection I’d had since Stefan gave me a clumsy hug and peck on the cheek on our final date.
‘Hmmm. That’s not quite it.’ Oblivious to the tears now prickling behind my eyes, she busied herself finding another colour – ‘let’s try Arctic hare’ – and applied it to the other side.
‘That’s better.’ She glanced around the living room. ‘Where’s your downstairs mirror?’
‘I haven’t got one.’
She narrowed one eye. ‘Then how do you check if you look okay? You have to keep running upstairs?’
I shrugged.
‘That explains why you’re the skinny one. Okay, go and grab one from upstairs and I’ll show you how to use primer.’
‘No… I don’t have one, at all.’
‘You can’t not have a mirror. Even if you literally don’t care about your appearance, what if you get something in your eye or have a weird bump on your chin? What if you need to…? I don’t know. How do you even know what your own face looks like?’ She shook her head in bewilderment.
‘There’s one fixed on Mum’s bedroom wardrobe. If I need to, I use that.’
‘Right.’ Blessing started packing pots and creams back into the suitcase. ‘Lead the way.’
‘Um, it smells like the pizza is ready.’
We ate the pizza sitting at the tiny table in the cottage kitchen, Blessing explaining different products to me in between shaking her head at my woeful mirror situation. I didn’t bother pointing out that since Mum had died, her mirror was my mirror now. I was too busy trying to find a reason why we couldn’t go upstairs. The only one I could come up with was the truth, so I went for that one.
‘I’m not sure about us going in Mum’s bedroom. It feels like invading her privacy,’ I blurted, once Blessing got on to something called finishing spray, so I figured I was running out of time.
‘You never go in there?’ she asked softly.
