‘I read. I might go for a walk in the summer. But really, running your own business doesn’t leave a lot of time for fun.’
‘Hmph. Sounds like exactly the type of thing Nell used to say.’ She handed me the giant ball of pastry. ‘Or not exactly. Didn’t she used to say, “Running your own business doesn’t leaveanytime for fun. Fun is for loser wimps”?’
‘She did not say that!’
‘Actions speak louder than words.’
We walked back into the living room, where Blessing collected her things, insisting I keep the mirror. She then came to a stop, holding my front door half open.
‘You said earlier today that you wanted to try being someone different. I’ve been friends with you for thirteen years, and this must be the first time you’ve tried anything new. You eat the same lunch, tie your hair up with a beige bobble, wear the same ugly style of shoes that Nell wore. And while I love you as you are, I can tell one thing is changing. I think underneath your endless hard work is a woman who’s growing unhappy with the person her mother insisted she should be and becoming exhausted by a life she never had any choice about. A fun evening with a friend is a start, but mascara isn’t going to solve this. You need to pick one of those places you’re always reading about, and go there. Forget Parsley’s Pasties for a couple of weeks. A couple of years if that’s how long you need to decide whether running a pasty stall is what you dream of doing for the next forty years.’
‘I can’t just up and leave,’ I stammered.
‘Plan it, then. How long have you got left on the kiosk lease? If it’s ages, there must be a get-out clause.’
I didn’t dare tell her it was up in two weeks. She’d have gone upstairs and started packing my suitcase.
‘If I’m not open for business, I don’t make any money. I can’t afford that.’
Again, this was not entirely true. While Parsley’s made enough to keep me going day to day, I had also inherited a hefty lump sum from Mum. I was saving it for an emergency, as I knew she’d want me to. Another pandemic, or a kitchen fire that for some reason wasn’t covered by insurance. I could become seriously ill and need months off to recover.
‘You dragged yourself in two hours late with half your stock this morning. Carry on along the Sherwood Airport Travelator of Monotony and you might find yourself falling off the end. Into a complete breakdown.’ She stepped out into the darkness, walking down the path to the narrow road that led up to mycottage, only turning back when she reached her car. ‘Are you happy, Emmie?’
For the second time that day, I had to squeeze back tears. ‘What’s that got to do with anything? Being happy isn’t the be-all and end-all.’
Oh, my goodness. She was right. I had turned into my mother.
‘No. But it’s something. One of the most important things. If you aren’t even happy, if you can’t even look yourself in the mirror, then what’s the point?’
The second Blessing’s car disappeared into the night, I raced upstairs, flinging open the door to Mum’s bedroom, and marching over to the full-length mirror that formed one of her wardrobe doors.
‘There,’ I told the part of myself that had refused to get out of bed that morning. ‘Happy now?’
No. Not happy.
And in that moment, standing there, looking at my same old ponytail and faded T-shirt, smoky-grey smudged around my eyes, I accepted that I’d forgotten what happiness felt like.
I took a deep breath and opened the wardrobe door.
4
I knew that Mum’s wardrobe was in pristine order because I’d opened it once before to find her one dress to pass to the funeral directors. The only clothes that remained hanging up in here were five perfectly ironed work T-shirts, two pairs of black trousers, two navy, three grey T-shirts and a shapeless grey trouser suit. Her jumpers, cardigans and other clothes would be in the chest of drawers. In the bottom of the wardrobe were an empty handbag, a blanket and a pillow still in its packaging. On a high shelf were a pair of brown sandals and black brogues. I fetched the chair from the corner of the room and stood on it so I could find what else was up there. A hairdryer, small suitcase and a bright-green hat that I’d never seen before. Then, behind that, I found a cardboard storage box, about the size of a shoebox but much sturdier.
I slid it off the shelf and placed it on the bed, which I’d made up with Mum’s clean bedding at some point, for no reason other than I didn’t know what else to do with her sheet and duvet cover.
Setting the lid to one side, inside I found a large spiral shell. Next to this rested a dried posy. The flowers appeared to be onthe brink of crumbling as I rested them carefully on the lid, but looked like a mixture of forget-me-nots, daisies and one tiny sunflower. Beneath this was a tidy stack of envelopes, tied with a blue ribbon. When I removed those, I found a photograph in a plain wooden frame.
It was Mum.
With a man.
I’d have guessed their ages at late thirties, maybe early forties. They were standing outside an Italian restaurant. Mum was laughing, which was surprising enough, gazing into the man’s eyes, but what shocked me to the core was the wedding dress.
Who knew how long I sat there, staring at the photo, comparing the bouquet in the picture with the flowers I’d carefully lifted out of the box? I turned on the bedside light, in case the extra illumination would prove that, no, this wasn’t my man-scorning mother. Maybe it was my birth mum, or my auntie. It couldn’t be my grandmother (biological great-auntie) as the dress was pure 1980s floof.
But there was an unmistakable brown birthmark on her forearm.
I briefly wondered whether this was a costume. But the look on both their faces was as genuine as it got. Besides, Mum would never have kept a posy from a fancy-dress party, decades ago.
