“It’s fine—”
“No, you’re entitled to an hour. It’s the law. You should speak to your boss about that.”
“Leave it, Mum.”
“No—”
“Mum please!”
Wendy was silenced. For a moment. “Are they paying you properly?”
“Mum!”
“You was never that good with money, always frittering it away.”
Cherry choked on her tea, actually splattering some on the cream leather sofa.
“Don’t look at me like that. You blew your savings on a trip to Australia.”
“A working vacation. A cultural experience.” She looked around for something to wipe off the tea and found a box of tissues, Kleenex Collection, with a photograph of water lilies on the front. It was designed to appeal to homemakers who thought it important to make tissues part of their decor. For a moment, she hesitated, not wanting to take one, as if it was a sweet offered by a witch who’d trap you in her lair once you’d tasted it. She was remindedthat if she ever lost her job, this flat was where she’d have to return. The bleakness of it all frightened her.
“You could have invested it,” continued Wendy. “Premium bonds or something.”
“Mum, premium bonds pay you no interest.”
“No, but they’re better odds than the lottery.”
Cherry gritted her teeth and decided not to point out the obvious. Instead she said: “What would you do? If you won?”
“Go on a big trip. I’d take Holly. She could do with a bit of cheering up.”
“Would you move?”
“There’s them nice new houses that they’ve built next to the River Wandle.”
Cherry made a sound of exasperation. “Mum, you could leave Croydon, you know.”
“Never. Born here. It’s in me blood. No better place as far as I’m concerned.”
This declaration made Cherry fidgety again and anxious to speed the evening along. To think she could’ve been at the Cavendishes’ beautiful house tonight. She had desperately wanted to accept Laura’s dinner invitation, but she knew that canceling the visit to her mother was just too complicated. It would only have prolonged the agony, anyway, as she would’ve had to have found another date.
Cherry had already invented something she had to get away for—meeting a couple of friends for drinks—and had told her mum on the phone before she’d even arrived. She surreptitiously checked her watch. She could start making sounds in about ten minutes. Croydon was so far out, it could legitimately take ages to get anywhere else in London. In actual fact, she was going home to figure out what to wear the next day—an outfit that had to cover the evening too. Something that would be suitable for “supper” with Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish. (“Supper” didn’t sound so bad now.) Daniel had said not to worry about what she wore, but, of course, that was ridiculous.
“Anyway, maybe I’d win enough to buy one of them big mansions on that Webb Estate.”
Cherry stiffened.
“You ever hear from Nicolas?” Wendy said, feigning nonchalance.
“No.”
“I suppose it’s to be expected.” She sounded reassured, as if her suspicions had been proven right, and it made Cherry bridle.
“What do you mean?”
“You know, he was a bit different, wasn’t he?”
“Different how?” she said dangerously.
