Wendy then turned to Daniel and Cherry cringed as she gave him an affectionate hug too. In fact, she seemed more relaxed with him than she did with her own daughter, something Cherry instantly felt guilty about. She knew her behavior was abhorrent, but she couldn’t help it.
“Thanks for a great lunch,” said Wendy. “I can’t believe Cherry’s been keeping you to herself all this time.”
She pulled away and, looking one last time at her daughter, took her cue to leave. Cherry watched her walk away to the tube, her sandals flicking more dirty rainwater up the back of her leg. She didn’t want to look at Daniel, as she didn’t want to see the new distance in his eyes, the urge to escape now that her persona had been stripped away.
“We didn’t get to buy the bedding,” he said.
“No.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ll get it some other time.”
It was the first brush-off—a vague reference to a future date that would never materialize. Cherry stood miserably on the pavement, immobilized and unwilling to play her part in this breakup.
“Shouldn’t you be getting back? It’s after two,” he prompted.
And now, he wanted to be rid of her. This was the last time she’d see him. She raised her eyes to his.
“Hey, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, you’re not upset about the sheets, are you? I mean, I know you wanted to get them, but I thought it was more important we spend time with your mum. Especially as she came all this way here to see you.”
Cherry stared at him, checking for signs of genuineness.
“I did the right thing, didn’t I? I got the feeling you weren’t so sure. Is everything okay between you two?”
“Fine,” she said slowly.
“Good. Because she seems really nice. Funny.” He smiled. “Only I’d have a word with her about all that childhood stuff, if I were you.”
Cherry wasn’t sure she’d describe her mother as funny. “Cringe-worthy” was more like it. But more to the point, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Daniel didn’t care. Her mother was a Croydonite who wore a fake tan and thought that a cruet was a sliced raw vegetable to eat dip with, and he didn’t seem to care one bit. She’d gotten away with it and the immense flood of relief was intoxicating. But Daniel and her mother wouldn’t meet again—not for ages, she quickly vowed. It had been far too close for her liking. Cherry had always known deep down that they would have to meet at some point if she was going to get engaged to Daniel, but she would have planned and prepped it to within an inch of its life. Two or three hours max, somewhere public where they could easily escape, and she would have visited her mother beforehand, perhaps taken her something new to wear as a gift and warned her on what not to say. At least now, it was out of the way. Cherry would never forgive her for turning up like that, but all in all, it had worked out quite well. She thought back to his last question and gave him a celebratory kiss. “Yes, you did the right thing.” Then she gazed up at him, happiness flooding through her. This man was amazing. She had to have him.
19
Friday, August 22
LAURA FOLLOWED DANIEL AROUND HIS FLAT, POLITELY ADMIRING IT. He would point out the obvious (“This is the bathroom”) and she would answer with something equally mundane (“Nice tiles”). All the fun of seeing her son’s first “grown-up” pad was lost. It saddened her and she could sense he disliked their new distance too. He’d been in his new place a month now, but it was the first time she’d been to visit.
“It’ll be hard the next few weeks,” he’d said, “now I’m at the hospital.”
She knew it was true. His new job as a junior doctor was all encompassing, but it just highlighted another thing about him that she knew hardly anything about. They had spoken on the phone a few times since the fateful night of the BBQ, short conversations that had mostly revolved around small talk, but the party was still an obstacle to any in-depth or relaxed chat. It was impossible to say what she had to say over the phone, and so Laura had waited for a chance to speak to him, face-to-face, and here it was. The nerves were made worse by the fact she missed him terribly and all she wanted to do was throw her arms around him and have them make up, but she couldn’t. Not even Izzy had fully understood. They’d met up for coffee shortly after the BBQ and Laurahad tried to explain what she’d found out: Cherry’s seemingly fictitious deceased grandmother and the disparity over the cost of the flights to France. Since the BBQ and Cherry’s evasiveness, she was convinced again that something was up. Izzy was sympathetic, but pointed out there could have been any number of explanations. Worse, she’d said she should be careful not to interfere too much. Paranoia had a way of alienating people.
Laura looked for signs of Cherry as they went around: clothes, shoes, bottles of products in the bathroom. There was some conditioner and a toothbrush—nothing else that she could see—and so with some relief, she supposed that meant frequent stays, but not yet the semipermanent status that preceded moving in. She also looked for the reassurance of condoms or a packet of birth-control pills, but couldn’t find any.
Daniel made ham baguette sandwiches for lunch. He pushed a plate toward her as she sat down at the breakfast bar. “Ta-da.”
She smiled. It looked huge. But delicious. “Thank you. It’s a lovely flat.” She inspected him next; he looked tired, no doubt from all those hours that junior doctors had to put in. She reached into her bag. “This is for you. I wasn’t sure what you might need . . . ,” she trailed off, not wanting to highlight the fact she hadn’t seen his new home before now, and ruminated, not for the first time, that a few months ago she would probably have helped him move in.
He opened it up. Inside the stylish wrap was a top-of-the-line alarm clock that woke you with a gradually brightening sunrise that could also be accompanied by a dawn chorus, waves, or a rooster wake-up call.
“You can choose how long you want your sunrise to last for,” said Laura. “I thought it might be useful, now you’ve started on the foundation training, all those shifts and night work. It’s meant to help regulate your sleep/wake cycle.”
“I love it,” said Daniel. “Thanks. ‘A sunrise every day, no rain.’ ” He read the side of the box. “Seems it can also boost your mood and productivity levels. I’ll have no excuse not to write up good notes now.”
“Is it going okay?” asked Laura.
He lit up. “Hard, but I’m loving it. I’ve even got a bit more relaxed about writing prescriptions. You should have seen me the first time—I checked and double-checked the British National Formulary and re-read the patient’s notes about three times. It took me twenty minutes to do a five-minute job. And the rounds! My supervising physician rattles out instructions like a machine gun. I’ve learned to write very fast.”
