“No, things got a bit . . . My mind wasn’t really on it.” She shook her head, not wanting to go into it further.
“Hang on, was this because . . . of me? Of what you’d been told?”
That is sort of true, thought Cherry. Here was another thing she could hold Laura accountable for. She gave him an awkward smile.
He exhaled in irritation and she could tell he was biting his tongue when it came to his mother. “I think I owe you quite a bit.”
She grinned. “I’m just glad you’re still here.”
“Must have been quite a surprise when I opened the door.”
“Yep.”
They both remembered her faint and laughed.
“So, what else have you been up to?” he asked.
“Not much. I’m staying with my mum at the moment.”
“Send her my best. Explain I’m alive first.”
“I will. How about you?”
“Just got my head down, doing the hours.”
They looked at each other a moment.
Heart in mouth, she spoke first. “Did you meet anyone else?”
“No.” He paused. “Did you?”
She’d heard the hope in his voice. She smiled and shook her head.
38
Wednesday, September 16
IT HAD STARTED OUT AS A MORNING OF STUDYING. DANIEL STILLthanked his lucky stars that his memory hadn’t been affected and he had mercifully retained five years of medical school. There had been a note for him when he’d gone downstairs:Need to speak to you. Will be home this afternoon, can you be around? Mum xHe’d gotten to his books over his toast and the time had melted away, unnoticed, until the doorbell had rung. He remembered he’d been annoyed at the interruption and had gotten up thinking it was hopefully just the postman.
When he’d first seen Cherry standing at the door in the striking blue dress, which he remembered from their trip to France, she made something leap up in his chest. But he quickly reminded himself she’d left him. Then she screamed and fainted, something that he found both baffling and annoying, although this could’ve been due to its arousing a sense of chivalry in him that he oughtn’t to feel.
The news, when he heard it, didn’t make sense at first. He couldn’t understand it. He tried to think of every reasonable explanation, but the thing he kept coming back to was that his mother had lied. She’d made up a story about him dying. Gradually this notion tunneled its way into his brain and sat there,refusing to leave. To make things worse, he realized that she’d not only made up this terrible thing, but she’d perpetuated the lie, long after he’d recovered. She’d sat by his hospital bed until he’d gradually gotten the strength to leave it, pushed him around the gardens, then spent days encouraging him during physio. There had been plenty of time to bring up the subject. And all the time he was struggling to cope with everything that had been thrown at him—not only his injuries, but the sharp pain of a breakup as well. He’d gotten through, of course, but once or twice he’d gone to bed feeling so incredibly miserable, it had been an effort not to break down.
How could she have done this to him? Why? He knew she didn’t like Cherry, but this was . . . sickening. He tried to breathe away the pain that had lodged itself in his chest. Part of him wanted an explanation, but he didn’t trust himself to speak to his mother yet. He didn’t want to hear what she had to say; her floundering or her thin justification would just repulse him. For the same reason, he didn’t call his dad either. He didn’t want to incriminate his mother, for he knew that with their relationship being as it was, his father would think her despicable. He couldn’t deal with any of that yet.
It didn’t take long to pack his few possessions. He looked round his room and knew this would be the last time he’d leave. Then he went downstairs. When he’d read the note from his mother that morning, it hadn’t made any great impact. He was around and happy to see how he could help. Now, however, he could see the restrained urgency between the lines—she wanted to get to him before Cherry, and no wonder.
If Cherry hadn’t had the random, compassionate thought to bring over the photos, his mother probably would have reached him first. He wondered if he would have reacted differently if it had been she who’d told him. He tried to imagine the words coming out of her mouth:“I pretended you were dead. I made up a funeral.”They sounded farcical, yet at the same time breathtakingly callous. It reminded him of the sort of thing reported insensationalist newspapers: mothers who pretended their children had cancer in order to elicit substantial donations.
He turned the note over, wrote something on the back; then he put it back on the worktop. He hitched his bag onto his shoulder and left the house, pulling the front door shut behind him. As he walked down the road, he thought there was one good thing to come out of this revelation: he’d seen Cherry again.
39
Wednesday, September 16
THE RECEPTIONIST AT ITV TOWERS RANG THROUGH FOR ALISON WHILELaura filled in the visitor slip.
“Mrs. Cavendish?”
