I’m not quite sure how to break this new and exciting news to Martha, and spend ages waiting in the car for her, staring numbly down the road through the village as I wait for the school bus to trundle back into view.
The drizzle has made a sneaky return, and it’s now cool enough that I flick the heating on as I wait, listening to some Motown Magic on the radio. Tears of a Clown, which is appropriate, because I feel like having a little weep myself.
Cal’s surprise arrival has taken me aback in a way I don’t quite understand. I think I was starting to hope that Martha and I were just about finding our feet, here in Dorset. There have been small, warming signs of her coming out of her emotional deep-freeze, thawing in the heat of Lizzie and Josh’s friendly advances, and the Cherie-patented cuddles, and the new college courses. Tiny signs – but definitely there. She’s been less distant, less attached to her phone, more willing to at least ignore me politely rather than ignore me in a way that makes me feel like throwing myself off a cliff.
It’s delicate, though, all of this. Fragile – because it’s based on a bedrock of ‘if only …’ Every new thing that she does – starting her A-levels, meeting the Budbury gang, even small stuff like discovering a new band she likes – is tainted by the deep and underlying wish that Kate was here to share it with her. That her mum was around to listen to her war stories, or give her a pep talk, or tell her that the new band she’s discovered is actually crap and she should listen to some Jimi Hendrix instead.
I understand that – because I feel it too. Every time I sit on that bench and look down at the bay below, or eat one of Laura’s creations, or see a bloody baby born – I wish exactly the same. Kate was more than my friend. She was my sister, partly my mother, and the most important connection I’d ever made in my life. I miss her every single minute of every single day. I’m lost without her, and the pain of that lives inside me, hidden away, beating next to my heart.
I try and hide all of this from Martha, and pretend that I am coping – the last thing she needs is my anguish dolloped on top of her own – but it’s there. Always. My new friends are wonderful, but they are not, and never will be, a replacement for what I’ve lost.
So these tiny shoots and buds of hope that I’ve been seeing in Martha are precious. Important. Treasured beyond belief – and just as it seemed like we could at least try and steady our rocking ship, Cal has swum out into the wreckage, knocking everything off course again.
I’m also, I force myself to admit, a tiny bit worried about Cal’s role in Martha’s world, and what it might mean for my role in Martha’s world. This is such a selfish and petty thought that it makes me bite my lip hard enough to break the skin. If I was to look in the rear view mirror right now, I don’t think I’d like my own reflection.
Because, being brutally honest, jittering along with the anxiety is a miniscule amount of jealousy. Kate always said I was Martha’s second mum, and wanted me to carry on playing that part – but Martha’s never seemed overly keen on the idea, and much as I’ve done my best, there is a silver of concern that now her ‘real’ parent is here, I will be surplus to requirements. Who could blame her if she saw Cal as her knight in shining denim? She might even want to run off to Oz, and start a shiny new life with her dad.
And that, I realise, as I finally see the bus weaving its way towards the stop, is frightening: if I’m not looking after Martha, what use am I? All the roles that defined me are gone. I was Kate’s friend, and she is dead. I worked in a book shop, but now I’m unemployed. I was someone’s daughter, but I stopped thinking of myself as that long ago. Without Martha, what is the bloody point of me at all?
I’m spared further tortured soul-gazing by the bus juddering to a halt, belching exhaust fumes into the air and rocking slightly as young people stomp their way down the steps. Tears of a Clown is replaced by Diana Ross asking someone to touch her in the morning, which is just as mournful. I switch off the radio. It’s too depressing.
I watch through the windscreen as the combined youth of Budbury all pile off the bus, a mass of purple uniforms and flannel. I smile as I see Lizzie and Nate scuffling over a bag of crisps, which eventually flies out of their fighting hands and crashes to the floor. It is immediately swamped by pecking seagulls, and they both stare at each other, as if to say ‘that was your fault.’
I see Josh grinning at the hi-jinks, and nudging Martha, who is amazingly letting him. She even gives them all a small, tight wave as she walks towards the car, and shouts her goodbyes as they head off to the cafe.
Her face changes from amusement at the seagull/crisp coup, to a carefully schooled blankness when she sees me and opens the car door.
She dumps her backpack on the rear seats, and immediately starts to fiddle with her earbuds.
“What are you listening to?” I say, pathetically. We’ve both always liked music – it’s been one of the few ways we’ve stayed connected. Martha herself has a lovely voice, and could easily be a singer in a teenaged garage band. Although she’s probably more of a tortured solo artist these days.
“Neil Diamond,” she replies, shooting me a look that dares me to criticise. As if. The man is a God of easy listening.
“Cool. Sweet Caroline – best singalong chorus ever. So … how was your day?”
I prepare myself for a snub, or a tirade, or even for her to pretend to fall asleep. These are all possibilities. Instead, she half smiles, and replies: “You know what … it was okay. We started reading Lord of the Flies. I think Budbury’s probably a bit like that over the summer, from what Lizzie’s said. And, erm, how was yours?”
I am so shocked I grip the steering wheel, fearing that I might topple sideways and fall through the door. It sounded stiff and awkward coming from her mouth, as though the words were being spat out against their will, but she did actually ask how my day had gone. Miraculous.
“Well,” I reply, not wanting to make too big a deal of it, “Becca’s baby arrived. At the cafe. I’m surprised Lizzie didn’t tell you.”
“She did. Sounded pretty full-on. Kind of like Call the Midwife crossed with the Darling Buds of May.”
Cherie has always reminded me a little of Ma Larkin, with her sumptuous bosom and plentiful hugs and the fact that she’s constantly trying to feed everyone to cheer them up. I nod, and wonder how to broach the subject of the other new arrival – the one that’s a lot bigger, hopefully doesn’t need a nappy, and will make our own lives a lot more complicated.
“It was … amazing. Did Lizzie mention the guy who turned up and actually delivered the baby?”
Martha frowns, as though trying to remember conversations she had whole minutes ago.
“Um … I don’t think so … that sounds weird. Was he a doctor?”
“No,” I reply, charging straight in, “he was your dad.”
She twists her body around so she can look me in the eyes, her eyebrows up somewhere under her black fringe and a look of perfect shock on her face.
“My what?” she says, her voice so loud it echoes around the car.
“Erm … your dad. Cal. He flew over from Australia to see you. He’s staying at a guest house in West Bay, and he wants to meet up. If, you know, that’s all right with you.”
She is silent for a few moments after that, frowning and chewing the skin inside her cheek and fiddling with the wires of her earphones. Classic displacement activities, I think, wondering if I should get her some worry beads for Christmas.
“So, he turns up unannounced, from Australia, and just … what, delivers a baby? In the cafe?”
She says this as though it’s ridiculous – which of course, it is.
“Yeah. I know. It’s all very strange – but that’s what happened. I’m not making it up, honest – if I was making it up, I’d have had Poldark delivering the baby. How … how do you feel about that, Martha? About your dad being here?”
More silence. More frowning. More chewing and fiddling and displacing. I can practically hear the cogs turning in her brain, processing it all, passing from shock to curiosity to something else.
“Hmmm,” she says eventually, staring straight ahead, winding and unwinding the wires around her fingers, pulling them so tight I know they’ll leave narrow red marks on her skin. “I’m not actually sure how I feel about that at all, which is a bit of a novelty. I can’t believe he didn’t tell us he was coming. I can’t believe he’s here … what’s he like? In the flesh?”
Lord, I think – how do I answer that one? It wouldn’t be entirely appropriate to tell her he’s super-hot, that Laura practically swooned into his lap, and that he looks like Pirate Cowboy Thor.
“He’s … nice,” I say, lamely. “Good at delivering babies. Wears a cowboy hat. Really excited about meeting you properly. If you want to, that is. If you don’t, then I’ll deal with him.”
She gives me an amused sideways glance, and finally puts the phone and earbuds in the glove box, maybe to stop herself messing with them.
“That sounded serious,” she replies, a half-smile still on her face. “The way you said ‘I’ll deal with him’ – like you might deal with him by beating him to death with a shovel after you’ve made him dig his own grave. You can be a bit scary sometimes, you know.”
“Why, thank you,” I respond, smiling back. “I have been told that before. And I think, given our location, it would make more sense to weigh him down with conch shells and float him out into the bay, don’t you? So he can swim with the fishes?”
“You’d have to find the right spot. You wouldn’t want him washing back up on the beach and scaring the fossil hunters.”
“I know. I’m sure Sam could help us with tide times and currents and shit like that. Don’t worry, I’ll do it properly.”
She’s smirking now, trying not to actually laugh out loud. I know she’s stalling for time while she lets this new scenario whirl through her brain, and I’m happy to assist her by talking as much nonsense as she needs, for as long as she needs.
She’s quiet for a moment, then smacks her hand down on the dashboard so hard it makes me jump. Looks like she’s come to a decision.
“Nah,” she says, staring out of the windscreen, “not just yet. Maybe we should give him a chance.”
I nod, and pat her hand, and start the car. The oracle has spoken.
“Besides,” she adds, as I pull the car out into the main road, “we can always kill him later.”