Cal uses his keys to let us back into Kate’s house, and I falter slightly on the doorstep. I smell the pine-fresh aroma of cleaning products, and see the almost unnatural neatness and tidiness that Barbara’s visits have left behind. But that’s not all I see.
I see Kate cooking in the kitchen, me sipping wine as she stir-fries; I see me and Kate on the patio, laughing and putting the world to rights. I see us with Martha, sprawled on the sofas, watching TV and eating popcorn. I see her hanging her coat up, and I see her on the phone, and I see her having a sneaky post-work nap in the big armchair.
I see her everywhere – and I see her nowhere.
Cal sees my reaction, and takes me into his arms. He murmurs kind words, and holds me tight, and slowly the world sets itself straight again. I breathe in the smell of him, and let my fingers enjoy the feel of him, and I pull myself together. If coming back here has affected me so strongly, then it’s probably even worse for Martha.
I slowly pull myself out of his embrace, and smile.
“I’m okay. Just … well. Let’s call it culture shock. I’ll go and find her – give us a few minutes?”
He nods, and starts to prowl around the living room. This must be so strange for him – the first time he’s ever been in Kate’s home; the home that his daughter grew up in. Before I head up the stairs in search of the small evil princess, I make time to kiss him again.
“Thank you,” I say, stroking his still-damp hair. “And I love you.”
Those words have never come particularly easily from my lips, but I’d better get used to it – because it’s so worth it to see the look on his face. I follow up with a wink, and then trot up the stairs.
I pause outside Martha’s room, take a deep breath, and push it open, fully prepared to receive a pillow in the face or a screaming mouthful of abuse. I kind of deserve it, and am willing to accept my fate.
Huh, I think, as I edge nervously into the room – she’s not actually there. Her bed is perfectly made, her duvet cover replaced with something insanely pink – thank you Barbara – and all of her left-behind possessions have been tidied, dusted and arranged on shelves.
I close the door behind me, and stand on the landing, gathering myself together. I know where she is – it’s just going to be hard to deal with. Maybe Barbara’s been in there as well, and sanitised it all. Maybe redecorated with Laura Ashley wallpaper, wound up the hair straightener cord, thrown all the old perfume bottles away…
I turn the handle, and force myself to go inside. As soon as I do, I know that even Barbara’s brutal approach hasn’t stretched this far. She’s left it exactly as it was – only the fact that it’s been dusted showing that she’s been here at all. The curtains are open, and the streetlight shines through, streaks of sleet striping through it, casting dancing shadows on Martha’s face.
She’s lying on the bed curled up around her mum’s old pillow, wearing the Glastonbury hoodie, black hair scattered on white linen. She barely moves as I come in, and certainly doesn’t acknowledge me verbally.
I climb onto the bed, and wrap my arms around her. She stiffens slightly, but doesn’t perform any karate chops or scream.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” I say, whispering into her ear. “Didn’t mean to upset you. I was always coming back, you know that don’t you? I was always coming back. I’d never leave you.”
She sniffs a little, and uses my sleeve to wipe her nose. Nice.
“But you kind of did. Leave me. And I know I’m being a drama queen, but I wasn’t sure what was going on. And neither was Cal. Has he told you? About me going to stay with him for a bit, then him coming back here to stay?”
I nod, and stroke her hair. Her eyeliner is smeared, unsurprisingly.
“He has. He says Frank’s offered him a job. How do you feel, about him moving here permanently?”
“I was feeling great about it,” she replies, then nudges me in the ribs. Medium strength. “Until you did a runner. Why did you go, without even telling us?”
I suck in some air as I ponder how to reply to that one. She doesn’t know I overheard that whole conversation and jumped to the wrong conclusions. I could get away with blagging this one…
“I was a knob,” I say, instead. The time for blagging has passed. We all need to start being more honest, no matter how hard it is. “I accidentally heard you two talking about flying away back to Australia, and thought you’d decided to go with him for good. It upset me, and I didn’t want you to have to see me freaking out.”
Her eyes widen in surprise, and she frowns as she obviously tries to recall the exact words that were spoken between them earlier in the day. As she replays the conversation, seeing it from my perspective, her confusion clears.
“Okay. Yeah. I can see how that could happen. Why you’d think that. So, basically, we’ve both been freaking out because we thought the other one was leaving us?”
“That’s about the size of it,” I say, sadly.
“What a pair of losers. I suppose it’s natural enough, though … we both feel like we got left behind, don’t we? Even though mum didn’t want to go, she did. So maybe we can forgive ourselves for being losers every now and then.”
I squeeze her tight, and she pretends to gasp for air until I stop. Wise beyond her years right now, this girl – and so incredibly precious.
“I can if you can. And Martha? I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
She nods, and replies: “Me neither. Well … not until uni. Then I’ll be off like a shot. What about Cal? Are you okay with all that? I mean, you seemed pretty okay when you were under that mistletoe …”
I laugh, and reassure her that I am one hundred per cent definitely okay with Cal and ‘all that.’ I tell her about Cherie’s offer of a job at the Brilliant Book Café (which I’ve decided I will call my corner of the empire), and check she’s okay with staying at college in Budbury, and she is. More than okay with it – and like she says, it’s not that long until she’ll be off studying anyway. Maybe, by that point, we’ll both be a lot more cool with the idea of leaving each other.
There’s a gentle knock on the door, and Cal pops his head around to check on us both. He sees us on the bed, and smiles.
“Room for a little one?” he asks, grinning at his own joke. He joins on the bed, scooting between us, grabbing me in one arm and Martha in the other. She splutters and pretends to object, but it’s all a show – she’s still a little girl, and has a lot of dad cuddles to catch up on.
We lie there, like that, all three of us on Kate’s bed, for a while. We talk and we laugh and we hold each other tight, and we cling on to not only the past, but the future. For the first time, it feels like we have one – and I’m pretty sure that if Kate was here, she’d be saying ‘go for it, girls.’
She’d smile her smile, that magical smile she had, and she’d be happy for us. For all of us.
“Let’s spend the night here,” says Martha, looking around at her mum’s old room and maybe feeling the same about it all as I do right then.
“And tomorrow,” she adds, “we can all go home. Together.”