‘You mean, personally? I don’t think we’ve ever met. I’m fairly partial to his underwear though. In a manner of speaking.’
‘Excellent, because you just got a lovely box of kecks, thanks to my hopeless undercover skills. I discovered Lila’s boyfriend owns a shop. Went in, but he wasn’t there. So I flaked and bought you boxer shorts.’
Todd’s cackling laughter sounded like interference on the line. ‘I like your style. And I hope you got them in large, but skinny round the hips.’
‘Eeew, too much information.’
‘Sorry. Any chance you can go back in and flake again? I could do with a six-pack of socks and some fleecy pyjamas.’
‘Don’t mock the afflicted,’ Caro chided, seeing the humour in it. A pang of wishing he was here made her take a very large sip of her gin. ‘Anyway, this sad reflection of my limitations has persuaded me to come home. I’m not sure what I thought I’d achieve, but this isn’t it.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘In a hotel bar next to the train station. I’m just having a drink and then I’ll get the next train. Will you pick me up from the station?’
‘Of course I will.’
Another sip of gin. ‘Thanks. You’re the best cousin anyone could ever want. Actually, scrap that. You’re a terrible cousin for not talking me out of coming here.’
‘I tried but there are limits to my superpowers,’ he joked.
There was a pause. That happened a lot – it was like a natural interlude between happy normal life and serious sad life.
‘Have you spoken to the hospital?’ she asked, desperate for news, or reassurance.
‘Twice and she’s absolutely fine. I’m just about to go by there. If there are any problems, I’ll call you.’
Her vocal chords took a minute to respond, caught by a wave of guilt. This was the first day in two years that she hadn’t gone to see her mum, either at home, or in hospital. Yet, she couldn’t remember the last day that her mum recognised she was there. Not that it mattered. She would carry on going until…
‘Caro?’
‘Sorry,’ she cleared her throat. Getting emotional while sitting alone, drinking gin, in the middle of a crowd of strangers in a hotel wasn’t going to happen. Not to her. Thethought of anyone looking at her with curiosity, of attracting that kind of attention, filled her with absolute horror.
No. Woman up. Get a grip. Keep it together.
The waiter appeared again in her peripheral vision and signalled to her almost-empty glass.
What the hell. One more drink. She could get the train after the next one. What was she rushing home to do anyway?
Today she was being… normal. She wasn’t being a teacher in front of a classroom full of kids. They would all be counting down the hours to Santa’s arrival, wrapping gifts, visiting family, or heading off on ski trips, or making some other plans for the Christmas break. She wasn’t being a girlfriend, now that she’d split with Jason. She wasn’t being a daughter, because she was down here. She was just being… normal. Just a normal person, doing the kind of normal things that other normal people did on a normal Friday in December.
Even the coolness of the last sip of gin couldn’t numb the lump of pain that had formed in her throat.
Normal. How could any of this be normal? Did normal people wonder if the dad that had walked away from them had actually been living a double life? Or have a mum that couldn’t remember her family?
That was how she’d known for sure that something was wrong.
It was a couple of years ago. A sunny day, the first of the school summer holidays. She’d taken her mum some lunch and planned to spend the day with her. Yvonne was in the garden, looking happy, fresh-eyed, wearing a huge floppy hat to keep the sun off her face. She could have walked right off the set of one of those health insurance adverts, or perhaps an M&S commercial. Younger than her years, vibrant, pretty. Caro’s spirits had soared to see her so healthy and happy.Perhaps the strange behaviour and erratic events of the previous months had been the result of depression after all. Nothing more sinister to worry about.
They’d chatted. Laughed. Caro had told her all about her plans to go travelling for the summer. ‘When’s Dad home again?’ she’d asked, hoping to see him before she went.
‘Not for a couple of weeks yet,’ her mum had answered.
Caro had gone in to unpack the lunch and that’s when her dad had called to say he was on the train home and wanted to be picked up from the station.
‘But Mum said you’re not due home for a while,’ Caro said, confused.
‘What? We spoke yesterday. She knew I was coming back today,’ he replied, irritated.
