‘Well, it is now,’ Shelley says firmly. ‘Everything’s off due to unforeseen circumstances. They’ll just have to deal with that.’
Pearl’s green eyes widen. ‘But what’ll we say?’
‘That there’s been a problem with our suppliers?’ Lena suggests, also looking somewhat stressed.
‘Yes, a logistical thing,’ Shelley decides. ‘There’s been a rock fall, a landslide. Surely that happens around here.’
‘So how are we going to put it?’ Pearl asks. ‘“Dinner tonight will be an unusual pairing of melted choc ice and crumbled fish finger”—’
‘Pearl, it’ll be okay,’ Shelley says firmly.
‘We can garnish it with sweetcorn,’ Lena mutters, but Pearl frowns, in no mood for jokes.
‘Theremustbe another freezer somewhere.’ She strides out of the utility room and into the kitchen. To think, just few hours ago she was working through the various steps of her morning skincare routine (she has brought all of her products decanted into mini containers). Then she’d applied light make-up and sent a quick message to Brandon:
Pearl
Hope all okay love. Happy for you and Abi to get a Deliveroo later if you like.
It’s Pearl’s account, and despite his girlfriend running roughshod over the flat, she knows he wouldn’t order anything without checking with her. She’s lucky, she thinks, to have such a decent young man for a son. He wouldn’t have guzzled all the best Celebrations. That was definitely Abi’s work. For eleven years she and Brandon have been a tight little band of two, and now they are three. When her patience twangs she reminds herself how blessed she is, to have had him all to herself for so long.
However, Pearl doesn’t feel blessed now. The beaded curtain jangles as she sweeps it to one side and steps into the pantry. Here the shelves are neatly stacked with tins, cereals, baking ingredients and Kilner jars of pastas and grains. A rush of anxiety quickens her heartbeat and she tries to quell it by breathing slowly and deeply, the way her therapist suggested. In the couple of years after Dean had died, she was prone to panic attacks. Once, when buying a new school uniform for Brandon, she literally couldn’t breathe. Things are better now but she is still prone to a certain jumpiness.
She glances at the well-stocked wine rack, seized by an urge to grab a bottle and start early. What was Michael thinking, leaving them to figure all of this out? But then, it was Pearland her friends who’d persuaded him to go to London. Virtually forced him, really. He’d trusted them to manage things here, and Pearl is determined not to let him down.
‘There’s plenty of veg in here,’ she calls out, eyeing the laden vegetable rack. Lena and Shelley peer in through the sparkly beads.
‘Great,’ Lena says without enthusiasm.
‘And there’s bread in the bread bin.’ Pearl steps out of the pantry and looks hopefully at her friends.
‘Hallelujah!’ Shelley announces, and then the three women fall into a grave silence.
‘I think I should message Michael,’ Pearl murmurs as Stan nuzzles at her hand.
‘Yep, definitely,’ Lena says. ‘Just ask him where the stuff is…’
Pearl goes to fetch her phone from their room, and has just fired off a message –Sorry to bother you Michael but we don’t seem to be able to find the frozen meals– when tyres crunch on gravel. It’s raining heavily and through the downpour she sees that a scruffy buff-coloured Range Rover has come to a halt.
‘Someone’s here!’ Shelley calls from the kitchen. ‘Is it that single bloke? That Niall guy? If so he’s awfully early…’
‘Maybe it’s just a friend of Michael’s?’ Lena suggests as Pearl hurries through. They all peer out of the window and see a tall, slim man with cropped dark hair and spectacles climbing out of the vehicle. He pulls up the hood of his dark green jacket and looks around, as if taking in unfamiliar surroundings.
‘That must be Niall.’ Pearl quickly rearranges her expression to project what she hopes is calm professionalism. In her working life as a make-up artist Pearl has encountered all kinds of challenging situations. When her assistant was sick she made up seven models singlehandedly for a department store fashion show. She has made a tearful bride feel like the most beautiful woman on earth, and on the morning of Dean’s funeral sheapplied the immaculate make-up which would carry herself – and by extension, her distraught ten-year-old son – through the most harrowing of days.
They might have no meals prepared but there is nothing Pearl can’t handle, she reminds herself. So with Lena and Shelley in her wake, she grabs one of the outsized umbrellas stashed in the bucket at the front door. All crammed beneath it, the three women step out of Shore Cottage to greet their first guest.
17
The intercom buzzes loudly. Tommy flinches and quickly stuffs the grubby yellow duster into his trouser pocket as he stabs at the button. ‘Come up, come up. Second floor!’ he shouts into it. He is aware of fixing on a stupid grin as he opens the front door and hovers in the doorway.
Of course his daughter knows which floor he lives on! At sixteen she is perfectly capable of making her way here by herself by Tube and overground, and has done so numerous times. But today Catherine, his ex-wife, has decided to accompany her. Tommy reckons it’s the first time she has visited Hackney by choice, rather than simply passing through it. It’s hardly her kind of milieu. ‘Just fancy a jaunt out,’ she’d announced yesterday – but Tommy knows that Daisy must have mentioned that Lena is away, and Catherine is keen to see where he’s living and where her daughter spends the occasional night.
Fine, he told himself. Nothing wrong with that. But now his heart is clattering as they trot lightly upstairs, and Tommy is still cursing himself for telling his daughter which floor he lives on as they appear on the landing. There are hugs as he booms ‘Hello!’ with the delivery of a children’s entertainer.
‘Hi, Tommy.’ Catherine beams fondly as he ushers them into the flat, asking whether they’d like tea or coffee or anything else after their journey. As if they have traversed the Alaskan tundra rather than merely popping over from Kensington.
‘Just a water please,’ Daisy says.
