Rather than booking into a campsite – because none have been busy so far – we’ve decided to chance it and arrived in the middle of town. ‘Aren’t we wild?’ Shane jokes.
‘Totally!’ I agree, gazing around at the busy shopping street. Pontefract is liquorice town, as it turns out. It’s emblazoned on shop signs, in window displays, even on a mural of a smiling cartoon man clutching a bag of sweets. ‘They used to grow the stuff here,’ Shane tells me.
‘Yes, I’ve sort of gathered that,’ I remark.
He grimaces, as if having been caught out patronising me. ‘D’you like liquorice?’
‘Love it,’ I say, so we veer into a sweet shop, the air thick with a dark, earthy sweetness, jars lined up on the shelves. I buy a paper bag of the famous black discs, and as we leave the shop, I offer them to Shane.
He picks one out, chews thoughtfully and makes a face. ‘Bit medicinal, isn’t it?’
‘Vanilla man,’ I tease him, fuelling myself with more as we mooch around the streets of shops, and then the castle ruins, and finding them oddly addictive. Then, remembering Paula’s bright white smile – a perfect row of dazzling tiles – I nip into a public loo, relieved to find a mirror there. Miraculously, the local confectionery hasn’t blackened my teeth.
We wander on, taking larky Polaroids of ourselves that Ravi hasn’t even required of us. We’re adept now at managing to both be in the picture without a selfie function. When we run out of film, we track down a tiny photographic shop, tucked down an alley a little like Shane’s place. I’ve stashed all of our photos in my bag. I’ve been sneaking the odd look at them, noticing our demeanours changing day by day. Relaxing, I suppose. No longer appearing as if we are here under duress.
In the museum we marvel at the mechanics of liquorice production until my head is swimming with the stuff. From there, proper tourists now, we do a quick whip round of the town’s main art gallery and then make our way to the bustle of the market square. The afternoon is warm and muggy, and pewter rain clouds hang ominously. ‘Oh, look!’ I exclaim, zooming in on a stall piled high with soft toys. ‘I should get something for Poppy,’ I add.
‘Which one would she like?’ Shane asks. A memory flickers: of Lloyd looking blank when I mentioned my granddaughter’s name recently. Yet he expects me to remember the extensive cast that he used to party with, back in the day! Someone called Mad Max, who’d spiked a water cooler of blackcurrant squash with ecstasy!
‘Hmm, I’m not sure…’ I scan the garish selection.
‘This fella?’ Shane picks up a sparkly purple giraffe, and I laugh.
‘I think maybe this,’ I say, opting for a demure beige llama, hoping it’ll be deemed acceptable.
‘You said they live near you,’ Shane ventures, as we stroll onwards. ‘You must see a lot of them. I bet that’s lovely.’
I’m poised to trot out my stock reply – ‘Yes, it’s wonderful’ – but instead, I admit that it’s a bit more complicated.
‘Really? Nothing bad, I hope?’
I pause, my attention caught by a cheerful-looking café, its butter-yellow interior blurred by steamed-up windows. Inside, once we’re seated, is where I tell him: that it’s not how I thought it would be. That Cora seems to be intent on keeping me at bay, and that Zack regards me with mild shock/horror as if I’m the cleaner who’s shown up at precisely the wrong time.
‘That must be hard for you,’ Shane offers, and I nod.
‘It is, but maybe it’s me? Maybe I expected too much.’
‘But she’s your only child. Your first grandchild,’ he adds. ‘Of course you want to be part of it all.’
‘Yes, I do.’ Without thinking – because surely he doesn’t want to see baby photos? – I go to pull up a picture of Poppy on my phone. Only it’s not my granddaughter who appears, but the soil-filled trough that Lloyd built.
‘What’s that?’ Shane asks, peering more closely.
‘Oh!’ I quickly shut it down. How stupid of me to save it for my friends’ amusement next time we meet. ‘Just something my boyfriend built. For the garden,’ I say quickly.
‘You have a garden?’
‘Erm, no. Not personally. It’s a communal garden and we’re going to grow, um…’ My mind empties itself of all the vegetable names. ‘Sweet peas,’ I announce. ‘No, I mean peas. Regular peas.’
‘Right!’ He looks a little baffled and not entirely convinced. ‘So, d’you live together, then? You and?—’
‘Me and Lloyd? God, no. I mean, he’s a nice guy but I couldn’t live with him. Not with his violent drama thing…’
‘What? You don’t mean—’ Shane breaks off.
‘Oh, no,’ I say quickly. ‘I mean watching them. I can’t stand it. I annoy him by constantly asking who the baddies are.’
He smiles at that and seems to relax again. ‘So that’s his thing, is it?’
