‘But still,’ went on Toni, oblivious to Lou’s agitation, ‘it’s thrilling stuff! We don’t have a number, we just have a name and a destination: it’s a quest!’
She didn’t notice her sister glaring at her.
‘It’s my life!’ said Lou in icy tones. ‘Not a stupid programme idea.’
‘What is wrong with you?’ demanded Toni. ‘You’re being a bitch.’
‘Why is it that when I stop being a doormat, you think I’m a bitch?’ Lou countered.
They stared at each other.
Toni reached out and grabbed her sister’s hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised. ‘Whatever happens, if Lillian is telling the truth, you’ll always be my true sister. Lou. My soul sister in every respect. Even if you’re being an awful cow.’
Lou couldn’t help it: she smiled. So did Toni.
‘This new spiky you is going to take some getting used to, Lou,’ she said.
‘Again, sorry,’ said Lou, sighing. ‘Nobody has ever called me a cow before. I’ve always been Ms Sensible, Ms Lovely, and I’ve spent years being terrified that people won’t like me or will think I’m a cow.’
‘Nothing wrong with a bit of a cow or even bitch,’ said Toni. ‘Too many women are scared out of their minds to say what they think in case people think they’re demanding. If a woman stands up for herself, she’s instantly labelled a “bitch”, which ... I guess I just did, too. Sorry. Of all people, I should know better. Look.’ Toni held up her phone, which was showing a blast of scary rain-inducing weather on the satellite picture. ‘There are going to be floods this evening, Lou. We should just find somewhere lovely to stay—’
She paused. Was it wise to be spending money on ‘somewhere lovely’ right now? When the money she’d earned over the years might all be gone – but Toni refused to think about that now. ‘I need to charge the car too.’
Lou thought about it. She had everything she needed for one night. She had Toni, Emily loved her, and she had her medication. She’d manage.
Somewhere lovely seemed like a gorgeous plan. Was it running away? She didn’t care. She was going to start playing by new rules. Now. If running away helped, then she’d run.
Chapter Twelve
Lillian parked the car at an angle on the corner of Whitehaven’s Main and Miller streets. She got out and looked briefly at the rear, which stuck out into the bike lane perilously.
Tough shit to all the people on bikes, she thought grimly. Only people who couldn’t afford cars used bloody bikes. Without locking the car, because who would be nuts enough to steal it, she stomped off in her metalwork clogs towards the small expensive supermarket. She couldn’t face the big one: all those families doing weekly shops – hideous.
On sunny Sundays in Whitehaven, the town was full of people meandering from brunch in the direction of the small food and craft market in the park at Mermaid Peak. Lillian normally avoided the Sunday market like the plague, but today, lack of food in the house and the lack of Lou to get food for her had forced Lillian out.
For as long as Lillian could remember, her elder daughter had been on the other end of the phone, ready to drop whatever she was doing to get food, drink, a canister of gas for the heater in the studio – whatever Lillian wanted. But not today. Lou wasn’t answering her mobile phone. Lillian had rung four times – four! – in ever-increasing outrage.
‘Where’s your mother?’ Lillian had demanded of Emily when she’d given in and phoned Lou’s home number and had been irritated to find her granddaughter answering. Emily was a great kid, feisty and sharp, but she wasn’t biddable like her mother.
‘Mum’s not here,’ said Emily. ‘Can I leave her a message, Granny?’
Granny! Cheeky girl, thought Lillian. Calling her Granny.
It was a very definite snub. Something to do with Friday night, no doubt.
‘Tell her to call me when she gets back,’ said Lillian loftily, not even responding to her granddaughter’s rudeness. Then she hung up. She liked hanging up on people: made them worry if they’d been cut off or confused about whether they’d upset her. Lillian liked a bit of confusion. Except when the confusion ball was in her own court.
Lillian had to admit to herself that she was still slightly hazy about Friday night. Something had happened for sure, and she had a niggling feeling that she’d unleashed a stream of truths in her rage at hearing about the Kennedy Art Prize, but nobody had phoned her to fill her in, so who knew what she’d blurted out.
Still, she’d long made it a habit never to ask how she’d behaved at any event or party.
Such things were very bourgeois, an old art teacher had told her decades before, and Lillian had loved the idea of never having to explain or apologise. Artistic people were always going to be a little outrageous and people needed to get with the programme.
Bob had found her tricky at first, but he’d learned to deal with it by smiling in that almost paternalistic way. She definitely drank more now that he was gone – Bob had toned down her wilder excesses, but he was dead and she was grieving, so tough bananas to the rest of the world.
Friday might have been a bit chaotic, on reflection. First, there had been the consumption of a new botanical gin with hints of borage and elderflower, she recalled.
