There was no reply. Unfazed, because not getting a reply was quite normal, Lou took the spare keys to her mother’s house from her handbag and unlocked the door.
The kitchen was ablaze with lights and the scent of cigarettes mixed with wet dog hit her as soon as she entered. Something was in the oven and, peering over to look, Lou saw that a pile of frozen chips had been shoved in recently. The cooker top was a mess and, instinctively, Lou moved towards the sink and the cleaning stuff before remembering that she had to say hello first. She could tidy up afterwards. Lillian forgot stuff like cleaning.
Her mother and three guests were in the living room, ranged on the two big couches, all holding wine glasses and cigarettes. A small dog, something in the Dachshund department and clearly the source of the wet canine scent, lay on the floor holding a stick in its mouth as if daring anyone to take it away.
‘Hello! We’re celebrating,’ said Lillian.
Tall and statuesque, Lillian Cooper had held onto her 1950s bombshell figure with the help of cigarettes and clever underwiring. Her hair had once been jet black and swept back from a high forehead, but now it was dyed black except for a shocking white streak that the hairdresser said was impervious to dye. Her lips had the unnaturally full curve of injected hyaluronic acid, which made Lou nervous on Lillian’s behalf, and were now outlined only faintly in Moscow Red liner which she made Lou order for her on the internet. Today, she was dressed in one of her trademark long white shirts with an armful of silver bangles, and black ankle-length trousers. The heavy clogs on her narrow feet were the only hint that she worked with metals.
It was, Lou thought with a sigh, easy to see why her mother attracted people so easily and also to see where Toni had got her looks. They had the same catlike eyes, the same way of making people look at them.
‘This is my daughter, Lou. No,’ Lillian said to the man with the damp dog at his feet, ‘not the one with the career and the famous husband. Lou works in flowers and is the milk of human kindness, aren’t you, darling?’
Lou smiled around. Her mother always said that Lou wasthe milk of human kindness.
Lillian had been saying it since Lou was eight and Lillian came down with pneumonia one summer after a Bacchanalian art festival which had included midnight sea swims, much smoking and no sleep. All hell for the immune system.
Dad had been away, Lillian had been confined to bed and three-year-old Toni’s nursery school had been closed for the holidays. Only Lou could step in. Lou adored being in charge, being needed. Adored being the milk of human kindness. How many people got to be called that? It meant you were appreciated, loved. She’d basked in the words, and still did.
‘Pull up a chair,’ said one of the men.
‘Meet Timothy, Charles and Peadar,’ announced Lillian. ‘I totally forgot they were travelling round this way. I mean, who can cope with putting things in a diary? I certainly can’t. They’re staying in The Ashling B&B on the Dublin Road, but nasty old Mrs Butler won’t let the dog in.’
‘Your mother offered me a bed here,’ said one of the men cheerfully.
‘Lovely,’ said Lou, wondering if the men were staying for dinner. She didn’t want to ask in case it sounded rude, yet she had to ask, for her mother’s sake. Lillian hated cooking these days and the chips in the oven would hardly feed everyone, would they?
‘You couldn’t make up the bed in the red bedroom, could you, sweetie?’ cajoled her mother. ‘And bang some sausages or something in a pan? I’ve found oven chips, but they look dreadfully old and we’re all ravenous. Peadar’s got an exhibition coming up. We’re celebrating it and planning the guest list.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Lou. The flutterings of anxiety abated. She knew what to do: all was fine. If there were no sausages, she’d go out. Lou to the rescue.
Upstairs, she looked in at the airing cupboard and poked around. It had been months since she’d tidied it. Months. At the time, she’d replaced some of the more ripped sheets with perfectly serviceable ones she’d ordered from IKEA. Not that she’d said this, although she’d agonised over the decision. Lillian was very attached to her old and expensive high-thread-count ones. But it hadn’t mattered. Lillian hadn’t actually noticed, which meant Lou had made the right choice.
One large grey sheet, a very seventies flowery duvet cover and two matching pillowcases later, the red bedroom’s slightly sagging double bed was made up. Lou eventually found the vacuum cleaner in the studio, where it was plugged in with little evidence of it having been used, and ran it over the red bedroom floor. She dusted quickly, then looked around to see where the little dog would sleep.
Her mother was not an animal person. Dogs had never lived in Valclusa. Nor cats, for all that Lillian admired their elegance and had once had a cat-sculpting phase. The Bast phase, she’d called it, after the Egyptian half-cat goddess. Lou had wanted a dog from when she was very small, but she knew it wasn’t allowed. Her mother was scared of dogs and she thought they were messy things too.
‘Dogs are dirty,’ Lillian said. ‘I am not cleaning up after it.’
So, no dog unless you were a guest, obviously. Lillian was a wonderful hostess.
Lou made a nest of old towels on the floor near the radiator, which was the warmest spot in the room if the wind howled, which it could do in March. If the dog needed water, she assumed the owner would sort that out. Was that the right thing to do, she wondered.
‘I’ll run to the corner shop,’ she yelled when she was finished, had checked the fridge and found it empty. Nobody replied.
Sausages, eggs, milk, some raspberries and yogurt for breakfast, along with brown bread and a tin of dog food later, she was back at Valclusa.
‘Very kind of you,’ said one of the men, coming into the kitchen to replenish the bottle, and seeing the tin of dog food on the table. The dog followed him.
‘I had forgotten about Monty’s dinner.’
Lou, who was quite immune to shock, stopped cutting the cellulose casing connecting the sausages. The words came out of her mouth almost before she could stop herself: ‘You hadn’t got anything for him to eat?’
If she’d had a dog, it would certainly eat before she did. Lou believed that true love meant others came first and if she’d been a pet owner, said pet would be cosseted the same way she cosseted the people she loved.
‘Monty and me can survive!’ the man said cheerfully.
‘Oh, dogs will eat anything,’ agreed Lillian dismissively, following him in. ‘Well done, sweetie. Perfectly decent dinner. If you could cook it and then off you trot. I’m sure Ned’s waiting for his dinner. Her husband’s an engineer,’ she added to her guests, in a vaguelysotto vocemanner. ‘Very boring. There’s no art in numbers, no matter what they say.’
