Lola, all terrier, white and caramel, threw herself out of the car and onto Lou and began to lick her new mistress soundly.
‘She licks a lot,’ said Emily.
‘My jeans are totally wet,’ agreed Evan, displaying one leg where his trousers had a big wet patch from canine licking. ‘Does that mean she thinks I’m her puppy?’
Emily ignored him to continue the tale of the two dogs.
‘Gloria’s neighbour has been trying to re-home them, but they had to go together. We’ve had them for twenty-four hours and they own the house already.’
‘Our house?’ asked Lou, just to be sure.
‘Our house,’ said Ned. ‘Welcome home, love.’
Chapter Twenty-three
‘I can’t believe you evenwantto see Lillian,’ Emily said, outraged. ‘I mean, Granny.’
‘Granny?’
‘Yeah.’ Emily smiled. ‘She’s Granny now – and shehatesit.’
Lou laughed. It was evening and they had just arrived home, and after letting the two dogs tear around the garden and then feeding them, Lou had decided it was time to drop in on her mother.
‘This is the longest I’ve ever gone without speaking to her,’ she said. ‘It feels weird.’
But it wasn’t just that. After everything that had happened, Lou needed to see Lillian – to show herself that she really had changed. Her mother was the litmus test for the rest of her life: if she could stop Lillian from walking all over her, then nobody else would ever be able to.
For the first time in nearly two weeks, Lou made the drive up to Valclusa, letting herself in as she always did – although she’d had to clamber over a lot of sand to get in, which was new. She found herself taking in all the familiar sights as if she’d been away for years rather than days. Nothing had changed, except it now looked as if every glass in the premises was stacked in the sink.
‘Hello, sweetie,’ said Lillian.
For a brief second, Lillian looked her older daughter up and down, taking in the tanned body and the very un-Lou-like bare legs and curvy body in the knee-length coral T-shirt dress, which fell beguilingly off one rounded shoulder. Lou was still wearing her 1950s movie star sunglasses, her glossy sexy lipstick and the heavy Athena necklace Angelo had given her.
‘You look different,’ said Lillian in a voice that might have been sayingI don’t like it.
Lou smiled tightly and said, ‘Do I?’
Inwardly, she marvelled at this new version of herself who was able to speak to her mother in a normal way.
Don’t be a people pleaser,she told herself. Don’t be co-dependent.
Lillian began to walk into the living room.
‘Drink?’ she said.
Normally her mother never offered her a drink.
‘I’m driving,’ said Lou.
Lillian poured herself something, then settled into the couch. ‘Goodness, I need a holiday. I can’t think when I was last away. Very clever of you and Toni to think of doing it ...’
Her words left a pause as big as a sinkhole and Lou fell right into it.
‘It didn’t start as a holiday,’ she began. ‘It started as something completely different.’
She paused, finding herself unable to carry on. No matter how much work she had done on herself, this new way of being with her mother was very strange and she wasn’t yet ready for speaking her mind. Saying ‘it started because you dropped a bombshell into my fiftieth birthday party’ was going to take some time.
‘I understand,’ soothed Lillian. ‘Sometimes one needs time out. I felt the same way after I heard about the Kennedy Art Prize. I mean, to have one’s life’s work ripped away like that, it was almost a death. I thought I could have a heart attack. My heart has been very dicky lately. I did go to Dr Ali and he says I should see a cardiologist.’
