‘Do a U-turn,’ instructs the sat nav and they do.
After a few more minutes of loud directions cutting through the tense silence, Seb leans forward from his middle seat in the back. ‘Can we have some music on? Olivia Rodrigo, please?’
Tilly ignores him. ‘You know, Mum,’ she begins carefully, ‘you missed a meeting with the financial advisor yesterday? The one Amy from Lotto set up for you? And I’ve messaged you twice about meeting with a solicitor and tax specialist. I know it’s all pretty boring, but it needs doing. You can’t just let all that money sit there in your Club Lloyds account.’
She’d missed an appointment? That’s not like Paula.
‘It’s not like you, Mum,’ Tilly says, glancing over, her brow furrowed.
‘It might be like me,’ she replies with a hint of defiance. Tilly is driving so slowly and carefully. Why has Paula never noticed how dull her driving is?
‘Look,’ her daughter begins again, and it hurts Paula’s heart to hear how much she’s having to try. ‘I get it, I’m annoying and overbearing.’ She sighs. ‘And if you don’t want to keep doing the grief counselling sessions, we don’t have to.’
‘Don’t we?’ Paula asks hopefully.
‘Yes, we do!’ Tilly answers. ‘That was meant to be rhetorical, Mum! They’re important! We talked about how important they are. You really need to start opening up because I’m worried we’re losing you, too. Losing Dad like that, it’s knocked all of us off our axis . . .’ She frowns at the windscreen. ‘Axi? Axises?’
‘Axee,’ Seb says with confidence from the back seat.
‘Anyway.’ Tilly ignores her brother’s input. ‘What I’m trying to say is, please, can you give it more of a chance, Mum? The counselling? Gerald? It’s not going to help you or us as a family if you won’t share anything during the sessions.’ She shoots Paula a slightly amused look. ‘Or if you hide in the loo.’
Paula stares out the window. She wants to help her family, and she’s aware she’s letting her daughter down. But she doesn’t know how to be the person Tilly wants her to be. She doesn’t know what to say.
On her lap, her phone buzzes again. It’s from the TLWWC WhatsApp group. Another meme from Teddy. She seems very keen on the theme of wisdom coming hand in hand with age. This one describes how women over forty are powerful, strong, and no longer ‘give any fucks’.
Paula covers her mouth to stop from laughing. She very much likes the idea of it. She waited eagerly over the years to start caring less, but it never happened. She is sixty-one and unfortunately still gives a multitude of effs. She still cares about how she looks, how she feels, what she does. And goodness, she cares more than ever about what other people think of her. Even –especially– strangers.
Tilly pulls up at a red light, glancing over. ‘Who’s messaging you?’ She says this conversationally but it alarms Paula. She hastily turns her phone away. ‘No one,’ she says quickly. ‘I was looking up the plural of axis for you.’ In her hand, the phone buzzes again, rather undermining the lie. Paula wonders how one might turn that noise off. Usually she’d ask Tilly, but that seems out of the question right now.
A quiet hangs over them for a few seconds. Paula breaks the awkward silence. ‘I’ve got the answer!’ She looks up fromher phone. ‘The plural of axis is axes.’ She pauses. ‘But I can’t remember now why we needed to know it.’
Seb leans forward. ‘It was because Tills said we’d been knocked off our—’
Tilly emits a strangled noise. ‘Does it really matter?’ She pulls up at another traffic light and turns to face her mother. ‘The point is that it doesn’t feel like you’re really listening to me. To either of us.’ She gestures at her brother in the back seat. ‘Something’s going on with you, Mum. It’s obvious. And I want you to feel like you can talk to us. Please? If not to Gerald, then to us?’
‘Tilly, love.’ Paula turns to face her daughter, the seatbelt straining against her chest. ‘I know you’re worried about me, but you don’t have to be. I’m your mum. I’m the same mum I’ve always been. It’s not your job to worry about me. And there’s nothing to worry about anyway! Nothing at all. I’m fine. I’m doing OK. Everything’s the same. The house is the same; the garden’s the same, though it needs mowing. And I’m very much the same as I’ve always been.’ She laughs, then gestures to Seb over her shoulder. ‘Your brother’s the one you need to worry about changing. I caught him looking at a jobs website the other day. Can you believe such a thing!’
‘Hey!’ Seb pouts in the back seat. ‘A person can evolve, can’t they? I thought it was about time I started thinking about my career trajectory now I’m in my thirties.’
‘Careertrajectory?’ Tilly grins over at her mum, the mood in the car softening. ‘Is there a natural next step from serving hot dogs part-time?’
Seb harumphs as Paula smiles. ‘The point is, my children,’ she says determinedly, ‘you have nothing to fret about, soplease stop. I’m the same mum I’ve always been. I haven’t changed and that’s that.’
Tilly pulls up outside Paula’s house. ‘OK.’ Her daughter takes a deep, slow breath. ‘I get it. I’m sorry for giving you a hard time. If you say nothing’s going on with you, I believe you.’
A man with a clipboard approaches Paula’s open window and for a moment she recoils, thinking it must be Craig again, or maybe one of the lottery obsessives, here in person to demand cash.
‘Paula Sheldon?’ he asks politely as she nods back nervously. ‘I’m just delivering this for you.’ He turns proudly to reveal a brand-new sky-blue Porsche Taycan Turbo, sitting on the kerb, sparkling like aTwilightvampire.
Whoops. So much for being the same as always.
18
‘No, Paula doesn’t like that.’ Audrey is shaking her head into the phone glued to her ear. ‘Nope, she doesn’t like that either. Nope. Find another way, please, Belinda.’
‘What don’t I like?’ Paula wanders over to join Ivy, who is listening intently to the phone conversation.
‘Paula the Dog,’ Ivy explains, starry-eyed at the very mention of the darling little pup. She’s wearing a shirt today instead of her usual tee, and the effect is endearingly like a young child playing dressing-up.
