Mum was just a few months old when her biological dad died, and three years-old when Gran remarried, so Mum remembered her own childhood as idyllic, having little or no memory of the years when Gran had struggled financially.
Gran told me that the first thing she bought after her second marriage, was a telescope. Harold bought her a piano, followed soon after by a horse.
Mum hated her own piano lessons, was allergic to horses, and the only time she ever looked up was to check if it looked like it might rain. Unlike my hair, which was long and straight and light brown, Mum’s was shoulder-length, blonde, and curled like a corkscrew when it got wet. Which was probably why she also hated swimming.
Thanks to her stepdad’s wealth, Mum didn’t need to work to support herself through university, and as she met Dad on the first day there, and they married two days after they both graduated, she didn’t work once she was a wife. Other than bringing me up, of course. Which, as I have said, was apparentlysuchhard work.
Four
After lunch, I phoned Berry.
‘I had a hangover this morning,’ I said stopping to sit on the cold, hard, plastic seat at the bus stop shelter. ‘I’ve still got a bit of a headache, even though I took some tablets a while ago.’
‘Been to lunch with the folks?’ she asked.
‘Uh-huh. Erm. Did Paul give me a lift home last night?’
‘Can’t you remember?’ I could hear the laughter in her voice.
‘Not exactly, no.’
‘Of course he gave you a lift. You could hardly walk.’ Now she laughed aloud.
‘Erm. Did you come with him?’
‘Why? What’s up?’
‘I don’t remember getting changed into my PJs, that’s all. I wondered if either you … or he … helped me.’
Now she roared with laughter.
‘It was me, you silly cow. Do you honestly think I’d let my brother undress you? He did carry you up the stairs though. I was going to stay the night because you were really out of it. But you insisted you were fine and after I got you into your PJsand made you clean your teeth, you did seem to sober up, so I thought you were okay. Fancy a hair of the dog?’
‘I do, actually. But I can’t. I’ve got Christmas decorations to make. Plus, I want to put up the rest of my own decorations. The outside ones at least. I haven’t even started on the indoors yet. My heating’s playing up and I may need to spend a night or two at my parents, so I’ve got to get home now and get as much done as I can. When I’m at my place I can work till late and get up early, but Mum doesn’t like me making decorations at their house. She says I make such a mess and she finds glitter for weeks afterwards. They bolt the front door on the dot of ten, so I need to be there by nine-fifty-five at the latest. It’s almost three now so that only gives me a few hours.’
‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Your mum is weird. But what’s this about your heating? Have you called out an engineer?’
‘Yep. He can’t come till Tuesday. Apparently, it’s only an emergency if you’ve got kids or old people in your home. People in their thirties can freeze. I do have heating. At least I did this morning. But I have to turn it on and off manually.’
‘Heaven forbid!’
‘Sarcasm is not appropriate. How would you like waking up in a freezing bedroom and having to go downstairs to turn on the heating, and then wait hours for the place to warm up?’
‘Okay. You’re right. I wouldn’t like that. You could come and stay with me. But you’d have to share my bed, and my sitting room and kitchen are tiny, as you know, so I’m not sure how helpful that would be.’
‘Thanks for the offer, but I’ll go home and work. I’m not driving today because I’m not sure I’m fit to do so, and if the police stopped me, I’m fairly certain I’d still be over the limit. It’s downhill to Mum and Dad’s but it’s all uphill going home, so that also takes time.’
‘How did you get to your parents’ house?’
‘I walked.’
‘In this weather! It’s freezing.’
‘I know. I’ve stopped at the bus shelter near Mum and Dad’s but I don’t think many buses run on a Sunday. I was going to ask Dad for a lift but then they’d ask why I wasn’t driving.’
‘You’re thirty-six, Noelle. You’re allowed to get drunk.’
‘Yeah? You tell my parents that.’
