Homecoming

Rae thanked God silently for the bequest from Will’s father that had allowed them to pay off their mortgage fifteen years previously. They’d bought the house long before the property boom, so they’d paid buttons for it compared to what it was now worth.

‘Rae, how long have we been talking about a cruise?’

She allowed herself to relax. ‘Since Anton was small and we knew there was no way in heck that he’d cope with being closeted on a boat,’ she said fondly. ‘Think of all those seaside holidays.’

‘Crazy golf,’ Will said.

They both groaned.

Anton had taken a mad passion for crazy golf when he was ten and no holiday was complete without a trip to a course. Will and Rae had spent many hours trying to whack golf balls into clown’s mouths and windmills.

‘Disney in Florida?’ It had taken them three years to save up for that holiday.

‘That was amazing,’ Will said with a sigh. ‘I don’t think I could do any of those rollercoaster things again.’

‘You were brilliant for going on them all,’ Rae said. She was terrified of heights and just looking at some of Orlando’s rides was enough to make her central nervous system go into shock.

‘I’d love a cruise,’ Rae said, and suddenly she wanted it so much she felt as if she might burst out crying with the sheer joy of it all. She was so lucky. She had her wonderful son, her wonderful husband, and now this unexpected treat. When she thought of how sad her life had looked all those years ago, she’d never dreamed she could have this happiness.

‘I love you, Will,’ she said, winding her arms round him.

‘Mr Thicko loves you back,’ he replied, kissing her. ‘That’s a very sexy outfit you’re wearing,’ he murmured, moving the neckline of her definitely unsexy fleecy pyjamas so he could nuzzle her neck.

‘It’s designed to drive men wild with lust,’ Rae agreed. ‘If it’s disturbing you, I could take it off.’

‘There’s a thought,’ he murmured, and then they didn’t talk for a while.

Forty minutes later, they were up, dressed and getting breakfast. They moved easily around each other in the kitchen. Rae turned the coffee machine on, Will laid out cups and plates. She toasted some wholegrain bread; he found the marmalade she liked and put out plum jelly just in case they were in the mood for that.

It was the precise opposite to the way Rae had grown up; mornings then had been taut as a violin string, the air trembling with arguments that might erupt at any moment. One wrong word was all it took for Glory Hennessey to start throwing plates and insults at Paudge, with him throwing them right back. Rae had hated it, and had learned how to blend into the furniture so she didn’t get involved.

As a child, she perfected the adult ability to take the emotional temperature of a room within two minutes of entering. If the room was happy, she’d do happy, but she wouldn’t really be happy. Her happiness was surface only. Play along with them, but don’t really relax because in two minutes happy could be over and major screaming fit could be the order of the day.

When she was at school, the teachers thought her a strangely silent child. It was habit. Talking turned into saying the wrong thing so easily at home. Silence was the wisest option.

Even now, Rae could still feel her stomach clench when she heard people rowing.

It was no accident that she’d married a man who was gentle, thoughtful and rarely spoke without first considering the likely effect of his words on the other person.

By eight twenty it had stopped raining. Rae kissed Will on the cheek and they both headed off to work: she to Titania’s down the street, and he to his office in the long back garden of their house.

She took the long route to Titania’s, walking all around the garden itself, where the heady earthy smell of wet soil obliterated all other smells. Despite the wet, a couple of dogs were rolling in the grass, seemingly trying to wriggle themselves into the ground in pure pleasure.

Rae recognised Nora Flynn’s little greyhound and her fluffy pompom of a dog that loved to bounce along self-importantly.

But Nora wasn’t with them. Instead, a slender dark-haired girl with an elfin face and big haunted eyes sat on the bench watching. She’d been in Titania’s a few days before and Rae had recognised her as Nora’s niece, the actress. Rae hadn’t been able to recall her name, but was sure that when she’d last seen the girl, she’d been a pretty blonde slip of a thing, not a dark, sad waif.

Rae was aware that there had been some scandal. Someone at the counter in Titania’s had talked about it recently, but she’d listened with only half an ear. Rae was wary of gossip. Often, she found it to be wildly inaccurate and she hated the casual cruelty of the celebrity magazines.

She’d wanted to welcome the girl – Megan, that was her name – to Golden Square the other day in the tearooms but she’d looked on the verge of tears, so Rae had decided to say nothing. There were times, she knew, when kindness tipped you over the edge.

Today, Megan looked less sad.

‘Hello,’ Rae said. ‘I’m Rae Kerrigan, from the tearooms. You’re Nora’s niece, aren’t you? Welcome back.’ She inhaled the earthy scent of the park. Lots of people didn’t appreciate nature in winter: she loved it, the sense of hibernation before the earth slowly unfurled herself into beauty again. ‘It’s beautiful here, isn’t it? You could be in the middle of the countryside.’

The girl said nothing, just watched from under lowered lashes.

She was wary, Rae realised instantly. Speaking non-judgementally and idly was required.

‘Aren’t dogs funny? I love the way they enjoy the simple things.’ On the grass in front of her, the fluffy dog was wriggling in an orgy of pleasure, making little contented snorts.

Rae bent to rub the dog’s pink belly, murmuring ‘Hello, pooch,’ and she could sense the girl softening beside her. Animals were the true arbitrators of decency: it was hard to be the sort of person who’d convincingly stroke a dog and then lash out at the human being beside them.

‘She loves that,’ the girl said in a slightly husky voice.

‘They all do,’ Rae said, getting back to her feet. ‘My son loves animals and when he was a kid, he was always coming home with things he’d rescued. Apparently, when a dog lets you pet its belly, it’s at peace.’

‘In Cici’s case, she’s at peace and she also thinks she’s an Egyptian princess lying there waiting for the grapes to be peeled for her,’ the girl said drily.

Rae laughed.

Sensing she was being talked about, Cici sat up, shook herself to get rid of all the debris from the grass, and went to have a proper sniff of Rae.

‘She’s adorable,’ Rae said, reaching down for one more pet. ‘See you around,’ she added, with a smile at the girl.

‘Yeah, sure.’

For the first time, the girl looked at Rae straight on and Rae caught her breath. She hadn’t really seen her face in Titania’s, not properly, because she’d kept her head down. But now, Rae could see she was lovely, like a silent movie star in an old photograph, with more angles and high points than a normal person’s face.

And yet there was huge sadness there. Rae wished she’d paid more attention to whatever Megan’s story was. Not for gossip’s sake, but so she could understand. The gist, according to the people at the counter, was that she’d romanced a very married movie star. But this wary girl didn’t look like a femme fatale to Rae. No, there was something more to it than that.

She left the square by the vine-covered black-and-gold iron gate opposite Titania’s and said thanks for the blessings in her life.

It was one of her tenets: saying thanks every single day. Some people wrote gratitude journals, and Rae liked the idea, but she preferred a more living gratitude method. Every day, she said thanks for what had happened.

Thank you for Will, thank you for allowing us to have a good life and be able to plan a holiday when so many other people are barely surviving. Thank you that my life is calm, not like that poor girl in the square.

And always she added, Let Jasmine be happy too, please. Wherever she is, let her be happy.

When the older woman from Titania’s Palace had said hello to her, Megan had frozen. Not another fake friendly person. Some awful cow with sly eyes had sidled up to her in The Nook the previous day, and said: ‘You look different with that hair, missy. Not so starry now.’

Megan had put down her basket and fled the shop.

But this woman – Rae, did she say her name was? – had been different. Nice. Welcoming.

Over the past two weeks, the routine of Golden Square had settled around Megan like a soft blanket. Each morning, after Nora had gone downstairs to the clinic, the dogs would gradually wake Megan. Animals were so much more comforting than people. There was never any censure in their eyes, except when they felt walking duties were being neglected.

Then Megan would make coffee for herself and stand outside the back door, often shivering in her dressing gown against the coolness, while she smoked a cigarette. It had been a long time since she’d lived in a house with a garden. It felt both strange and familiar. Nora wasn’t much of a woman for gardening, so the long hundred-foot garden was a tangle of briars and old trees. Although Megan didn’t know much about nature, she knew the biggest tree in the middle was a horse chestnut, but only because she could remember finding conkers under it when she was a kid.