The Spark - Jules Wake Page 0,11

head a quick glance. I swear, time in her house is different to anywhere else in the universe. A bit like dog years but in reverse. Somehow, here, it felt as if there were one hundred and twenty minutes in an hour instead of only sixty.

‘Is she still working at the beauty place?’ The lines around her mouth tightened as she pushed the milk jug towards me.

‘Mum, it’s Champneys, and yes, she’s still working there.’ I poured a tiny amount of milk into the watery Lapsang Souchong that she insisted on serving. It was like piss and not my cup of tea at all, but I’d never say anything, nor would I tell her that I would rather have a huge mug of builders’ tea, the type that fuelled Holly and me at work.

‘I suppose when you don’t have much in the way of qualifications, it’s as good as anything. Not much point in getting a degree if you’re not going to use it.’ I ignored the pointed comment. ‘Mind you, she’s so spoiled, I should be impressed that she even works. Lynn and Richard have been far too…’ It was tempting to tune out because I’d heard it all before.

‘Jessica!’ Oh, darn it! I had tuned out and now Mum was looking at me with her bulldog’s-chewed-a-wasps’-nest face, her chin sinking into her skinny, elongated neck, surrounded by a ruff of well-tanned contours. ‘At least pay attention when I’m talking to you.’

‘Sorry, Mum. I’ve got a lot on my mind at the moment.’

She raised a disbelieving eyebrow. ‘I asked if you had any more thoughts about going to your great aunt’s wedding. We’re going to have to go.’ Her mouth pursed with walnut wrinkles.

I shut my eyes for a second. I really didn’t want to go there.

‘I still need to find out if I’ll be on call that weekend. Holly hasn’t booked her holidays yet.’

‘Well, I don’t see why you have to wait on her. I thought you were the manager.’ My mother’s voice was shrill.

Technically I was, but it wasn’t the sort of place you pulled rank, or even thought about it. I might have the paper qualifications and the shiny degree to which my mother had made scathing reference, but Holly’s ten years of experience made her a million times more savvy and street smart than me. We made a good team; I never thought of myself as her boss.

‘I’ll ask her this week,’ I said with a sinking heart. Third time around, Great Aunt Gladys’s wedding was going to be fun with a capital F; going along with my mother would be miserable with a capital M. At sixty-nine, Gladys had bagged herself an extremely wealthy toy boy, Alastair, and they were getting married in style, the details of which had yet to be revealed but the save-the-date card featured Gladys in a jumpsuit and goggles, just about to launch herself out of a plane, with her fiancé grinning behind her and miming pushing her, which gives you a clue as to the type of couple they are. If Gladys has spent her three score and nearly ten years cramming as much joy and happiness into her life as she can, my mother has spent almost the commensurate amount sucking the joy out of her own and those of the people around her.

I know, I know, this is my mother we’re talking about and I should be a lot more charitable, more of a loving daughter. I am being a complete bitch and I shouldn’t. She’s not really that bad and she’s had it tough. Really tough. And I should have a lot more sympathy. My dad walked out without any warning when I was eight. Apparently he met the love of his life and couldn’t live without her. Giving up his well-paid job in London, he moved to Cornwall and never paid a penny of child maintenance. To give her her due, despite our desperate finances, Mum never borrowed a penny. Aside from one brief period when my childhood turned into a nightmare, I was always clothed, fed and taken on holiday every year. Although the delights of Filey do wear off after the fifth, sixth and seventh visit. When I was sixteen, I signed up to go to Christian Camp with the local Sunday school just to escape the week’s enforced shivering on a Yorkshire beach and the utter tedium of sharing a B&B room with my mother and her best friend, Dawn. If