chance at all that you hadn’t noticed. And that was before they made you the spokesperson for every acne sufferer in the world.
I sat at the kitchen table wondering whether I’d ever stop missing her.
Chapter Eight
The following Wednesday, Mum called me first thing in the morning when I’d just got back from the school run. ‘I’ve caught you!’ As though my life consisted of jollies to the theatre in London and trips to Brighton to check out new restaurants.
‘How are you, Mum?’ I asked.
‘I wanted to talk to you about Christmas.’
‘What about it?’ I asked, glancing at the clock and sighing as I saw another half an hour of cracking on with my freelance report writing disappearing into a rabbit hole of what she should buy everyone before she came to the conclusion that a Body Shop voucher and some golf balls would take care of Phoebe and Patrick.
‘I was wondering, as it’s the first Christmas with Victor, if we should try and do something different.’
I immediately felt ashamed of being uncharitable but still flipped the laptop lid open and tried to type quietly while Mum rattled on.
‘When I was on the way back from that charity committee I belong to with Edna, you know, over Higher Morsten way, we walked past that new place that’s open, what’s it called?’
‘I don’t know, Mum,’ I said, reading down a column of figures.
‘Anyway, it specialises in meat. Normal ones, beef and pork, but it had a few unusual ones, like goat and rabbit, and I thought Victor might like it. Or there was crocodile. That might be more up his street. Do they eat crocodile in Nigeria?’
I was pretty sure that Victor had eaten far more Nando’s than goat or bloody crocodile. And Ginny was a right fusspot about meat – ‘Nothing on the bone! I don’t want to imagine it running around.’ An email pinged into my inbox chasing me for a report. I didn’t really have time to get into yet another explanation that Victor was as British as Phoebe so I limited myself to ‘Victor eats what we eat, Mum. He doesn’t need any exotic dishes.’
I heard the unmistakable sniff that preceded a huffy ‘I was only trying to help.’ I rushed in before I spent the day feeling guilty for snapping at her. ‘It sounds like somewhere Patrick would like if they do a good steak. I’m not sure about Phoebe. Did you notice if they did any fish dishes?’
‘They did chicken on skewers and spaghetti bolognese.’
Mum seemed to be overlooking the essential difference between plaice and pork.
‘I’ll talk to Patrick about it. Perhaps we’ll go and have a recce at the weekend.’ I was in that closing-down, getting-off-the-phone mode.
Mum plodded on, oblivious. ‘Your friends were in there, so I expect it’s quite good.’
‘What friends?’ Mum was wasted on tea making and doily watch at the old folks’ home. She would be invaluable to the police as an unlikely surveillance expert.
‘That Faye. She was sitting right in the window.’
‘Oh, I’ll ask her what she thought.’
‘She was with a group of women.’ Mum sniffed. ‘I think they’d been drinking because I could hear them cackling through the window.’
I wondered who she was with. It could be anyone. Her book group? But she usually invited me along to that – ‘Doesn’t matter that you haven’t read the book. You read loads. And anyway, we mainly drink wine.’ They usually met at the curry house though. I wracked my brains for other groups of friends.
‘Did you recognise anyone she was with?’
‘That Andrea, you know, the pilot’s wife. She was there.’ Mum was so busy proving her sleuthing talent, it didn’t occur to her to ask why I wanted to know.
Faye couldn’t stand Andrea, so it couldn’t be something Faye had organised.
Mum rattled on. ‘And that physiotherapist who charged your dad ridiculous money to look at his back that time.’
‘Rita Starling?’
‘Rita Stealing more like.’ Mum had never been in favour of any activity that she couldn’t cut a coupon out of the paper for.
Although she would never admit it, Faye had never liked Rita, ever since her daughter ‘took’ Georgia’s place in a public speaking competition and won. Rita had always been on the periphery of Faye’s group of friends anyway so it was strange that she’d been included and I hadn’t. I told myself not to be paranoid, that there would be a reason they were all out together. I didn’t want Mum to twig I hadn’t been invited and turn