if the apple-blossom cheeks of my youth had slid down from the tree and were now hanging onto the lower branches for dear life.
I groaned but tried to keep in mind George Burns or whoever it was who, when asked how he felt on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, apparently said something like: compared to the alternative, pretty good.
‘You’re alive,’ I said to my reflection, though I can’t say the fact made me particularly happy.
A swipe of Katie’s mascara, a quick brush of my hair and a hasty scrunchy, and I decided I didn’t look too bad, for me. That small attention to myself had made me feel better than I had in months.
‘I’m fine,’ I practised. ‘Honestly, yeah, I’m great, actually. How’s things with you?’ I smiled to see if I could get my eyes to go with it.
Almost.
29
Rachel
‘I was wondering about calling Missing Persons.’ With a flourish, Lisa stood back to let me in. She looked at me; her brow furrowed and her head fell to one side. ‘Have you had your hair cut?’
‘Just brushed it and put it in a scrunchy, that’s all.’
‘It looks nice off your face. You’ve got make-up on as well.’ Her smile was one of encouragement, for God’s sake.
‘Not sure a paint job is enough these days.’ Already flustered, I stared at the floor, heat climbing up my neck. I’d thought I could face her, but now I wasn’t sure. ‘Not when the brickwork is crumbling.’
‘Don’t be like that.’ She laughed. ‘Come in.’
Lisa didn’t pick up her feet as she usually did, and her shoulders were rounder. On the kitchen table there was a dead cigarette butt in a saucer.
‘Don’t tell the girls,’ she said, sliding it into the bin and running the saucer under the tap.
‘Don’t beat yourself up. It’s not a crack pipe.’ Her girls were both away. They’d been on holiday with their dad and now they were off on their own travels. ‘You missing them then?’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ She flicked the kettle on, busied about the kitchen, fetching mugs and milk and the tin off the high shelf where she hid her decent biscuits. ‘They’re never off FaceTime, and if it’s not FaceTime it’s WhatsApp. Jodi was WhatsApping her entire friendship crisis last night. Ping, ping, ping every five minutes, honest to God. Long-distance counselling service, really, I should start charging.’
‘Fifty pounds an hour, apparently. Money for old rope.’ I envied her having a close bond like that with her daughters. I’d had that not so long ago with both my kids. I’d been proud of it, proud of the hours it had taken, the baking, the picnics, the days out, the conversations lying on their beds in the late evening if they had a problem they needed to share. When they were little, there was never anything I couldn’t fix. I used to love my ability to shrink their worries to nothing, feel their fraught little bodies loosen with relief. But now I couldn’t figure out what the heck Katie was cross about all the time, what she was going to do with her life, unless you counted YouTube and getting hammered with her mates. I looked up to find Lisa poised to seize the kettle the moment it boiled.
‘It’s still empty nest syndrome,’ I said.
‘Nest shouldn’t be empty, though, should it?’ She poured on the hot water. ‘Knob-end should still be here. We should be looking forward to long walks and drinking at lunchtime and whatever else you’re supposed to do when you get your freedom back. Anyway, sod him, what’ve you been up to? I’ve not seen you for ages.’
‘Oh, nothing much.’
She stopped stirring the tea and looked at me. I was not invisible to Lisa, never had been. She loved me, or so I thought then, and her gaze was like a bloody tractor beam. ‘Are you OK, Rach?’
‘Been a bit under the weather, I suppose. One thing and another, like, you know.’ My eyes filled. Traitors.
Lisa’s expression was full of sympathy and her eyes weren’t dry either. But how could I tell her what I’d been up to? Not like I could say, actually, remember you said I could get away with murder? Funny that, because I’m terrified I might have stabbed a young girl to death in the midst of a menopausal fugue and throttled a man while he was having a you-know-what in the church doorway, although I can think of no reason why I would do something like that.