Page 52 of So This is Christmas
But the phone rang and rang, no answer, and so she left a message to say it wasn’t urgent, that she’d call later on.
Mallory welcomed Cedella onto her lap while Jilly was in the kitchen. What would Penny make of all of this? It was the first hint either of them had ever got as to why their mothers didn’t have anything to do with one another.
Mallory closed her eyes and transported herself back to the Cotswolds and the time spent with her best friend celebrating their fiftieth birthdays.
They’d kicked off their stay with a dip in the hot tub out the back of the cottage they were renting and talk, as it often did, had turned to their mothers.
‘How’s Aunt Gigi doing?’ Penny had asked as she swished her hands through the water in front of her.
‘I think she’s keen to get the cruise over with, she promised Dad when he died that she’d still go on it even though it was supposed to be the two of them.’
‘It’ll be hard, but having you there with her will help.’
‘I hope so. How’s Aunt Rose?’
‘As stubborn as ever.’ Penny reached for her glass of champagne.
‘She’s eighty-two years old and still refusing to retire, still living in the flat above the shop and saying she’s not budging.
I know she loves Rose Gold Bridal, it’s been her life for so long.
But I can’t ignore how much she’s struggling.
She made a couple of mistakes on bridal gowns – luckily her assistant, Michelle, rescued the situation and no harm done, but it upset her, you know how she values her brides and wants the very best, every time.
‘Anyway, I’m going down to Saxby Green to see her, work out for myself how she really is and perhaps talk to her about the future of the shop if she’ll let me.’ She knocked back the rest of her champagne. ‘I’m getting shrivelled; let’s go have that cake.’
Mallory carefully climbed out of the tub, steadying herself on the side for a moment. The heat, or perhaps the glass of champagne, had made her a bit wobbly.
Penny handed Mallory a big white fluffy towel and plucked the other one to wrap around herself.
‘Penny, do me a favour?’ Mallory dried off a little so they wouldn’t take the water inside.
‘Anything.’ She picked up both of the empty champagne flutes between her fingers.
‘Don’t ever let anything come between us like Rose and Gigi did.’
Penny hooked an arm around her cousin’s shoulders as they made their way in through the back door. ‘I promise I won’t. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. For ever.’
Once they were dressed, they walked to the fish and chip shop and strolled back to the cottage with their parcels, the scent of vinegar and salt so tantalising they wasted no time emptying the food onto plates.
Penny went to top up both glasses of champagne but Mallory shook her head. ‘No more for me, not just yet.’
‘Oh come on, this is a major celebration!’ Penny tried again but Mallory covered the top of her glass.
Penny sighed. ‘Looks like I’ll have to take one for the team. Or several. This is only our first bottle.’
‘I might have some more later.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
Mallory was tired; she’d done a few extra shifts lately and was really feeling it but she hoped that after this time away she’d return home and the fatigue would pass so she could get back to feeling like herself.
‘I think I need glasses.’ Mallory winced as she momentarily saw two big cakes, not one, while Penny pushed the sparklers into the top of the iced sponge.
Surely the alcohol hadn’t gone to her head that quickly, although her tolerance had lowered somewhat since perimenopause came knocking at her door.
She would’ve thought those fish and chips might have at least soaked some of it up, but it appeared not.
Penny tutted. ‘Book your eye test and get it sorted.’
‘Bossy boots.’
‘You know you’d nag me if it was the other way round.’ Penny found a box of matches in the fourth drawer she tried. ‘Go sit down, I’ll bring in the cake.’
Mallory turned out the light when Penny yelled through the instruction from the kitchen.
Penny came through with their joint birthday cake – bright yellow with flickering candles, sparklers and a big number fifty in gold lettering on top. She positioned the cake on the coffee table and sat down next to Mallory on the sofa. ‘Ready?’
They launched into the traditional song, smiles on their faces, giggles in between the words. ‘Happy birthday to us,’ they chorused, ‘happy birthday to us, happy birthday dear Mallory and Pe-nny, happy birthday to us!’
Mallory lifted up her glass of water and passed Penny her glass of champagne. ‘To us,’ she said, clinking her vessel against Penny’s. ‘Fifty and fabulous.’
Penny beamed. ‘Fifty, fabulous and friends forever.’
In her own home Mallory’s thoughts of the celebrations quietened as Jilly came back into the lounge with a couple of slices of raisin toast. Cedella had her eye on the food already.
Mallory savoured her daughter’s laughter as she tried to bat her dog’s attentions away.
When Cedella finally leapt off Jilly’s lap Mallory put an arm around her shoulders, pulled her against her. ‘I really did miss you. Did you have fun at Sasha’s?’
Mallory vaguely took in the details of Jilly’s ten-day stay with her work colleague and close friend and for now, the keeper of her secrets.
She watched her daughter when Cedella came back demanding her attention once again.
This girl was only just getting started – the girl who had the same dark skin as Mallory who had inherited it from her Jamaican father, the girl with the soft brown eyes just like Mallory’s, the girl with the world at her feet.
A world that she wouldn’t recognise when the truth came out.
Mallory wished she could go back to being that woman who’d sat in the hot tub chatting away with her best friend, the woman who’d eaten two massive slices of cake.
She wished she could go back to being the woman who worried about the trivial things like piling on the pounds on holiday, or keeping the house relatively clean; she wished she could be the mother who sat and laughed with her daughter without a huge weight looming over them both.
She wanted to be the woman she was before she knew what she knew.
But she couldn’t be.
She never would be again.
And where did she go from here? At some point she’d have to share the truth but when she did, it wouldn’t only be her world that would collapse.