Page 27 of The Girlfriend

Cherry could sense everyone in the office watching her and pictured smirks, looks of pity.

Her mother was wearing white Capri jeans, no doubt from the clothing section of the supermarket where she worked, and they were splattered at the back with dirt from the wet streets.

As were her calves. Her gaze went farther and she saw her mum was wearing sandals—sandals on a day like today—and her toes also had mud on them.

Of all the times she had felt ashamed of her mum, this was a new low.

“I’m soaked right through! It’s pouring out there,” said Wendy by way of explanation. And then Cherry got a pang of guilt, knowing her mother had caught her repulsed look.

“Thought we could go for some lunch, love?”

A whole new wave of horror engulfed Cherry.

Daniel would be here at any moment. She sent a stricken look to the door.

Perhaps she could get rid of her mother somehow, make up something about being so busy that she couldn’t do it, pacify her with a promise of something else another day.

But it was too late. She saw Daniel cross the road and come up to the agency.

The door opened and all heads turned again.

“Hi!” said Daniel to everyone.

Wendy turned too; Cherry froze. This was the meeting she never wanted.

Then suddenly, a blind fury overtook her: How dare her mum make her feel like this, make her panic and stress, put her whole future in jeopardy!

Why couldn’t she leave her the fuck alone?

She struggled to keep her exploding anger from lashing out at her mother, and imagined shoving her back, back toward the door, kicking her out, crumpled onto the street, and then she caught herself.

The image brought her up sharply and, horrified, she blocked it from her mind.

She mustn’t lose it, not now. She gestured nervously toward her mother, a light flick of the fingers without looking at her.

“This,” she said tightly, “is my mum.”

He came over and shook Wendy’s hand, and Cherry watched carefully for a reaction, but she saw nothing but his usual friendly charm, albeit with a note of confusion. “Nice to meet you. Sorry, have I got my days mixed up or something?”

Wendy turned to Cherry for an explanation, a saucy smile on her face, as Cherry knew she’d guessed that Daniel was more than just a friend. “Mum,” she said in a low, warning voice—a voice that implied, Do not say anything to embarrass me —“this is Daniel.”

“Daniel. So nice to finally meet you. Cherry has told me so much about you.”

Which was all a big lie, for Cherry had not mentioned Daniel to her once. She was grateful for this tiny reprieve, although her feelings toward her mother did not soften .

“Did you come to spend lunchtime with Cherry?” he asked.

She was about to wade in, play it down, suggest that she meet her mother another day, but Wendy was too quick.

“A surprise lunch,” she said. “Although I think it was even more of a surprise than I intended.”

“Well, I’ll let you two—”

“No, no,” interrupted Cherry quickly. “Mum, Daniel and I already have plans.”

“We can do it some other time,” he said, and then added, to fill the silence: “Or if it’s okay with you two . . . why don’t we all go together? It would be nice to get to know my girlfriend’s mum.”

* * *

It was the worst lunch Cherry had ever had to endure.

Everything she’d carefully kept hidden came out: the flat in Croydon, the supermarket job, the “cute” reveals about Cherry’s childhood.

Cherry watched her mum blossom in a way she had never seen before.

She was flushed with enjoyment and pride in her daughter.

But Cherry couldn’t see past her own muted, seething resentment that her mother was having such a good time at her expense.

After the story of how she used to sit at the cash register at the end of her mum’s shift, delighting in playing “shops” and insisting she was going to work there when she was grown up, Cherry cut her such a furious look that Wendy faltered and changed the subject.

At that moment, Cherry hated her mother with a passion.

Her plate swam miserably before her and the food stuck in her throat.

Daniel remained polite, of course, and even laughed a couple of times, but Cherry sensed he was dumbfounded at some of what her mother was telling him and wanted to distance himself as soon as possible.

At the point where she was unable to stand it anymore, she escaped to the ladies’ room and stood with her hands deep in water in the sink, staring at herself in the mirror.

She wanted to cry bitter, angry tears of despair, but couldn’t as she had no choice but to go back and watch the human wrecking ball—that was her mother—reduce everything she’d built up to a pile of unrecognizable rubble.

This was her life, her life Wendy was gate-crashing.

She clenched her fists and let out a low moan of rage at her mother’s inability to see when she wasn’t wanted, her inability to see how she was single-handedly destroying the only thing Cherry had ever truly cared about.

For a brief moment, she allowed herself a dark thought.

Imagined her life as it would have been without her mother for the last sixteen years, if she’d been in the car when it had crashed, killing her father.

Maybe there would have been some inconvenience with foster parents for a while, but it would’ve been over soon enough and then she could have rebuilt her life without any of the baggage she currently had to tow around.

She wondered if her mother had any insurance or if the supermarket would’ve paid out any life premiums. Maybe she could’ve lived somewhere a bit nicer than Tooting.

The fantasy bubble faded away and Cherry slowly became aware that she’d been in the ladies’ room for quite some time, so she methodically dried her hands and went back into the restaurant.

Her mother looked up as she came back to the table, but Cherry didn’t meet her eye.

“Everything all right, love?”

“Fine.”

The plates had been cleared while she was in the bathroom and Daniel picked up the menu. “Dessert?”

Cherry sensed that Wendy was about to accept, so she shot in with: “I have to get back to work.”

Daniel paid, despite Wendy’s protestations, and then they left. Both walked her back through the rain to the office and Cherry stopped them a few doors down.

“You don’t have to see me in,” she said tersely, and her mother glanced at her in hurt.

Then she threw an arm around her neck in a tight hug, the other clutching her umbrella, which clashed with Cherry’s.

Cherry felt a lipstick mark land on her cheek and resisted the urge to wipe it away in disgust. She wanted no trace of her mother on her.

“It’s been lovely to see you,” said Wendy wistfully, and Cherry smiled tightly.

“You too. ”

Wendy then turned to Daniel and Cherry cringed as she gave him an affectionate hug too. In fact, she seemed more relaxed with him than she did with her own daughter, something Cherry instantly felt guilty about. She knew her behavior was abhorrent, but she couldn’t help it.

“Thanks for a great lunch,” said Wendy. “I can’t believe Cherry’s been keeping you to herself all this time.”

She pulled away and, looking one last time at her daughter, took her cue to leave.

Cherry watched her walk away to the tube, her sandals flicking more dirty rainwater up the back of her leg.

She didn’t want to look at Daniel, as she didn’t want to see the new distance in his eyes, the urge to escape now that her persona had been stripped away.

“We didn’t get to buy the bedding,” he said.

“No.”

“Doesn’t matter. We’ll get it some other time.”

It was the first brush-off—a vague reference to a future date that would never materialize. Cherry stood miserably on the pavement, immobilized and unwilling to play her part in this breakup.

“Shouldn’t you be getting back? It’s after two,” he prompted.

And now, he wanted to be rid of her. This was the last time she’d see him. She raised her eyes to his.

“Hey, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, you’re not upset about the sheets, are you? I mean, I know you wanted to get them, but I thought it was more important we spend time with your mum. Especially as she came all this way here to see you.”

Cherry stared at him, checking for signs of genuineness.

“I did the right thing, didn’t I? I got the feeling you weren’t so sure. Is everything okay between you two?”

“Fine,” she said slowly.

“Good. Because she seems really nice. Funny.” He smiled. “Only I’d have a word with her about all that childhood stuff, if I were you.”

Cherry wasn’t sure she’d describe her mother as funny.

“Cringe- worthy” was more like it. But more to the point, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

Daniel didn’t care. Her mother was a Croydonite who wore a fake tan and thought that a cruet was a sliced raw vegetable to eat dip with, and he didn’t seem to care one bit.

She’d gotten away with it and the immense flood of relief was intoxicating.

But Daniel and her mother wouldn’t meet again—not for ages, she quickly vowed.

It had been far too close for her liking.

Cherry had always known deep down that they would have to meet at some point if she was going to get engaged to Daniel, but she would have planned and prepped it to within an inch of its life.

Two or three hours max, somewhere public where they could easily escape, and she would have visited her mother beforehand, perhaps taken her something new to wear as a gift and warned her on what not to say.

At least now, it was out of the way. Cherry would never forgive her for turning up like that, but all in all, it had worked out quite well.

She thought back to his last question and gave him a celebratory kiss.

“Yes, you did the right thing.” Then she gazed up at him, happiness flooding through her.

This man was amazing. She had to have him.