Page 63 of The Girlfriend
C HERRY LET HERSELF INTO HER MOTHER’S FLAT AND DIRECTED THE moving man she’d hired down the hallway to her bedroom, where the boxes were neatly stacked.
It had been the right thing to do, move the last of her things when her mum was at work, as it made it a lot easier not having to dodge questions about when Wendy could come and see her new home.
She didn’t want her mother coming over and “oohing and aahing” about everything, making embarrassing comments about how expensive or fancy everything was or, worse still, bringing a housewarming gift from the supermarket.
As usual, Cherry felt guilty about these thoughts and decided she’d take her mum out to dinner somewhere nice, maybe in a few weeks, once she was properly settled in.
In fact, she’d leave her a note promising this.
Yes, that’s the thing to do, she thought, pleased, and she went into the living room to find a piece of paper.
“Mum!”
Wendy was sitting on the sofa. “Have you come to say good-bye?”
“I—I didn’t know you were here.” She frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“I swapped my shifts. ”
“Oh, right.”
“You don’t sound too pleased.”
“Oh no—doesn’t bother me. Why would it?”
Wendy stood. “You didn’t seem too keen on the idea when I originally offered. I thought it would be nice. You know, to see each other.”
“Of course, it’s nice. It’s just I didn’t want to put you out.”
Cherry was uncomfortable under her mother’s gaze. What was all this about? She wanted to get her stuff and go, and certainly didn’t plan on hanging around for an impromptu bonding session.
“I don’t think that’s true, Cherry. I think the truth is, you don’t like spending time with me.”
Cherry’s stomach twisted, but she laughed. “What?”
“I’m not rich. Comfortable, I like to think, and I work hard.”
“Of course, you do,” Cherry said quickly, reassuringly.
“Don’t patronize me!” snapped Wendy, and Cherry flinched. “I think, Cherry, that I am an embarrassment to you. Unworthy of you.”
Cherry’s heart was hammering in her chest. “What are you going on about?”
“I work in a supermarket, I don’t wear fancy clothes, I don’t speak as well as some people.
You always wanted to better yourself, had high expectations, expensive taste.
That’s why you was so upset about that Nicolas.
I knew you was too good for round here, never thought you was too good for me.
” Wendy’s voice cracked, but she pulled herself up.
“A woman came to see me in the shop yesterday.”
“Who?” Cherry asked anxiously, but deep down, she knew.
“Laura Cavendish. I wasn’t going to say anything, but what she told me . . . It was keeping me awake all night. She was begging me to help her. To stop you.” She paused. “Is it all true?”
“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic.”
Wendy stopped still. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.
“Did she tell you what she did? She lied to me! Told me her own son was dead so I wouldn’t be able to see him anymore. ”
Cherry waited for her words to have the right impact, for her mum to back down, like she always did.
For her to be afraid of upsetting her daughter, for her to say what Cherry wanted to hear, so as not to estrange her even more.
But Wendy was looking at her differently—in a way that Cherry had never seen before and it scared her.
“I can’t believe you did that,” said Wendy. “All that stuff. You killed a puppy . . . ? What’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, Christ, will you stop going on about it. I saved it from a miserable existence. You should have seen it, poor thing, all cooped up with nowhere to run, no light, no air. It had a shit life. It had no future because of where it was born, ” she spat.
Wendy’s voice caught in her throat: “You mean you, don’t you?
” She took a step toward her. “After your dad died, I worked hard all those years. Nearly killed me sometimes, but you never went without. I didn’t see you as much as I wanted to, but I hoped you’d see something good in what I was doing, look up to me.
I may not have had much. But I worked for everything I ever got.
Never sucked it out of someone else like a leech! ”
Shaking, Cherry slapped her across the face. Wendy gasped and put her hand to her cheek.
“Excuse me?” The man with a van was hovering awkwardly in the doorway.
Cherry reeled around. “What?”
He held up his hands. “It’s all in. I’ll be off.” He couldn’t leave quick enough.
Cherry apprehensively turned back to her mum.
“I know you’re ashamed of me,” said Wendy quietly, “but I’m also ashamed of you.” And she turned away.
Cherry’s eyes blazed. Suddenly she felt like the nobody Croydon girl again—the one whose future was limited, who couldn’t keep a boyfriend who came from a better background.
She was overwhelmed with emotion and needed to get out.
She rushed out of the flat and clattered down the stone steps and into the air.
The man with the van had gone and was now making his way to Kensington.
Cherry marched, trembling, down the street to Daniel’s Mercedes, arms folded, eyes stinging.
How dare she! How dare that fucking woman stick her nose in .
. . Hate poured from her, contaminating the very air she breathed.
What the fuck was Laura doing, coming to see my mother.
As if I was a child! She is stifling, suffocating—the way she behaves about Daniel.
So fucking possessive! It isn’t fair to control other people’s lives like that, smother other people’s dreams.. ..
Cherry fiercely wiped away her tears with the heel of her hand and clamped her throat shut so no more would come.
As she got in the car, her anger settled like a hard stone in her chest. So Laura was intent on breaking her up with Daniel, she hadn’t listened.
The more she tried, the more Cherry raged.
Why couldn’t Laura just fuck off? Disappear?
If only some bus would come and knock her over.
Some accident or something. That was the thing about accidents, you never saw them coming, but one little slip, one badly timed moment, and you were history.
Wiped out. The problem no longer existed and no one was to blame.
That would be fantastic. Cherry wallowed in the idea for a moment, steeped in resentment and self-pity.
But then reality hit. Accidents didn’t just happen when you wanted them to.
Still angry, she drove away sharply, slamming the car into gear.
Hands tight on the wheel, she stared hard ahead, cursing at anyone who didn’t move fast enough off a green light, anyone who hesitated at a roundabout.
She drove toward the Webb Estate, not quite aware of doing so, then stopped the car and looked through the mechanical gates, shut fast. Blinding lights came up close behind her and she watched as another car went past, the gates gliding open for it.
Without thinking, she put the car into gear and followed in its slipstream.
The other vehicle turned off down one of the residential streets and Cherry took the route she remembered, to Nicolas’s.
She arrived in Silver Lane, flanked on either side by four rows of silver birch trees, and stopped halfway along.
There it was, the large, detached, eight-bedroom mansion.
She moved the car another few feet, so she could peer through the trees up to Nicolas’s bedroom.
She wondered anxiously, hopefully, if she would see him.
His arms around his wife, silhouetted in the window.
Maybe he’d spot her. Come down. She’d make sure he saw her ring, then casually drop Daniel into the conversation.
Suddenly she felt like a complete fool. He’d gone. He and his wife. They’d have their own place now; they were living their own lives. They’d moved on. With a crushing sense of humiliation, Cherry drove out as quickly as she could.