Page 8 of The Girlfriend

“But that’s a classic,” Wendy had said at the new addition of The King’s Speech.

“It’s a piece of plastic in your living room. How often do you even watch it?”

Owning a classic didn’t make you more of a film buff, didn’t mean that you were erudite or give you an eye for quality.

It made you a mug, especially when you could watch the same movie on TV or borrow it from the library.

It didn’t ever occur to Cherry that her mum might actually enjoy watching the DVDs, might even be grateful for them as she spent most evenings when she wasn’t working alone.

She’d never found someone that lasted after Cherry’s father had died.

She kissed her mum chastely, trying to avoid the usual bear hug and lipstick brand on her cheek.

“Mum!”

“Sorry, it’s just that I hardly ever see you these days.”

It was true and Cherry, awkward, evaded answering. “How are you?”

“Fine. Can I get you a drink? Glass of wine, seeing as we’re celebrating?”

Cherry knew that her mum would only have white, and that it would be sweet, something she detested, but she didn’t want to upset her.

So Cherry made some excuse about not starting too early, saying she’d have tea instead.

She followed Wendy into the kitchen, where her mum made a cup of tea in a mug with Daniel Craig’s face on it.

No neck, just his disembodied, handsome face with its craggy smile staring out, floating on a background of white china.

It looked surreal. As her mother filled the kettle, Cherry took a moment to appraise her.

She’d dyed her hair again—it was a different color every time Cherry saw her, as if she was working her way through the L’Oreal brunette spectrum.

(Eighty-three there were in total, her mum had said once, finding out this nugget of information from the supplier’s catalogue.) Underneath that, it was gray, but the color had once been the same lustrous brown-black as Cherry’s.

She’d inherited the best of both of her parents’ looks, with the odd gene thrown in from a grandparent in a collection of random good luck that could never have been predicted.

Wendy led her into the living room. “You can have the tilter if you want.”

“No, it’s fine, you have it.” Cherry quickly sat down at the opposite side of the sofa, remembering the time she’d been made to sit in the tilting seat to satisfy her mother’s excitement and had been thrust back like she was at the dentist’s, and had felt every bit as helpless.

“I’m thinking of painting that wall red.” Wendy pointed her mug at the wall that was the backdrop to the massive TV. “Like a statement.”

“A statement of what?” Cherry hadn’t meant to let the irritation creep in, but here it was already.

“I don’t know. Why do you always have to be so . . .” She was going to say “critical,” but bit her tongue. Not today. They both looked into their mugs of tea, vowing to do better.

The TV was on mute, a game show. Cherry hated all game shows for the single reason that the members of the public always ended up unwittingly humiliating themselves by looking cheap or ridiculous in their carefully chosen TV outfits.

She also couldn’t stand how thick everyone was.

Teachers not knowing the capital of Canada. It was pathetic.

“How’s work?” said Cherry.

“Oh, you should have seen the queues on Saturday. We sold out of every one of the disposable BBQs and I told them we’d need more.”

“They should listen to you.”

“Yes, they should,” said Wendy, pleased.

“How long have you been there now?”

“Well, I started when you was just two, as we needed the money,” Wendy began, and Cherry, who’d heard this story before, found herself just waiting for the punch line.

“It was only meant to be part-time and I started at checkout, worked my way up. Took on more days when your dad passed. I was reliable, you see, and a hard worker. None of this needing to disappear to take the dog to the vet or what-have-you. Anyway, it’ll be twenty-three years this September.

” Wendy smiled proudly, lost for a minute in her own achievement.

Cherry could think of nothing worse than being stuck in a mammoth warehouse full of people pushing around huge wire baskets on wheels; she secretly thought that becoming a section manager after twenty-three years didn’t sound like that much of a promotion.

Surely, you’d be heading up the entire region or something by then; but thinking about it all depressed her, so she stopped.

“The good things come to those who work hard, see. That’s when you get the promotions and stuff.”

“How’s Holly?”

“Not happy. Her daughter went to an X Factor audition, but had a really hard time. They slated her apparently. Holly got really upset about it.” Wendy leaned forward and patted her knee.

“Never mind about all that. What about you? I still can’t believe my daughter’s gotten herself a proper job now!

There’s always money in property,” she said sagely, although this was a general perception that Wendy had latched onto rather than personal knowledge.

At last, Cherry could smile, although she wouldn’t be going into any detail. “Good, really good, in fact. I’m enjoying it a lot at the moment.”

“Well, that’s great. I always knew you’d do all right. You was the smart one of the family. So, what do you do then? Sell posh houses?”

“Yes, mostly. A few rentals.”

“Bet they go for a bit up there, don’t they? How much would it cost me to rent my flat up in la-la land?”

“Well, it wouldn’t look like this exactly, but for the floor space, about three grand.”

“Three grand a month!”

“A week.”

Wendy’s face was so gobsmacked, so dumbfounded, that Cherry started to giggle. She couldn’t help it. She wasn’t being malicious or making fun of her, but with her mum’s jaw dropped and held in some sort of freeze frame, it just looked funny.

Wendy slowly closed her mouth. “Jeez, Louise!” And then, aware of how she must have looked, she started to laugh too.

For a short while, when each looked at the other, it just made them laugh more.

It was a rare moment, the two of them getting on, sharing a joke.

Pleased with the way they seemed to have hit on a safe topic, Wendy suddenly got an idea.

“Hey, me shifts change next week. I get Tuesdays off. Maybe I could come and see you, take you for lunch?”

Cherry thought quickly and pulled a face. “I only get half an hour.”

“That’s illegal!”

“It’s fine—”

“No, you’re entitled to an hour. It’s the law. You should speak to your boss about that.”

“Leave it, Mum.”

“No—”

“Mum please!”

Wendy was silenced. For a moment. “Are they paying you properly?”

“Mum!”

“You was never that good with money, always frittering it away.”

Cherry choked on her tea, actually splattering some on the cream leather sofa.

“Don’t look at me like that. You blew your savings on a trip to Australia.”

“A working vacation. A cultural experience.” She looked around for something to wipe off the tea and found a box of tissues, Kleenex Collection, with a photograph of water lilies on the front.

It was designed to appeal to homemakers who thought it important to make tissues part of their decor.

For a moment, she hesitated, not wanting to take one, as if it was a sweet offered by a witch who’d trap you in her lair once you’d tasted it.

She was reminded that if she ever lost her job, this flat was where she’d have to return. The bleakness of it all frightened her.

“You could have invested it,” continued Wendy. “Premium bonds or something.”

“Mum, premium bonds pay you no interest.”

“No, but they’re better odds than the lottery.”

Cherry gritted her teeth and decided not to point out the obvious. Instead she said: “What would you do? If you won?”

“Go on a big trip. I’d take Holly. She could do with a bit of cheering up.”

“Would you move?”

“There’s them nice new houses that they’ve built next to the River Wandle.”

Cherry made a sound of exasperation. “Mum, you could leave Croydon, you know.”

“Never. Born here. It’s in me blood. No better place as far as I’m concerned.”

This declaration made Cherry fidgety again and anxious to speed the evening along.

To think she could’ve been at the Cavendishes’ beautiful house tonight.

She had desperately wanted to accept Laura’s dinner invitation, but she knew that canceling the visit to her mother was just too complicated.

It would only have prolonged the agony, anyway, as she would’ve had to have found another date.

Cherry had already invented something she had to get away for—meeting a couple of friends for drinks—and had told her mum on the phone before she’d even arrived.

She surreptitiously checked her watch. She could start making sounds in about ten minutes.

Croydon was so far out, it could legitimately take ages to get anywhere else in London.

In actual fact, she was going home to figure out what to wear the next day—an outfit that had to cover the evening too.

Something that would be suitable for “supper” with Mr. and Mrs. Cavendish.

(“Supper” didn’t sound so bad now.) Daniel had said not to worry about what she wore, but, of course, that was ridiculous .

“Anyway, maybe I’d win enough to buy one of them big mansions on that Webb Estate.”

Cherry stiffened.

“You ever hear from Nicolas?” Wendy said, feigning nonchalance.

“No.”

“I suppose it’s to be expected.” She sounded reassured, as if her suspicions had been proven right, and it made Cherry bridle.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, he was a bit different, wasn’t he?”

“Different how?” she said dangerously.