He laughed. ‘It might not be that bad. Who knows? Dad might actually have got it right and found you the perfect man.’
‘We can always hope. Good luck this afternoon. Hope everything goes well.’
‘Thanks, Libs. And well done today. I’ll get some champagne in for Sunday so we can celebrate!’
‘Oh, if you insist.’
We hung up and I wandered over to a nearby bench, shaded by a large plane tree. My enthusiasm and excitement at the successful meeting, and what that might mean for my business, had been punctured. I tried to regain it, pushing my father’s continual determination to marry me off and make me The Perfect Doctor’s Wife to the back of my mind, but it barrelled its way back to the fore again. It didn’t matter how many times I told him, the surprise dates still kept showing up. Mum would have understood. I opened the email on my phone and entered the familiar address into a new email.
Miss you.
I pressed send and returned the phone to my bag. Mum would have been so excited about what I was doing now, with the blog, with my life. She would have wanted to know all about it, how it worked, what my plans were, and she would have adored all the goodies I got to see and try.
She’d actually been the inspiration for my blog. It was from her that I’d got my love of make-up and style. There was a picture of her on my ‘About’ page, looking as glamorous as ever. With or without make-up, she looked amazing, a beautiful smile on her face, always ready to laugh. As a child I’d spent hours playing with her cosmetics bag, taking the shiny, mother-of-pearl compact she kept her pressed powder in, tipping it this way and that, fascinated by the way the colours changed as it caught the light. I’d line up all the items and she’d go through each one telling me what it was for. Occasionally she’d pop the tiniest bit of lipstick on my lips from her finger, barely a hint but it felt like the best thing in the world. I was her little girl and, as much as she loved sharing these things, these moments with me, she didn’t want me growing up too fast.
When I was twelve, Mum started showing me a couple of techniques, on the proviso that it was kept for special occasions only. For my thirteenth birthday, she took me up to London shopping and we spent hours at the make-up counters in Selfridges, eventually walking away with a Chanel lipstick and eyeshadow compact wrapped carefully and handed to me in a swishy little bag. Mum promised me that the following year, we would go again. It was the first promise to me that she ever broke.
Two days after my birthday, a Saturday, we went to the beach for the day, jumping waves, shivering in the sea whilst pretending that it was all right once you were in. Having dried off, we met up with Matt, who’d been elsewhere on the beach with his mates, for fish and chips in the restaurant on the pier. Once home, Mum mentioned that she had a bit of a headache from all the sun and excitement and was going to lie down for half an hour. Dad handed her a cup of tea. She smiled at him as she took it, resting her hand momentarily on his cheek. And then she closed her eyes.
Dad caught her before she hit the floor, the delicate china of the teacup smashing into a thousand pieces beside her as it hit the limestone tiles. Matt and I just watched, our bodies rigid, my hand gripping his until they were both a bloodless white. We didn’t understand what was happening. We were sure of only one thing. Dad’s distraught expression and desperate actions told us that something was very, very wrong.
Dad was a cardiac surgeon. There were bad days when he’d battled to save someone and lost the fight. On those days he looked tired and sad, almost defeated. He cared about every one of his patients. He never once forgot that they were individuals – brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, sons, daughters. That they were someone’s world. But the look on his face that day was one neither of us had ever seen. He looked lost. Small. Shocked. Mum was his world and he couldn’t save her.
The coroner concluded that Mum had suffered a brain aneurysm. There was no history of it in the family. It was just one of those horrible, unlucky, utterly devastating things. Dad hadn’t married again. There could never be another woman for him like Mum. She’d captured his heart with her love and kindness, her beauty and laughter, and even in death it would still always be hers.
That wasn’t to say he hadn’t found company, although it had taken him many years. Initially he’d turned all of his focus on Matt and me. It had been easier with Matt, who’d already decided he wanted to go into medicine. Dad knew where he was with him. I was more of a challenge. He didn’t really know what to do with a teenage girl who went decidedly woozy at the sight of blood and spent all her time reading about fashion and beauty. There hadn’t been, and still wasn’t, a day I didn’t miss Mum horribly. God, what I wouldn’t give to be able to talk to her right now. Even just for a minute.
My phone rang, jolting me back to the present. My eyes had filled with tears as my mind had filled with memories. I rummaged about inside the bag for a tissue as I answered the call distractedly.
‘Hello.’
‘Libby?’
I hadn’t checked the screen but I recognised the deep voice. ‘Hi, Charlie.’
‘Are you OK? You sound… different.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Right.’ His tone told me he was unconvinced.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘I was just calling to see how the meeting went.’
‘Oh, right! Thanks, yes, it went really well, I think.’
‘You think?’ I could hear a smile in his voice.
‘No, it did. I’m happy with what they want from me. They’re happy with what I want from them. Everybody’s happy.’
There was a pause on the line, and I pulled the phone back briefly to see if the call had dropped. Still connected.
‘So why don’t you sound happy?’
‘No, I am. Honestly.’
‘OK,’ he said slowly, disbelief still clear in his voice.
