Chapter Nine
Tuesday 3rd December
Ashleigh – 34 Tilgate Road
Ashleigh moved over on the sofa, making room for Simon to jump up beside her and stretch out the way she was doing. She scratched behind his ear as she flicked back through the TV menu, trying to find the last episode of her mum’s soap opera.
‘Oops,’ she muttered when she realised she had nearly twelve to catch up on. Damn. That was an awful lot of amnesia, back-stabbing and adultery to get through on a Tuesday morning. She could always fast-forward all the scenes her mum wasn’t in. The storylines wouldn’t make much sense but then they were hardly subtly plotted – she was sure she could fill in the blanks.
She pressed play and the cheesy, orchestra music began, with the fade in and out of each of the main characters. There was her mum, about halfway through, hair blowing in the breeze from the sea, looking seductive and cunning, with an eyebrow arched as she sipped a huge glass of wine.
Ashleigh blinked hard. She was already feeling sleepy from drinking too much wine herself last night, and with Simon’s warm body pressed against her, her eyelids were drooping.
Only the wine could have explained why she would have brazenly told Olivier to take his shirt off so she could fix such a tiny tear in it. Ro was going to think it was hilarious when she told him…and want all the details. What would she say? The only thing better than Olivier with his shirt off, was probably Olivier with his trousers off.
Although when his eyes had met hers and just…held…that had been pretty bone-melting too.
No. She was being daft. They’d probably only been staring at each other like that because they were struggling not to go cross-eyed after drinking all evening.
She fast-forwarded through a bunch of scenes at the restaurant the twins ran, and through something strange, that looked like a re-enactment of Watergate but taking place in a condo.
There. Her mum literally banged a door open, making an entrance into a party, dressed in a glittery black dress her breasts barely fit into and strode down the stairs onto the beach, despite wearing heels. Her fake eyelashes were long enough that one sweep looked like it could send a gust of wind large enough to capsize the sailing boat bobbing out on the blue sparkling water in the background.
Ash wished the sea here looked as warm and enticing as that. Could hardly blame her mum for preferring the glamour and gorgeous weather out there. The sand was so soft out there. She could remember sinking her toes into it as the water lapped up to her ankles…
‘Are you watching this, Ashleigh? Or are you sleeping?’
Her eyes snapped open at the sound of her nan’s voice. ‘Oh God. I’m supposed to be watching it.’ She rubbed a hand down her face and pulled herself up into a semi-sitting position. Simon let out a sleepy huff, then settled back down.
‘Why? It obviously bores you?’ Nan plucked the remote off Ash’s stomach and sat down in her armchair.
‘Could you tell me what happened?’
‘No.’ Nan laughed, like she was crazy. ‘It’s not homework, child. There’s no point copying your answers. Just tell her it doesn’t hold your interest anymore.’
‘I did. Sort of. Last time we spoke. I think it upset her.’
‘Hmm.’ Nan turned off the soap opera and flicked over to the crime channel. Miss Marple was on, twitching the curtains in a way Ashleigh was familiar with. ‘And when was that?’
‘What? That I spoke to her?’
‘Yes. I haven’t heard from her for a while. When was shesupposedto be coming over to stay for Christmas?’ Scepticism dripped from every word. It didn’t matter that Ash knew the scepticism was well warranted, it still settled heavily on her shoulders. Suddenly, she was in dire need of a massive cup of tea and a couple of hundred chocolate biscuits.
‘In about a week I think.’ She tried to sound breezy as she swung her legs off the sofa and pushed Simon gently back from the edge. ‘Just in time for the lights going on down the road.’
‘Well, there’s something else to look forward to,’ Nan grumbled, and Ashleigh let out an irritated tut.
‘Christ, Nan, maybe if you were a bit more excited at the prospect of seeing your daughter, she might actually come.’
Nan pursed her lips and folded her arms over the black and red flowered jumper she was wearing. ‘Ashleigh, if you think for one minute that your mother is bothered by what I feel about her swanning off to LA and thinking she’s too good for everyone and everything she left behind her, you’re not the smart girl I took you for.’
The little snipe made Ash’s chest feel sore. She grabbed her phone off the coffee table and went into the kitchen to make that cup of tea. She made her nan one too because she wasn’t petty, even if the atmosphere between them had turned frostier than when the blizzard had hit last year.
Ash also snuck two chocolate biscuits from the fancy biscuit tin at the top of the cupboard and palmed them, as she walked through the living room and up the stairs. They were partially melted by the time she got to her room and shut the door. She licked the chocolate from her palm, as she dodged the enormous tree and ate the biscuits before she could make any more mess. They weren’t very satisfying. She sunk onto her bed heavily.
And then she heard it.
Muted music coming through the wall. Olivier was in his room too. The bittersweet guitar riffs drifted into her, so low she felt them more than she could hear them. He was playing George Harrison. She’d thought it so odd when they were teenagers that he listened to such old music, but then he’d loaned her some of his CDs and explained what he loved about them and she had to admit they were good. He loved old films too. The sentimentality of them was so Olivier. He had such a rose-tinted, filtered way of looking at the world.
