September
Chapter One
Three weeks to go…
‘Well, I couldn’t decide between the tasselled harem pants and the kaftan so in the end I bought both.’ My mother gave a little sigh through the car speaker.
‘Okay, sounds good.’ I indicated left and pulled into the slip road. ‘And this is for the trip to Marbella?’
‘Marrakesh, darling. With Maurice.’
‘Maurice. Of course.’ I shot a sideways look at my daughter, Layla, who was sitting in the passenger seat, smiling to herself as she scrolled through the shopping list on her phone. ‘And he’s another one that you met online, is he?’
‘Well, don’t say it like that, Harriet.Another one. But yes, he was on Silver Soulmates. He’s the one who said he enjoyed fine wines and exotic travel.’
‘Don’t they all say that?’
There was a moment of static before her voice came through. ‘Many do, darling. And a similar number profess to having a good sense of humour although to be honest there should be some sort of trades description act of redress in many cases. Maurice had the good sense not to make erroneous claims about a GSOH. He stuck mainly to the affluent lifestyle angle.’
‘Hence Marrakesh.’
‘Hence Marrakesh. Indeed. He also described himself asyoung at heart.’
‘Despite being eighty-five,’ I said, thankful she couldn’t see my face.
‘Well, that’s the situation, Harriet.’ My mother’s tone was briefly admonishing. ‘The chaps on Silver Soulmates are almostalways looking for someone at least a decade younger, in fact, most of them quite fancy the idea of stepping out with a forty-something like yourself.’
‘Thanks.’ I threw another look at Layla, who was stifling a laugh. ‘I’ll bear that in mind if Joe ever leaves me.’
‘Anyway, he makes me feel far younger than seventy-two,’ my mother carried on, oblivious. ‘He refers to me as hispetite ingénue. And he can still just about manage some, shall we say,intimate relations. Although it requires a little pharmaceutical assistance.’
I was a little bit sick into my mouth. ‘Mother,’ I said. ‘Layla’s in the car with me. You’re on speaker.’
‘Oh, hello darling girl!’ My mother sounded not in the least bit perturbed by the fact that she may have mentally scarred her granddaughter for life with tales of geriatric bedroom action. ‘Are you off somewhere nice?’
‘Just IKEA and then Poundland, Granmerry.’ Layla leaned in towards my phone and raised her voice, knowing that Mum struggles a little with her hearing, not that she’d admit it of course. Layla’s always used this name for her grandmother, ever since she was a toddler, Granny Meredith being too difficult to say when distinguishing her from her other grandmother (Granny Susan) and Mum being absolutely horrified at being called Granny anything. Mum eventually agreed to Granmerry when she realised she could say it with a slight French accent to ‘make it sound a little less frumpy and ancient’.
‘IKEA?Poundland?’ My mother was predictably appalled. ‘Whatever for?’
‘We’re buying things for university. For my room.’
‘Oh, how exciting! Although surely you’d be better going to a nice department store like John Lewis. And will you be buying clothes? You’ll need a new wardrobe, Layla darling. Some nice outfits for wine bars and clubbing and whatnot.’
‘I think jeans are fine, Granmerry. I’m probably not going to go to that many wine bars.’
‘Of course, you teenagers don’t drink that much do you nowadays? It’s all vaping and TikTok isn’t it.’ My mother speaks with a natural authority that’s hard to push back against, even when she’s talking absolute bollocks, which is fairly often.
‘I don’t vape, Granmerry. It triggers my asthma. And I’m not on Tik…’
It didn’t matter what Layla said, Mum was on a roll.
‘Nothing like your mother’s generation,’ she said. ‘Do you remember, Harriet, how shocked Daddy was when you came back after that first term and asked for a pint of lager from the cricket club bar?’
‘I do,’ I said fondly. It had been quite the moment. Although Dad had masked his surprise better than anticipated. Better than my mother had masked her horror about the nose stud anyway.
‘Anyway, Layla sweetheart. Any questions about decorating your digs, soft furnishings, etcetera, just give me a call. Or send me a photo. Don’t rely on your mother’s sense of interior design. She doesn’t have the eye that I do.’
‘Hey!’ I pulled up at the traffic lights beside a hulking blue-and-yellow building, ‘I am still here you know! I don’t have a terrible eye for interiors, do I?’
