Page 64 of The Golden Girls’ Road Trip

‘I was both of those things, but I also desperately wanted to get back to Alex. I wanted to get back to our plan. I did think I could “sort it out” and be back in the Highlands as if I’d never been gone. Just home to grab some things, then off on our adventure. She’d never know.’

‘But, you didn’t because Simon is very much here. So, what? You changed your mind? Let me guess, you felt the baby move and you couldn’t go through with it.’

Diana’s face has softened again. She’s thinking about her own pregnancy.

‘Something like that I suppose. I honestly looked at all the options, including adoption. I went to Bournemouth to get away and with the help of a lovely woman, I had Simon.’

‘What about Alex? What happened with her?’

‘I wrote her a letter and said that family business had called me home, that I was sorry for running off, and if she’d be prepared to wait for me, I would come back to her.’

‘That sounds romantic.’

‘Oh, it wasn’t, it was desperate and pathetic. “Wait for me.” She never wrote back.’

‘But, you didn’t have Simon adopted so, you did change your mind.’

‘Well, Diana, that was the part where I felt my baby moving, and oddly for the first time in my life, I felt completely in control. It felt right that I was going to be a mother. It had been chosen for me and I was going to make a bloody good job of it.’

‘But, you did go back for her, didn’t you. A long time later, but you did. Where is she now?’

‘I don’t know. She has a complicated financial situation and has to move out of where she has been living,’ I say. ‘But she’ll be fine; she’s strong.’

‘And how have you left it? Does she still love you? Do you still love her?’

‘I do love her, yes. But how she feels about me is anyone’s guess.’

Diana shifts herself around on the sofa to get up, but she pauses on the edge for a moment.

‘Connie, where’s your painting of that lake?’

‘Alex took it with her, so maybe how she feels about me is obvious. I have nothing of her now.’

I glance up at the wall and to the empty space. Sunrise and Sunset over Loch Ness together again and worth a pretty penny, I guess.

33

The day of my mother’s funeral it rains so hard that the parched ground cannot cope and pools of water appear on grass verges and in fields. Puddles pepper the pavements and the motorway journey is terrifying from the passenger seat of Simon’s car. After weeks of flip-flops and sandals, I’ve crammed my toes into sturdy shoes, but had contemplated wellies for just a moment.

It’s been a fortnight since she died, a strange time of coming to terms with her new absence that seems weightier than the one that’s lasted for so many years. I’m glad Alex talked me into seeing her and I’m happy that she had time with Simon too. I decide to take only happier memories of her with me. Those ones from my early childhood where I loved her in the easy way children love their parents. I thought she was beautiful and willed myself to be older, to be exactly like her. That’s where I decide to close that book of memories.

The church isn’t packed – most of my mother’s friends have either passed away themselves or lost contact. I have since learned that she was pretty reclusive in the last few years of her life. She was very lucky to have been able to see Simon during that time. He was one of her only visitors. I haven’t told my friends as I couldn’t bring myself to offer up an explanation. I feel as estranged from my mother in her death as I did in her life.

Simon and I planned my mother’s funeral together. It gave us a chance to talk about her. I shared some of the more pleasant stories from my earlier childhood and he filled me in on the last ten years. He used to visit her a couple of times a month, drive up from Lewes to her nursing home and spend a few hours with her. I had always told Simon that I had run away from home when I became pregnant, that I didn’t get on well with my parents and wanted to do things on my own. My mother, it seemed, had been more honest than me. I learned that she always hoped we could reconnect, which brought me a mixture of happiness, guilt and intense grief. She wished she had invited me home that day. She never forgave herself for turning me away, believed that she should have been stronger against my father and his draconian rules. I’m glad I got the opportunity to say I was sorry for those missing years, but really I can’t ever forget her neglect, however regretful she was. Nothing was ever mentioned about Simon’s father, so at least that can stay buried.

I get the occasional look from Diana, and the odd light touch of my arm when she’s passing me. She is an intuitive person and if I thought I’d fooled her with talk of a fling then I was wrong. She doesn’t talk about it though and I’m grateful for that. If Simon ever noticed the tense relationship that Diana and I had before, he never really mentioned it, but he seems to notice the truce we have made. He seems more content generally. Things are so much easier now.

My mother’s will is unexpected. Simon and I have her Kensington house to sell and investments and savings to deal with. It will be the first time in my life that I won’t have to think about money, but I doubt I could really change my habits from a lifetime of frugality. I said that Simon should have it all, but he dismissed the idea immediately.

‘It’s what parents do,’ he said. ‘Let her do that at least. And, anyway, you’ll be passing it on to me at some point,’ he added with a grin.

Alex has not been in contact in the last two weeks and her absence is like a punch in my chest.

*

We make our way down to the front of the church behind the coffin. Simon and Diana are either side of me. I feel like a fraud as the few who have come offer me sympathetic looks. Leo, I’m surprised to see, is sitting in the pew waiting for us.

‘Connie,’ he says, standing up to greet me and I hug him.