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Sylvie wasn’t even going to bother putting on the kettle. The Mad Cows were going to need something a bit stronger to wash that down with.
Sylvie didn’t do baking, she never had, so when it was her turn to host, she bought cake from the posh deli in Slattercove but it was never as moreish as Jackie’s filo tarts, Bev’s French fancies, Diana’s scones or Marielle’s simple, moist homemade custard creams. But the food always played second fiddle to the camaraderie. They were a vacuum-safe space, nothing was out of bounds to talk about and no one ever felt judged and that’s why Marielle’s cousin Cilla Charlesworth would never be a Mad Cow, even though she’d done her best to elbow her way in.
‘I saw Cilla in Waitrose,’ said Diana, daintily lifting up a forkful of cake to her lips. ‘She couldn’t wait to show me her tan, which was, I have to say, very impressive.’
They all knew Cilla from old. Bev had known her since school, Jackie lived a few doors down from her, she frequented Sylvie’s beauty salon, although there was always something she found to complain about and press for a discount, and she used to go to the same book club as Diana before Cilla drove out most of the people with her outspoken ways and it closed down.
Marielle had been eleven when her mum’s feckless sister died, leaving behind four-year-old Cilla, so her parents had adopted their niece. They’d spoilt her, ruined her, overcompensating for her less than ideal start in life and in the process made their daughter feel second-best. It was, all the Mad Cows agreed, no wonder that Marielle had buggered off to Italy aged seventeen and married the first man to give her some love and attention. Cilla had been a thorn in her cousin’s side when they were kids and she still was, even though Marielle was too kind to admit the full extent, even to her besties. She’d recently come back from a cruise in the Bahamas with Hugo, a new man on the scene whom she’d found on the internet, and Marielle didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. Any attempt to warn Cilla to be careful had been rebuffed with an accusation of pique, and so Marielle had decided to back right off.
‘She said the sun shone every day, Hugo was the perfect gent, and the caviar and champagne flowed,’ added Diana.
‘Wonder who paid for all that then?’ asked Jackie, but it was a question they all knew the answer to. Hugo’s money was all tied up in long-term investments, Cilla had told Marielle and Marielle had told her friends. He had to give a stupid amount of notice to access his funds, so while they were waiting for clearance, so he didn’t lose any interest, Cilla stumped up for everything.
‘She’s a grown woman. Let her get on with it,’ said Bev. ‘Even at school she always knew best.’
Marielle blamed her parents for that, giving her a false sense of her own importance. Cilla could do no wrong growing up. The result was that the spoilt, entitled child grew up into a spoilt, entitled woman.
‘I don’t want to talk about Cilla any more. How are Doug’s bowels?’ said Marielle.
Diana smiled. ‘He got his results back this morning: no action. And it might help if he stopped eating beetroot and scaring himself stupid.’
Bev raised her glass. ‘A toast to Doug’s colon.’ And everyone else followed suit.
‘Any other business?’ asked Jackie.
Sylvie, who by now was on her second glass of malbec, reneged on her promise and dropped Marielle right in it.
‘Marielle’s taking in another woman of no fixed abode,’ she said, and then clamped her hand over her mouth. ‘Whoops.’
There followed a stunned silence.
‘You’re fecking joking,’ said Bev, breaking it.
‘What’s Teddy said?’ asked Diana.
‘Oh, bugger Teddy,’ replied Marielle in a hard voice she seldom used. ‘Why does everyone think I haven’t got a brain but my son has?’
‘I’m sorry, Marielle,’ said Sylvie, wishing she’d never opened her mouth. ‘Just tell them what you told me.’
So Marielle told them all the story of the Lost Lady and they listened without smart comments or interruptions until she’d finished.
‘How come she’s not forgotten how to eat or walk or sleep?’ asked Diana.
‘Can you forget how to sleep?’ questioned Bev.
‘Because it’s psychological not physical,’ Marielle explained. ‘There’s no brain damage but something is keeping her from remembering things, probably some trauma. The brain works in odd ways, and hers is obviously trying to protect her from recalling something probably very unpleasant until it thinks she can cope with it, so it’s set up its own internal blocking system.’
No one said it but they all thought that Marielle might be as capable of fooling herself with the ‘Lost Lady’ as Cilla was with ‘Internet Hugo’. They also all thought that they’d be watching this Sabrina character like a hawk and woe betide her if she was as rotten as some of the others Marielle had tried to help.
‘How long are you going to look after her for then?’
‘What if she never gets her memory back?’
‘Will the hospital just let you take her out like that?’
‘Surely social services should be looking after her, not you?’
‘How are you going to explain her to Teddy?’
