Page 35 of The Spark

‘Sounds like you socialised enough for us both last night.’

‘Well, you know. My vice always has been an open bar.’

‘The bar isn’t the vice, Mum.’

At this, she winces like I’ve turned on the radio and cranked it up to top volume. ‘I really don’t have the brainpower to argue semantics with you today, Neve.’

‘Have you thought any more about... doing this place up?’ I ask her, tentatively, surveying the neglected kitchen again. I’ve long dreamed of the day when she’ll say, Yes, come on, what are your ideas? Let’s work on it together. It’ll be our project. You and me.

Before her rebellious phase, Lara and her mum used to decorate their family home together. They’d pore over colours and wallpaper patterns, scour shops for discounts on light fittings and curtains, rearrange furniture and teach themselves how to fit laminate flooring, tile walls, re-grout the bathroom. Corinne rarely had the money for holidays, and I sometimes thought that decorating was their substitute: time spent together as they created something beautiful, made memories. I always secretly envied them for it.

‘I’ve still got those paint samples we could try if you like,’ I say. ‘And... I can call a handyman. Get someone to sort the washing machine and fix the floor tiles and the tap and—’

She cuts me off with a raised palm. ‘Oof. Some other time, yes? Think I’m going to pop off back to bed.’

‘How’s it going with Duke?’ I ask, as she’s turning to head back upstairs.

She smiles, gives a coquettish little shrug. ‘Fine, thanks. He’s in Mallorca at the moment. He goes every year for two weeks. Fishing, with friends.’

I feel grimly convinced that this is why Ralph’s here. ‘But you’re still together?’

‘I told you, Neve. We’re not “together”.’

God, I think. These are the kind of meagre scraps of denial she probably tosses Ralph’s way for him to cling to, and still he maintains the whole situation is magic.

‘The flowers weren’t from Duke, then,’ I say, nodding at the jar.

‘No,’ she says vaguely, and not at all appreciatively. ‘Ralph picked them.’

‘They’re lovely.’

‘Duke does miss me, though. He’s called twice today already.’

I feel a flash of anger on Ralph’s behalf. I picture him sitting here, arranging the flowers while Mum phone-flirts with her new boyfriend in between chucking up last night’s open bar.

‘Have you made it up with Lara yet?’ Mum asks.

‘No,’ I say, defensively.

She makes an annoying, puppy-dog face. ‘Lovely Lara. Why not?’

At this, I feel my patience get up and leave the room. ‘Oh, I don’t know – maybe for the same reason that you haven’t made it up with Dad?’

I hadn’t planned to say it, and the unnecessary venom clearly throws her.

‘Sorry, Mum.’ I stand and go over to her, slip my arms around her. But she remains stiff and unresponsive.

After Dad left, Mum called him so many times she had to buy burner phones just so he’d pick up. She went to his new house, too, the one he moved into with Bev. The police kept finding her there in the small hours, banging on the front door and yelling expletives at darkened windows.

But Dad no longer wanted her. He loved Bev.

Dad knew getting Mum out of his life for good meant cutting off contact with me too. And for a long time, I blamed her for that. For behaving so crazily that she destroyed any hopes I had of retaining a father.

But when I lost Jamie, I finally understood the intensity of her pain. That animal urge to do anything – anything – for the chance to be with a person again, just one last time.

Chapter 17.

Then

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