Page 46 of Good Bad Girl

“I don’t take dogs,” says the taxi driver.

Dickens barks as though he understands and Clio glares at him.

“I’ll pay you extra,” she offers. “I need to get my elderly mother home.”

“It’s not about the money,” he replies and Clio pulls a face. In her experience almost everything is about money in the end. “I haveallergies,” he adds.

Allergic to doing the right thing, she thinks.

“Why don’t we just get the bus?” Edith suggests.

“Fine. Thanks for nothing,” Clio says to the driver before he speeds away.

“There’s no need to be rude to people, Clio,” says the rudest women on the planet. “And there’s no need to sulk. I know all the bus routes and it’s free for me with my pass. Here’s the number seventy-two now.”

“Whatever you want. Let’s get the bus and get out of here.”

“Then I’m going to the police station.”

“We can talk about that when we get home.”

They board the red double-decker and head toward the back. It’s not too crowded, but Clio would rather they weren’t overheard, anxious about what her mother might say next. She needn’t have worried, Dickens sits on Edith’s lap staring out of the window and they spend the first five minutes of the journey in silence.

“Do you want a custard cream?” Edith asks, shouting above the sound of the bus. She reaches inside her pocket and takes out a half-eaten packet. “Or a cookie perhaps? They’re chocolate chip!” Edith says, taking another packet from another pocket. Clio shakes her head. “Why not? There’s no meat in them.”

“I’m vegan.”

“Iknow. It’s why you look so ill. Do vegans not eat cookies? Are you worried about cookie welfare?”

Two people up ahead turn around in their seats to stare at them and Clio wishes she was invisible.

“Being vegan is a little more complicated than being vegetarian,” she whispers.

“Everything with you is complicated and you’ve always been cranky when you’re hungry, but suit yourself,” Edith says, holding a custard cream and taking a bite. The bus windows have steamed up with condensation, and Edith uses her finger to draw a ladybug on the glass. “Everyone knows that ladybugs are lucky, but did you know that their black spots represent joy and sorrow?” she asks, with a mouth full of crumbs. “We all experience joy and sorrow in our lives. No life lived is perfect, we have to learn to balance the good times with the bad. Forgive each other for mistakes, because everyone makes them.” Edith looks at her, but Clio continues to stare out of the window so she helps herself to another custard cream. “Ladybugs aresoprolific, so determined to ensure their future and protect their legacy, that they sometimes give birth to pregnant ladybugs. Their daughters are born ready to have more daughters. Generation after generation, repeating and reliving thesame lives as the last, never changing their spots. I never wanted you to turn into me. I wish—”

“I think we’re here,” Clio says, ringing the bell on the bus.

They get off at Notting Hill station and walk the rest of the journey, slowly winding their way down Portobello Road until they reach the quiet mews and the pink house.

“Never thought I’d be here again,” Edith says, staring up at the place.

Neither did I, Clio thinks as she unlocks the door. She watches her mother—and the dog—walk inside her perfect house without even wiping their feet on the doormat. She tells herself to let it go. It’s only for one night.

Clio forces her face to smile. “Welcome.”

Edith raises an eyebrow. “Are we?”

“Of course. My only request is that you keep the dog—”

“Dickens.”

“Dickensoff the furniture. And I don’t want him going upstairs.”

“I don’t know why you hate dogs so much, they’re wonderful company. Especially for someone like you, living alone.”

Clio bites her tongue. “Would you like some tea?”

Edith nods, removing her coat and already making herself at home. “Yes please. Milky and two sugars.”

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