Page 44 of Weekends with the Sunshine Gardening Society
She glances at Pat, who looks a little wretched, and takes that to mean he feels the same way she does.
Odette’s shoulders relax and she looks at her father. ‘Dad said you miss me.’
Pat raises his eyebrows to Cynthia and she knows it’s him admitting that he may have massaged Odette into the meeting today. As if Cynthia minds – their daughter is standing here and not telling her to get lost. That’s a victory.
‘I miss you every day that I don’t see you,’ Cynthia says. ‘You are part of me – I can’t not think about you. I can’t not miss you. And I don’t mean this to sound condescending, but once you’re a mother you’ll understand that better.’
Odette puts her hands on her hips, like she’s squaring up to Cynthia.
‘I hope I didn’t kick you from the inside the way this baby is doing to me,’ she says, and Cynthia smiles with the relief of something that sounds like an actual civil sentence.
‘You did,’ she replies. ‘But I didn’t mind.’
She wants to hug Odette – squeeze her so tightly that she can feel how much she is loved. But that’s not the cool thing to do once your child is past childhood, so Cynthia keeps her arms by her sides.
‘I didn’t mind because I wanted you so much,’ she says.
‘I want this baby too!’
‘I know you do.’
‘Ash said he wants to see me this weekend.’ Odette’s voice trembles a little. With hope, Cynthia imagines, even if she doesn’t feel it herself.
‘That’s good.’
‘I’ve told Odette that you and I will help her with the baby,’ Pat says. ‘Whether Ash is involved or not.’
‘We will. I will.’ Cynthia smiles at him with gratitude.
‘I just don’t want you to lecture me, Mum.’
That hurts a little, but it’s not as if Cynthia didn’t use a similar line to her own mother. ‘Who says I will?’
Odette rolls her eyes. ‘History says you will.’
‘Odette!’ Cynthia tries to feign outrage except her daughter is telling the truth, and she is rewarded with a small smile. ‘I just want what’s best for you. Even if it doesn’t seem like it.’
Before Odette can say anything more, Pat positions himself between them. ‘How about a walk on the beach back to your place? I wouldn’t mind dropping in to see your father.’
‘Sounds good.’
Cynthia follows them as they step carefully over the stones, towards the sand, and watches as Pat puts his hand on Odette’s shoulder.
Maybe one day Cynthia will be able to do that again. Today, though, she’ll take the walk and anything else Odette is prepared to offer her and count herself lucky.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Thebottle of shiraz is half-empty and Kathy isn’t sure how that happened. She remembers uncorking it then letting it breathe for a little while – the sommelier at the restaurant is always going on about letting red winesbreathe. Of course, the sommelier is mainly interested in wine being its best whereas Kathy is mainly interested in drinking it for the effect. She tries, though. Working in hospitality, she needs to at least pretend to consider things like wine breathing.
Partly the wine-breathing routine is how she kids herself that she’s not drinking more than she should. If she can resist it for fifteen minutes, that makes her not desperate. If she can look at that bottle opened and not touch it for a while, she doesn’t have a problem. Which is about as plausible as her reasoning that not keeping wine in the house means she’s not developing a very bad habit that she’s using to ward off sadness and grief – and, probably the biggest factor of all, loneliness. She kids herself that it’s a temporary measure and that she’ll feel less sad about Jemima soon, even though rationally she knows that dulling the pain, whichever means she chooses, is not the same as dealing with it. It’s just delaying the dealing.
She is well aware, too, that kidding herself has been an almost lifelong pursuit. She kidded herself that she was content being married to Owen. When she met Jemima she kidded herself thatthis was the first and only time she’d ever been attracted to anyone female when she distinctly remembers having crushes on at least two female classmates. At the time she thought it was just what teenage girls did, and because she spent years – decades – without meeting a woman she was attracted to she thought that was that.
Except she’s also kidding herself there. She had a friend, Denise, and they were as close as anything; then Kathy found herself thinking about the way Denise smelled and how pretty she looked with her new haircut, and when Denise actually asked her one day if she was in love with her – suggesting that she didn’t mind if Kathy was – Kathy was so offended that she broke off the friendship. Except she wasn’t really offended, just mortified that she’d been so transparent.
She wondered for months afterwards what might have happened if she’d admitted it. Because shewasin love with Denise. In her mind it was a capital-R Romantic love – she idealised Denise and told herself that she wanted to be like her, so sophisticated and accomplished, so she was in love with the paragon and it had nothing to do with desire. The truth, however, was that it was small-r romantic and Denise knew it even if Kathy wouldn’t admit to it.
It was the first time someone had seen her and her wants more clearly than Kathy could see them herself. The next person to do it was Jemima. The person after that was, in a different way, Lorraine, who had identified something in Kathy that day in the park, and by inviting her to join the Sunshine Gardening Society has given her a reason to think the world a rosier place than she has of late.
