Page 84 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
‘Yes, but it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Maybe you could take over.’
We have worked together for years, and I knew it would be a wrench.
‘I think it’s brilliant,’ Dee says. ‘I think you’re brilliant.’
She comes over to the armchair where I’m sitting and pulls me up and into a hug, and I wonder what I’ll do without this woman at my side every day. I tell myself that in the evenings, which I will no longer work, I will sometimes sit on the otherside of Dee’s bar and it will be just like always. I’ll probably end up collecting glasses.
‘To new ventures,’ Liam says, holding up his beer bottle.
We raise our glasses, and I look across at Matt and I feel so damn happy.
‘Was it hard not being able to have your mum at the wedding?’ Dee asks.
And just like that, my contentment falls away. Dee doesn’t know that I’m in contact with my mum. Like everyone else other than Matt, she believes my mum has disappeared. I’ve had ‘phone mum’ on my to-do list for days, ever since we got back, and every day I’ve prioritised other things. Last time I visited her, she seemed like she was settling into her new home. She’d found work in a local pub and was volunteering at the library. There was a greenhouse in her garden and she was experimenting with growing vegetables. When I told her that I was getting married again, she’d made a noise that sounded a lot like a grunt. She still thinks there are no good men. I know that. Mick has been hounding me, trying to find out where she is, and though I’ve told him nothing, I’m terrified that he’ll find out anyway.
‘She was at my first wedding,’ I say. I’m trying to make a joke but it falls flat, and I wonder whether I’ve offended Matt until he flashes me a look of solidarity across the room.
‘We bought you something,’ Dee says, and it’s like she’s trying to backtrack, after killing the atmosphere.
‘I told you not to,’ I say.
‘I know you did. But since when do I listen to you?’ She gets up and leaves the room, and when she comes back she’s holding a large picture frame.
She turns it, so we can see, and I gasp. It’s us, me and Matt, sitting on the beach just after our wedding, my shoes on thesand, but it’s been changed from a photograph into something more like an abstract painting, all bold colours and thick lines.
‘How did you do that?’ I ask.
‘I found this guy who does it.’
‘But how did you get the photo?’
‘Oh, that. I contacted the hotel. Asked if someone would take a photo of you after. I knew that’s when you’d look most yourselves, when all the formalities were done.’
I think myself back there, can feel the sand between my toes and the sound of distant waves crashing. Salt in my hair, and Matt beside me.
‘It’s perfect,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’
I am quiet on the walk home. Matt doesn’t push me, and I’m grateful for that. He knows that sometimes I have to process things, and he gives me the time to do it. It isn’t until we’re back in our own kitchen, above the pub, that I speak.
‘If we never have a baby, will it be enough?’
Matt doesn’t look surprised. He hesitates just long enough so that I know he’s considered the question, isn’t just answering automatically.
‘You and me, holidays and sunshine? Afternoon cinema trips and beer gardens and working together. Helping people. Yes, Shelley, that’s enough for me.’
And just like when he said, on our wedding day, that he’d never hurt me, I believe him.
43
NOW
Matt drops me back at Dee’s door and I ask if he wants to come inside. It’s started to rain, so we hold our jackets over our heads as we go to the door, and once we’re inside, it feels deathly quiet. We’re still standing in the hallway, taking our shoes off, when my phone rings, and we both jump. And when I see the name on the display, it’s sort of like seeing a ghost.
‘Mum?’
‘Shelley.’ Her voice is a croak but unmistakably hers. It sounds like childhood.
‘Oh, Mum. Where are you?’
