I’d known my early return would come as a surprise to my parents. What I hadn’t anticipated, on stepping into the brightly lit living room, was the sight of my mother’s breasts in all their naked glory.
‘Cassie!’ She goggled at me over the back of the sofa, as guilty as a teenager, while I tried to snap my jaw shut.
‘What… are you… please tell me you’re having a hot flush and that’s why you’ve taken your top off.’ I clamped a hand over my eyes to block out the sight of her rumpled hair and fiery cheeks. Not to mention her naked breasts.
‘I’m not menopausal,’ she huffed, as if I’d just returned from a longish walk and interrupted her favourite TV programme.
‘Of course you are. You’re fifty-eight,’ I argued. ‘It’s simple biology.’
She gave an exasperated tut, which wasn’t the sound I’d imagined her making on seeing her beloved daughter return to the fold. On the journey down, I’d shaped a scene where tears of joy and perhaps a bit of crying featured, considering she hadn’t seen me for nearly a year. (Skyping didn’t count.)
‘We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow, love.’ Dad’s voice was accompanied by the sound of a zipper, and I let out a quiet moan. Glancing through my fingers, I was treated to an eyeful of his greying chest hair, as well as his receding head hair.
‘For god’s sake, you two.’ I turned my back, reaching for the dimmer switch to reduce the overhead glare, listening to them scrabble about for discarded clothing. It was bad enough that they’d copulated twice before, to conceive my brother and me, but faced with the evidence that they were still ‘at it’, nearly thirty years later, was a bit much on an empty stomach. ‘It’s barely seven thirty,’ I grumbled.
‘You should have phoned.’ Mum sounded reasonable, and I turned, relieved to see she’d put her top back on. ‘We would have postponed our lovemaking—’
‘LA-LA-LA-LA-LA LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA,’ I sang, childishly jamming my fingers in my ears, while my parents exchanged coy smiles, and Dad pulled on his ancient Garfield T-shirt, flattening his hair to his scalp. He’d started going grey in his thirties, and at fifty-nine was a shade that Mum called Silver Fox.
‘You should be pleased your parents still find each other physically attractive and like a cuddle before dinner,’ he said, when I’d unblocked my ears, with the merry twinkle that made people instantly warm to him. ‘Shouldn’t she, Lydia?’
‘I’ve no objection to you cuddling,’ I said. ‘It’s’—I flapped my hand—‘the groping I can’t cope with.’
In response, Dad lunged for Mum while making kissy noises, causing her to let out a girlish squeal. ‘Stop it, Ed!’ She pretended to bat him away, and I wondered whether I’d fallen asleep on the train from London to Devon and was, in fact, dreaming.
It would explain the slightly surreal feel the day had taken on, which had begun with me standing on a packed Tube train that morning, sleep-deprived after another uncomfortable night on Nina’s sofa bed, reminded of a different morning, two months earlier: the morning I’d met Adam Conway. Finding myself sardined against a tall, dark-haired man, who’d smelt like the interior of a leather-seated car, I’d taken the unusual step of acting on Nina’s advice to ‘be more proactive in the man department’, by slipping a business card into his jacket pocket with a pithy ‘Call me, some time’, accompanied by a flirty eye-twinkle (which might have come across like a nervous tic, because of being tired and rubbish at flirting). Unfortunately, my watch strap had snagged on his pocket flap, causing his head to jerk down and his dark-chocolate eyes to rest on me with a glimmer of amusement.
‘Are you trying to distract me while you steal my wallet?’ he’d queried, his gaze sweeping over my unremarkable work suit, carefully made-up face (copied from a popular beauty guru on YouTube), and strands of hair escaping my never-perfected topknot. ‘Because I don’t carry a wallet in my pocket.’
‘Only old men carry wallets,’ I’d managed, my cheeks hotter than molten lava, before freeing myself and leaving the train two stops too early, wondering why I couldn’t have apologised like a normal person instead of blurting out something that probably wasn’t true. What did I know about wallets?
I’d almost fainted when he called to ask me out to dinner, certain I was punching way above my weight. But although his job in investment banking was as far as you could get from the frivolous world of event planning, I felt like I’d managed to impress him. It had been a shame that our hectic work schedules meant we’d only been on a handful of dates before I was fired, and that I’d probably never see him again.
‘Oh, Cassie, I’m so glad you’re here!’ Mum finally sprang off the sofa, fluffing up her curls as she came over to enfold me in a tight, floral-scented hug that prompted a prickling feeling behind my eyelids.
‘Nice to see you, too,’ I acknowledged, trying not to squeeze too tightly in case she was alerted to the fact that something was wrong.
Dad joined in, his strong arms encircling us both as he pressed a clumsy kiss beside my ear. As usual, he smelt of Right Guard antiperspirant, undercut with coffee beans, and I snuggled in a bit closer. ‘Good to have you back for a bit, love.’
‘Sorry to interrupt your petting session,’ I mumbled. It dawned on me that they might not even want me home, but I swiftly dismissed the thought. They’d been asking when I was going to visit for a while now.
‘So, how are you?’ Mum released me at last, her wide, grey eyes searching my face with a gratifying intensity, as if she’d forgotten what I looked like. ‘You seem tired, but that’s probably to be expected with your lifestyle.’
Oh god, not the ‘lifestyle’ comment, already. She was convinced I’d spent the last few years mingling with celebrities and aristocracy (and I might have played up to that image, just a little bit), but while it was true that I’d booked my fair share of them for awards shows, festivals and fundraisers, it had been through their representatives. I hadn’t been hanging out with Meghan Markle, or swapping recipes with Mary Berry. I’d been too busy making sure everything ran like clockwork, before crashing into bed at 3 a.m., worried about sleeping through my alarm. ‘I’ve been on trains for most of the day, and didn’t sleep much last night,’ I said, while Dad leaned over and grabbed the TV remote, muting a guest on The One Show who was riding a unicycle.
‘Who on earth watches this rubbish?’ He tutted, and I refrained from pointing out that he and Mum certainly hadn’t been. He turned back to me with a look of concern on his solid, kind-looking face. ‘I could have collected you from Dartmouth. How did you get here?’
‘Taxi,’ I said, not adding that I’d walked the last half-mile, after instructing the driver to drop me off. Despite my overstuffed suitcase and weighty rucksack, I’d been desperate for a glimpse of the water at Seashell Cove, where diamonds of sunlight twinkled off the sea. At least, they did in my imagination.
Unfortunately, despite a mild start to April, fog had rolled in off the sea, obscuring the view, and I’d ended up keeping my head down while my aching feet directed me past the colourful sprawl of houses and shops that made up the small village, until I was standing outside our achingly familiar, stone-fronted house, marvelling at how gut-wrenchingly good it felt to be back. I’d reminded myself that, as far as my parents knew, I’d left my demanding, high-flying job with a generous severance package, and was taking a much-needed holiday to plan the next stage of my career. They didn’t need to know I’d been fired after a series of cock-ups, and had so far failed to find another job.
A memory of my boss Carlotta’s furious face flashed in front my eyes, still managing to convey rage despite being stuffed with fillers, and although I blinked the image away I couldn’t prevent a blast of remembered humiliation.
‘Cassie?’ Dad’s blue eyes were suddenly too close to mine, like a doctor checking my pupils were dilating properly. ‘Are you OK, love?’ he said, urgently. ‘You look frightened.’
‘Still getting over the sight of you two half dressed.’ I forced a grin, knowing I was taking it too far, but unable to tell them the truth. ‘I wouldn’t say no to a cuppa.’
‘That’s my girl.’ His face cleared and he gave my shoulder a squeeze. ‘It’s not as if I’ve been making drinks all day.’
‘Ah, yes, sorry.’ I remembered Mum and Dad would have been on their feet at the café for hours. ‘I’ll make it, if you like.’
‘You’ll do no such thing.’ Dad gripped my other shoulder and frowned at my topknot, as if he’d just spotted it wasn’t my natural colour. ‘What shade is that, love?’
‘Plumberry, according to the stylist.’ I self-consciously fingered my heaped-up hair while my parents rearranged their faces and murmured ‘lovely’.
‘Very executive,’ said Mum, before I could mention that I was planning to let it grow back to Normal Brown. Not the most memorable of reinventions, but I’d never really liked the purply shade and still started whenever I caught sight of my reflection.
‘It suits you,’ she added, tucking a strand behind my ear. ‘It makes your eyes look almost silver.’
‘Sounds a bit creepy.’ Mum had never coloured her hair, which was mostly still a rich chestnut colour, with just a few strands of grey running through. She’d always been comfortable with her appearance.
‘There’s food, if you’re hungry,’ said Dad, rubbing his hands together.
‘Yes, please, I’m starving. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.’
‘No wonder you look so skinny.’ Mum scoped my outline. ‘You’ve definitely lost weight.’
‘Too busy for regular mealtimes,’ I said, which had been true before I lost my job. Since then, I’d lost my appetite a bit.
‘I’m afraid it’s only casserole.’ Dad’s smile spasmed into a grimace. ‘Probably not what you’re used to.’
He made it sound as if I ate at Michelin-starred restaurants every night, just because the team I’d worked with had once been invited to a charity bash at The Ivy.
‘Casserole sounds lovely.’ I sniffed the air. ‘Smells good, too.’
As Dad exited the room, Mum helped me remove my rucksack, which felt as if it had moulded to my back.
‘What on earth’s in there?’ she said, as it crashed to the floor. I felt as if I might float off without it.
‘Just books and stuff.’ I rotated my shoulders to loosen them, but they hadn’t been loose for at least three years and weren’t about to start easing up now. ‘I’m hoping to do some reading while I’m here. Work stuff, you know?’
‘Oh, of course,’ Mum said, with the slightly reverential air that overtook my parents whenever my ‘career’ was mentioned – as if I was a brain surgeon or firefighter. They’d made no secret of how proud they were of their ‘brilliantly clever’ daughter, and ‘talented, semi-famous’ son. Rob, my younger brother, was the keyboard player in a three-man band called X-Y-Zed, which a critic in the Daily Mirror had described as ‘cinematic and slightly sinister’.
‘You don’t want to stay around here like we had to,’ Mum and Dad had drilled into us during our teens. Neither of them had siblings and both had taken care of their mothers, growing up: Mum, because her mother had been sick, while Nan had leaned heavily on Dad, because his father was always having affairs and leaving her. ‘You’re clever enough to do whatever you like with your lives.’ Mum had spoken as though running a café was akin to road-sweeping, though I knew for a fact she loved it. Dad had bought the café at Seashell Cove when I was eleven, after being made redundant from his banking job in Dartmouth, with a decent enough pay-off to afford him a change of profession. He’d relished his new role, and Mum had thrown in her job as a school secretary to help him run it.
‘Your job makes what we do seem so ordinary!’ she’d exclaimed during our last call, and I’d only just stopped myself from blurting out that a petting-zoo party for 100 six-year-olds had gone terribly wrong: the animals had pooed everywhere, the Shetland pony had been a biter, the goat had eaten the vegan birthday cake, and the parents were threatening to sue.
It was supposed to have been Carlotta’s event, but she’d booked herself on a health retreat in Thailand, to prepare for a televised awards ceremony, and handed it to me, as no one else was available. Exhausted after a night spent trying to reorganise accommodation for a hen party in Paris, thanks to a burst water pipe, I’d stepped outside to take a call from the frantic client, and returned to find the petting-zoo party had gone to hell. It didn’t help that, keen to impress Carlotta, I’d insisted on overseeing the event on my own – a decision that had spectacularly backfired.
‘Why don’t you put your feet up?’ Mum said, tugging my coat off and gesturing across the comfortably cluttered room, which still had a stencilled vine-leaf pattern on the ceiling from a thwarted ‘makeover’ attempt. But, as tempted as I was to sink into the old springy sofa, I had the feeling that if I sat down I might never get up again.
‘I think I’ll take my stuff up to my room and get settled in.’
Mum’s mouth curved into a smile. ‘I can hardly believe you’re both back.’
‘Both?’ I glanced at her soft, round face, which was an older version of mine. I used to long for high cheekbones and a regal profile, instead of a snub nose and too-wide eyes, and for people to think of me as ‘striking’ rather than ‘trustworthy’, but at least I could look forward to being described as ‘youthful’ in my fifties. ‘What do you mean, both?’
Mum’s eyes crinkled. ‘Rob’s home, too.’
‘What? Why didn’t you say so?’
‘It’s only been a week,’ she began, but I’d already kicked off my trainers and pelted upstairs. Without knocking, I flung open Rob’s bedroom door and stuck my head round.
The room was empty.
‘He’s out,’ Mum said, from the top of the stairs. ‘If he’d known you’d be here tonight, I’m sure he’d have stayed in.’
‘Oh.’ Deflated, I closed the door on the explosion of clothes and bags I’d glimpsed inside. I hadn’t seen my brother for ages – apart from some YouTube footage of him falling offstage during a gig in Berlin, in front of a roaring crowd. ‘How come he’s not at Bossy Emma’s?’
‘She decided they needed some space,’ Mum said, not without a note of vindication. None of us had particularly warmed to his girlfriend, with her micro-managing ways. We couldn’t understand why he’d hooked up with her, when he could have had his pick of girls. Emma was the sister of a friend he’d met at university before he formed the band, and they’d got together properly a couple of years ago on one of his rare visits home. ‘As if she hasn’t had enough space, with him away on the road.’
‘Poor Rob,’ I said, though I doubted he’d be single for long if the split turned out to be permanent. Although electronic dance music wasn’t completely mainstream, X-Y-Zed had plenty of fans.
‘Dinner’s ready,’ Dad sang from the hallway.
‘Coming!’ Mum and I carolled back, as I shoved open the door to my bedroom and looked greedily around the comfortingly familiar space. It wasn’t a shrine to my childhood, thank goodness, as I’d let my school friend Tilly practise her interior-design skills on it before she moved to Canada, but the double bed with the padded velvet headboard was the same, and so was the wardrobe with the wonky door, and my teddy bear, Mr Rabbit, still resided on the bookshelf.
‘I always forget how green it is,’ I said to Mum, who was hovering at my elbow. Tilly had been going for a botanical theme, with fern-patterned fabrics and shades of moss and mint paint, but the effect was a bit ‘pea soup’.
‘She did get carried away,’ Mum said with a chuckle. ‘I spoke to your nan on the phone earlier,’ she added. ‘She can’t wait to see you.’
‘I can’t wait to see her,’ I admitted. ‘Is she still with Marcus?’
‘Ancient history.’ Mum did an eye-roll. ‘He was a fussy eater, apparently. You know how Nan loves her food.’
‘Poor Marcus.’ Thinking of Nan brought me almost to the verge of tears. It was only now I was home that I was beginning to realise how much I’d missed it.
‘We don’t see her very much these days,’ Mum said with forced brightness. She was very attached to Nan, having lost her own mother in her thirties, swiftly followed by her father. ‘She’s so wrapped up in her hobbies.’ Ah, Nan’s hobbies. They were legendary. ‘Still, she must do what makes her happy.’
‘So, how come Rob’s back?’
‘Oh, you can talk about it to him tomorrow.’ Mum’s smile was radiant now. ‘Do you know how long you’ll be staying?’ She was still clutching my coat, like an old-fashioned maid, and I took it from her and flung it onto my bed, resisting the urge to throw myself after it and snuggle into the duvet.
‘Not sure yet,’ I said, switching to my breezy, professional tone. ‘It depends how things work out.’
‘I know you’ve left your job, but you will be going back to London, won’t you? Or, maybe New York?’ I had gone on a bit about New York, but it had been so exciting to be there, even though it had only been for a month and I’d been working most of the time. ‘I mean, that’s where all your contacts are, surely?’
‘W-e-e-e-ll—’ I began.
‘I’m surprised you wanted to come here for a holiday, instead of going travelling,’ she continued.
‘I am travelling.’ I spread my hands in a tah-dah gesture. ‘I’ve travelled from London to here.’
Her smile quivered. ‘Yes, but… we can’t compete with, say, Singapore or Japan.’
‘Japan?’ I gawped at her. ‘Why on earth would I want to go to Japan?’
Her lips pressed together. ‘I… I don’t know, love.’
‘Look,’ I said, with a bravado I was far from feeling, considering I currently had nothing to go back to in London. ‘I wanted to see you all, it’s as simple as that, and I’m going to arrange some events while I’m here to keep my hand in.’ At least, that was my plan. ‘And to start building my portfolio.’ A suitably high-flying word I knew she would like.
‘Don’t you have one already?’
‘A new one,’ I said, thinking quickly. ‘Of events organised solely by me.’
‘Events around here?’
‘People have them, don’t they?’ I accompanied the words with a light little laugh that came out more like a cough.
Mum gave me a funny look. ‘Well, yes, but they don’t need people to organise them, they just get on and do it themselves. They don’t want to pay someone to do it.’ She made it sound like the silliest idea, ever.
‘Well, I’ll just have to persuade them otherwise, won’t I?’ I said, while Dad clattered plates downstairs in a clear attempt to hurry us along.
‘But why, when there’s no need?’
This was turning out to be tougher than I’d expected. ‘Actually, I’ve an ulterior motive,’ I said, deciding it was as good a time as any to mention the idea I’d had on the way over, to kick-start my new future. ‘I’m going to help you and Dad put the café on the map.’
Emerging from a fog of sleep the following morning, I marvelled afresh at how comfy my mattress was, and how peaceful my surroundings. No Nina, crashing around in her kitchen, or singing loudly in the shower, as if to prove a point.
I’d got along well with Nina at work, where she was senior events coordinator. When she’d realised I was good at taking orders, eager to learn, and didn’t mind the long hours, she’d taken me under her wing. But, apart from the odd drink after work, and a few confessional sessions over some wine and a takeaway, we weren’t exactly best mates. She’d always stressed the importance of maintaining a professional relationship – even if she hadn’t always stuck to it.
She’d offered me her sofa bed when I decided not to renew the lease on my flat, and had let me store my things in her basement, but hadn’t wanted me there too long because she’d started dating her personal trainer, and having an unemployed house guest wasn’t conducive to romance.
‘Do you really want to stay in event planning?’ she’d asked one evening, while I was scouring job sites on my laptop in my bathrobe, and she was painting her nails a deathly shade of blue. ‘Maybe it’s time for a change.’
Panic had caught hold of me. After all the hours I’d put in at Five Star, and the skills I’d learned, how could I even think about giving it up? I was only a few years into the glittering career I’d planned after completing a management course at college and moving to London with a friend on a wave of optimism. The first couple of years had been thrillingly chaotic, brimming with excitement, even if the jobs I’d ended up doing mostly involved waiting on tables, or making the tea at some fancy agency. At weekends, we’d wander around art galleries and museums, and visit pubs and clubs in the evenings, and it was only when it began to sink in that my career hadn’t exactly started that some of the sparkle vanished. Then, my friend Trudy had landed a job at Five Star and persuaded Carlotta to take me on to chase up bookings and liaise with suppliers. Even though Trudy had left soon after, following her new boyfriend to Italy, I’d grabbed the opportunity with both hands. I was determined to make my mark in the world of event planning and relieved I was finally on my way to becoming the successful businesswoman I’d assured my family I would be. It had never occurred to me to give it up – even with a boss as difficult as Carlotta, who seemed increasingly annoyed by my attempts to rise from the ranks of assistant to… something more than an assistant. But now my plans had been cut short, thanks to a hungry goat and a grumpy Shetland pony. Event planning was a competitive market, and as I’d been fired with no chance of securing a reference from Carlotta (apart from a character assassination) I was struggling to get even as far as an interview. Going solo seemed to be my only option, but with nothing to show for my time at Five Star I was fighting a losing battle, and with nowhere to live I’d had no choice but to come home.
I’d decided early on not to tell my family the real reason I was back. Much better to subtly set the wheels of my new future in motion, before returning to London with a portfolio of events I could show to prospective clients. In no time at all, I’d have a list of bookings, my own little army of staff, and perhaps a nice apartment near a park or some gardens. My parents would be even prouder if I had my own business, and would probably end up seeing more of me in the long run. There’d been no time to visit them for more than a flying visit at Christmas over the last few years, and on their occasional forays into London they’d ended up visiting the tourist spots on their own, because work had been so crazy that I’d had to be available all the time.
Sighing now, I thrust off my duvet and swung my legs out of bed. It felt odd to be up so late. I normally set two alarms to make sure I was awake at five thirty, ready to email suppliers and check out venues, before grabbing coffee for Carlotta on the way to the office.
I picked up Mr Rabbit, who looked rather doleful, and gave him a reassuring kiss, then wandered downstairs in my pyjamas, pausing to look at the photos lining the wall. There were several of Rob and me in school uniform, with missing front teeth; a couple of us on the beach at Seashell Cove, exploring the rock pools, sand clinging to our skinny legs; and a recent one of Rob onstage, playing his keyboard with one hand. My gaze skimmed over a selfie my parents had framed of me at an event in New York, surrounded by people in Bollywood fancy dress. I was grinning manically, despite battling a forty-eight-hour headache, and I remembered I’d had to remove a faulty lighting box that had started billowing smoke, before anyone noticed. Someone had noticed, though, and had reported it to Carlotta, who’d given me my first warning.
I wondered whether Rob was still in bed. I hadn’t heard him come in the night before, but I’d been so tired after dinner I’d barely been able to keep my eyes open, and could only summon one face-splitting yawn after another when Mum had attempted to probe me about what I’d meant by ‘putting the café on the map’.
‘You’ll see,’ I’d managed, attempting an enigmatic smile as another yawn broke out, and, to my relief, Dad had suggested I take myself to bed with a mug of tea. I hadn’t argued, and had quickly succumbed to the merciful pull of sleep.
The kitchen was deserted, but there was a note on the table in Mum’s loopy handwriting:
Take it easy, sweetheart, you’re obviously worn out! Come down to the café when you’re ready, if you’ve got time, and if you want to!! Or pop and see your nan, or go for a walk and blow the cobwebs away! Plenty of food, so help yourself, you could do with putting on a few pounds!! Plenty of hot water, if you’d like a bath. I’ll be back to cook dinner, so see you later!!!
She’d gone a bit overboard on the exclamation marks and I had the . . .
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