33
Roisin was browsing the fruit-forward and complex whites of the Loire Valley when she felt her iPhone buzzing in her bag. She pulled it out to see: MUM (MOB).
The caps lock suited Lorraine. Joe once called his mother-in-law a human push notification.
She’d not told her mum about her and Joe. She’d had plenty of time in the dreadful, listless four days off work. Roisin had hated time alone with her thoughts and dragged the stepladders and dust sheets out and painted the spare room in a neutral shade. A true ‘fiddle while Rome burns’, using Farrow & Ball Estate Eggshell in Mole’s Breath.
She also slept in the spare room, where she’d stay. Roisin put her head round the door of Joe’s writing study, stared balefully at the mid-century modern desk with the hairpin legs, where he churned out his evil. There was no computer, Joe preferring to be a ‘digital nomad’ with a laptop. Nevertheless, it was as if she expected it to contain answers.
In holding back from her mother, Roisin wasn’t being purely avoidant, for once. Starting to put word round the parents before she and Joe agreed a comms strategy wasn’t really on. Lorraine had phone numbers for Joe’s parents, social media made things even more porous – discretion couldn’t be guaranteed.
Given Hunter was almost a week old, Roisin hoped against hope that Lorraine either hadn’t seen it, or if she had, wasn’t going to raise it.
Joe had been in touch intermittently since they parted on the lawn. He sent carefully business-like, neutral WhatsApps that informed her how his meetings had gone (good), what it was like getting connections at LAX for JFK (bad), and when he’d be back (next Tuesday evening).
He signed off with one small kiss, which signified respectful affection but not coupley warmth. Roisin was glad, and returned the courtesy.
Want me to bring anything back, sweetheart? X was the only slightly peculiar one, received at one a.m., which she put down to delayed flight boredom and gin-pissedness.
Yes, please, a large bottle of Elizabeth Arden 5th Avenue, a tin of Bailey’s fudge and your interest in me. (Instead, she went for: No, thanks, I still have lots of Toblerone left!)
Standing in Reserve Wines on Burton Road, Roisin felt the usual foreboding at having a bracing, mood-altering interaction with her mother. There was no way of knowing if she was in Lorraine’s good books – Roisin’s popularity ratings rose and fell in her absence, without her needing to have done anything to affect them.
She slid the bar to Accept Call before the heavy reluctance could overtake her.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Hi. Is it a bad time?’
‘No …?’
‘Oh. You were using that voice.’
‘What voice?’
‘The HI MUM tense one, in a high register,’ Lorraine said. ‘I can call back. Don’t want to be a nuisance to my children.’
And we’re off.
‘It’s fine,’ Roisin said, jaw muscles already locked. ‘I’m buying some booze to take to Meredith and Gina’s tonight for dinner.’
‘That’s nice. Girls’ night? Joe’s away?’
‘Yes, Joe’s away in America again. Back Tuesday.’
‘Ahhh. I’ve not watched his new thing yet, sorry. I’ve recorded it. Terence said it’s very blue!’
Roisin’s stomach swirled with acid; she wanted to unscrew the wine and start swigging it before she’d paid for it.
‘How is Terence?’ she said, something she’d never asked with such desperate eagerness before. Terence was her mother’s daytime barman of fifteen years standing. A stranger fit with the so-called ‘hospitality’ industry you’d never find.
‘You know. Terency. I put salami sandwiches on the menu this week and he accused me of trying to turn it into “one of those gastric pubs”.’
Roisin was grateful to laugh.
‘Actually, the pub is why I’m calling …’
Here it is: The Thing You Want. They never ever had a how are you catch-up without an angle. Although, if she made this complaint, Lorraine would say Roisin didn’t want those chats either, which was true.
‘… I’ve had a staff walk out. I’m down to just me in the evenings until I find someone, and the agency’s slim pickings are absolutely shocking, honestly. Since Brexit, no one’s around who wants the work.’
‘OK …?’ Roisin said, extremely apprehensive about where this was heading.
‘I wondered if you could pop in and help me. Only until I hire someone.’
‘Mum, I’ve started my six-week break … today,’ Roisin said, with a careful amend.
‘I know! It’s ideal for you to come and help your mother when she’s in a pickle. You’ve not been back for ages. It’ll be fun.’
Fun. Rinsing drip trays, pouring pints of mild, parrying flirtatious remarks from sixty-seven-year-olds, and scraping leftover food into the pig bin. The emotional blackmail section had commenced, natch. Roisin cursed herself for answering.
‘You’re seriously asking me to move to Webberley to work a summer job, the moment I’ve got a holiday from my very pressuring actual job?’
Roisin recalled the panic attack for the hundredth time, and wanted to curl up and die.
‘Not move! You can drive home every night if you want.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘Your room is ready for you if you do want to stay.’
‘As enticing as this is, Mum, it’s a nope. No thank you.’
Roisin sounded like a chippily defiant teenager. In fact, she was waterlogged with guilt, as was the way of familial bonds. As was the way when your widowed mother was putting the squeeze on you. It was the equivalent of tapping your kneecap with a little hammer, and your leg involuntarily jerking.
‘Alright then. I was going to tell you this in person, because I didn’t want to worry you. I’ve also had a little scare. A breast lump scare.’
‘A scare?’ Roisin said, stepping away from other customers. ‘What happened?’
‘I had a lump and the GP checked it out and said it was likely nothing. It was a little frightening.’
‘They knew it was nothing, from that check-up?’
‘No … I’ve had a biopsy.’
Roisin’s stomach plummeted. ‘A biopsy? When did you have that? When are the results?’
‘They’ll let me know later today, they said. I have felt quite tired but put it down to overwork. You know, with doing it all by myself here.’
Roisin ignored this. ‘Have you told Ryan?’
It was totally within the realms of possibility that she had told her brother, and Ryan hadn’t contacted Roisin. Ryan had moved to Toronto seven years ago. As far as Roisin was concerned, emotionally, Ryan had always lived in Toronto. Her mum was closer to Ryan, and Ryan could do no wrong.
‘No. I’ll call him after this.’
‘OK.’ Roisin was surprised to be prioritised, but clearly, needs must.
‘Please note I put the request first and health news second, so you couldn’t say I was using it.’
‘Except … this still amounts to using it, Mum.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Roisin, I can’t win! So I shouldn’t have told you?’
‘I don’t think you can ask your offspring to be your relief staff.’
‘You can in a family business. You know how it is. It’s not like other jobs. I can’t sign off sick – would that I could. And if The Mallory goes under, I lose my home.’
This was a keynote speech of Roisin’s youth and partly why she hated the place. The Mallory: millstone, HQ of drama, a home that any stranger could walk into. Helmed by a marriage that other people could walk into … God, no wonder Joe throwing their life on the screen had traumatised her.
Yet she knew, as no doubt Lorraine had expected, that she’d not be able to live with herself if the biopsy results were bad and her mum was working a solo shift. In that event, she’d be visiting tomorrow anyway. Even if the news was good, she should visit.
‘Alright, look.’ She pulled a face that her mother couldn’t see. ‘I’ll help out tomorrow. But, Mum, you have to look for someone as a matter of urgency. This is a one-off.’
‘Yes, absolutely! Completely understood.’
‘Will you text me the result?’
‘Of what?’
‘The biopsy?’ Roisin said.
‘Oh yes! Of course.’
Eesh. She knew an optimistic outlook was to be commended, but there was optimistic, and then there was Lorraine.