‘Luke, phone.’
Rebecca pulled her hair away from her face, pushing her leg behind her to wake Luke up.
‘Luke, phone!’
She recognised the ringtone. Hers. She scrabbled for it, the events of the previous night coming screaming back into her consciousness. That and the fact that she’d polished off her emergency tequila. The one she hid under the floorboards for emergencies of the Robbie level kind in the old days. Now, it had Luke’s name written all over it. Jabbing at the buttons, trying to blow her unruly mop away from her eyes. Eyes that felt like they were glued together with sleep at this precise moment.
‘Luke! Luke?’
‘Who’s Luke? Take your ear away from the camera, dear.’
Looking at her phone in horror, she saw her mother’s smiling face. A face that stopped smiling as soon as it clapped eyes on Rebecca.
‘What are you doing? Have you been crying?’ She could see her face on the little screen in the corner, and she looked like a mad scientist had spent a wild night with Alice Cooper, and she was the resulting offspring.
‘Yes. No Mum. What time is it?’
‘Time you were up dear girl!’ Her mother had her phone propped up on something on the kitchen table. Probably not the boob shakers. She reached for a cup of tea, and Rebecca could see that she was midway through a sandwich. ‘You could have been out there this morning, getting all the practice you need!’
Rebecca tried to rub at her make-up, but just managed to smear it across her face. Her tongue felt like a hairbrush. Linty.
‘Don’t rub at your face like that dear. Use a facial wipe.’
Rebecca looked around her. No facial wipes. Just tissues from her weeping as quietly as she could whilst getting secretly shitfaced. Whilst the boy she liked slept in the next room. For the last time.
‘Sorry Mum, my masseur doesn’t come till eleven. I usually get rubbed down and spruced up then.’
Her mother snorted down her nose. ‘Eleven! You’ll be lucky. It’s gone two here! Have you really been in bed this whole time?’
She put the phone down on the duvet, looking for the clock by her bedside table. It had been knocked to the floor. It was after three. Where was Luke? Had he gone?
Her mother was still chuntering away as she dived out of bed, covering the screen with her quilt as she ran in her nightshirt out of her room. His bedroom door was open.
‘Rebecca, what the hell are you doing? Rebecca?’
Walking slowly into the room, she looked automatically to his suitcase, which he’d put under the bed. There was nothing but space. She didn’t bother walking to the wardrobe. She’d told him to go. He’d gone.
Her mother’s braying tones kept erupting from the heap of tear- and tequila-soaked bedding that she’d left her in. Walking like a zombie back to her room, she picked up the phone and sat at the end of the bed. Looking her mother square in the face, she listened to her go on.
‘Where have you been! I have things to do you know. Mildred from the paper shop on the corner? She brought me round a printout of your internet page thingy.’ She waggled the piece of paper in front of the screen, pushing it closer and further away. Cheers Mildred, you nosy old bag. You should stick to selling the news, not ruddy spreading it like glitter at a unicorn convention.
‘Can you see it? I can’t get this ruddy thing to focus. It’s you! You got papped again. Oh, I can’t tell you how excited we were. Who’s the new chap? Does he compete? He looks handsome in the photos. A bit Cary Grant, I thought. It’s finally—’
‘Shut up, Mum.’
It took her mother a whole minute to digest what Rebecca had said. Probably because no one had ever said it to her before.
‘What did you just say to me?’
‘I said, shut up, Mum. I can’t take any more. No more. The guy in the photo? That’s Luke. I’ve been shagging him, in my little café flat, for the past week. Yesterday, I told him to bugger off. This morning, he did.’
Her mother gasped like a fish, and for a second Rebecca hoped, nay, prayed that the connection had dropped on the line.
‘Shagging? Luke? Week?’
‘Yes Mum. Your daughter is a dirty little tramp, a washed-up old ski champion with a penchant for anything in spectacles and a sexy elbow patch. I met him a week ago, and now I’m pretty sure I’ve fallen for the huge dork, and I cocked it all up.’ She looked at the screen, bursting into tears.
‘Mum, I just don’t want to listen to you talk about what a total loser I am, because I already knoooooow-woooo-woooo-waaa!’ She dissolved into a full-on ugly cry, her words just little squeaks and snot bubbles. Her mother’s face filled the screen, and she saw that she’d picked it up and was holding it close.
‘Rebecca, come on. Don’t do that!’ Her mum patted the screen with her fingers, making it go haywire for a second. ‘These bloody touch screens!’ She jabbed at the screen, and Rebecca had stopped crying enough to see her mother come back into view. ‘Don’t do that. I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone! Why didn’t you tell me!’
‘Because you don’t listen Mum! You never do. You never listen to what I actually say. You hear what you want to hear.’ She blew her nose on an old tissue from the bed, honking loudly. ‘Oh, what’s the point.’ She flopped back on the bed, her head hitting the pillows. Taking the phone with her, her mother was still staring at her.
‘I do listen Rebecca, but I worry about you.’ Her face softened. ‘This is the first time I’ve had any emotion but ignorance and pure anger from you in years.’ Her mother went to the fridge and Rebecca saw her pull out a corked bottle of Chardonnay.
‘Mum, day drinking is going a bit far. I’m not that bad.’
Her mother ignored her, taking a glass from the cabinet on her way back to the table. Putting Rebecca back resting on the prop, she slowly poured the wine to the brim.
‘Bugger it, it’s good for you now and again.’ She took a deep sip and looked at the camera.
‘Rebecca Daphne Atkins, I love you, but you are a huge worry for me.’
‘Mum, not a lect—’
‘I’m talking now, I have the talking glass.’ She raised her glass and took another sip. ‘When you were a girl, you wanted to walk. So badly, you didn’t even wait to crawl. Do you know that? You didn’t want to take that middle step, and you were like that your whole life. When my friends’ daughters and sons were getting married, having babies, going to university, I used to look at you and think, she knows what she wants.’
Rebecca lay there, listening to her mother speak.
‘You always knew what you wanted, till that day. You never needed an audience, you never wanted anyone to notice, you just loved it. When your accident happened, I felt like you died.’
Rebecca was stunned. ‘I thought they called you, right after.’ She realised that for the first time, she was thinking about how her mother and father must have felt. Her dad never gave her any grief like her mother had, but he had treated her differently than before when they spoke on the phone. She never wanted them to come cheer her on, but they always watched back home. If I ever had a daughter, and saw her go through that, well. ‘The team had your details, I made sure they called.’
Cecilia Daphne Atkins pulled the screen closer.
‘You are my baby, my bright shining star, and you were hurt. Hundreds of miles away, on your own, without us. Your father nearly had kittens on the sofa. You didn’t die that day, but I never got my daughter back. The last time we spoke before the accident, you were so happy. Excited for the future, the competition. After, I couldn’t even get you to call me back. Robbie went AWOL. The man spent Christmases here, but he was just gone. Unavailable. What did you want me to do? You didn’t want me there.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me how you felt?’ Rebecca realised that she had been punishing her mother for trying to get her daughter back.
Cecilia smiled, her eyes filling again. ‘Because you were shattered, my darling, I didn’t want you to hate me any more than you already did. I just wanted you to try again, to be you. Whatever “you” was. I know I put you under pressure, but you never told me anything! I just wanted you to be happy again.’
‘I saw Robbie,’ she admitted, and her mother’s face was a picture. ‘He’s come back for the competition. It didn’t go well.’
Her mother sat back in her chair, filling her wine glass up.
‘Your dad never liked him, you know.’
‘Where is Dad?’
Cecilia thumbed behind her to the open patio doors that led out to the garden. ‘He’s in his man cave, banging about. He’s in a mood, the football match didn’t go well.’
Rebecca rolled her eyes, wincing at the pain it produced. It felt like a tequila worm was burrowing into her forehead with Doc Martens on.
‘Typical Dad.’
‘Yeah I know. I should have held out a bit longer before I married him. Could have trained him up a bit more.’
They giggled together, and Rebecca realised that this was the first conversation they had had in forever that didn’t end up in an argument.
‘I told him off. Robbie, not Luke. Well, I told Luke off too.’ She looked towards the door, but he wasn’t magically standing there. ‘That’s why he left. Why didn’t Dad like Robbie, anyway? He never showed it.’
Cecilia took another sip.
‘He put up with him because you were happy, or we thought you were.’
Rebecca pushed the air out of her lips with a pfff sound.
‘He thought my accident was going to be the springboard for a whole new life, a life I never wanted. I just didn’t want to anymore.’
‘And now?’
Rebecca pursed her lips.
‘Luke entered me into the competition. The Alpine Challenge. It’s in seven weeks. He’s in it too, novice round. He thought I needed a push.’
‘Sounds familiar. Have you called him?’
Rebecca shook her head. ‘Not yet. You woke me, remember?’
Her mother groaned.
‘Again, only teenagers sleep till this time on a weekend.’
Rebecca opened her mouth to say something catty back, an old habit, but her mother placed both hands on the table and leaned in.
‘Rebecca, I know it’s been hard, God knows I do. I just want you to know, whatever you decide, it’s fine with us. If you want to come home, start again, I won’t give you any hassle.’ Rebecca’s snort said it all. ‘I mean it love. Your dad and I just want you to be happy, that’s it. I don’t care if you’re a ski champion, or a baker. I just want you to be you again. I miss my daughter.’
Rebecca welled up, and her mother sniffed loudly.
‘I know Mum, I’m sorry.’ Her mother blew a kiss at her, and it made her think of Frank, and Luke. Parents, they all had their little ways of making you feel connected. Loved. ‘I love you. Tell Dad I’ll call soon.’
Her mother wiped at her eyes, draining her glass.
‘Woo, I needed that.’ She grinned, and Rebecca grinned back. ‘I love you, chicken. Can I say one thing?’ She lifted her pinkie finger comically and made a begging face.
‘Go on. One thing. In the spirit of our new mother—daughter friendship.’
Her mother’s grin exploded then, bursting all over her face. ‘I like that. Okay, here it is. Call Luke.’
Rebecca wasn’t expecting that. Picking a man over a comp, and one her mum hadn’t even credit-checked and had vetted by the secret service yet? This was new territory.
‘You heard me say novice, right? He’s entering it for … for fun, so he’s not another Robbie.’
Her mother shook her head. ‘Robbie never made you break down to your mother, dear. Your gran always said to me, “Marry the man who provokes the biggest reaction.”’
Rebecca frowned, pulling a face.
‘It’s true, you know.’ She looked behind her furtively. ‘When I met your father, he made me so cross sometimes, so mad I could spit. He was my best friend, and my partner. The good bits, the life together, that’s why people bother. Call him. You forgave me, right?’
She went to top up her glass once more, but the bottle was empty. She shrugged, reaching across out of reach of the screen, and coming back into frame with another bottle.
‘Mum!’ Rebecca laughed. ‘Do not open that wine!’
She tucked it under her arm, grabbing her glass.
‘I’m going to see your dad! I can have another.’ Picking the phone up, she made a kissing action at the screen. ‘I’m celebrating today. My daughter loves me, and she has a boyfriend.’
Rebecca kissed the screen back.
‘Bye Mum.’
When the camera went off, Rebecca dialled Luke’s number. It went to voicemail. Shit. She dialled Holly, and she answered on the second ring.
‘Hi, you okay? I’ve been waiting for you to call. Hungover?’ How did she know? ‘Luke said he could hear you in your room, singing the tequila song.’ Cringe. No wonder he’d left.
‘Oh God. Is he there?’
‘Er …’
‘I was mad Holly, I didn’t handle it well. Did you know he’d entered me in the competition?’
‘I didn’t till this morning. I told him off too, but he’s really sorry. He was pretty upset Becks, he thinks you hate him.’
Rebecca jumped out of bed, ignoring the roil of her stomach as she tried to look around for something half decent to wear.
‘I don’t hate him, I …’ She pulled a sweater over her head, not bothering to look for a bra. ‘Oh look, can you keep him there? I’m on my way over.’
‘No!’ She had almost rung off but Holly’s shout stopped her just as she was reaching for a pair of jeans. ‘He’s not here. Becks, I’m sorry. His dad had a fall today, doing physiotherapy.’
‘Frank?’ She shoved one leg through her jeans, and got halfway with the other one before realising that her back pockets were at the front. ‘Is he okay?’
‘Yeah Becks, Frank’s okay. He hurt himself, but … Luke left.’
‘Left to go where?’
Holly sighed, and Rebecca knew what was coming.
‘He left on a flight an hour ago. Hans drove him to the airport. He’s gone home.’