See You In September

It was Tara who first sounded the alarm. Tara, stomping into the kitchen with a mug in her hand and disgust on her face.

‘My tart of a sister,’ she said. ‘I’ve poked her, I’ve messaged her, I’ve texted her. Not a single word.’

Mike didn’t look up from his paper. ‘She’s got a real life. Doesn’t need to waste hours glued to a screen.’

Tara curled her lip at him before turning to Diana. ‘You heard from her, Mum?’

‘She was meant to send photos of Hamish skydiving.’ Tara tipped the remains of her morning cuppa down the sink. She didn’t really like tea, though Diana doggedly delivered a mug to her room each morning, out of a need to be nurturing. ‘Selfish bitch.’

Sometimes, thought Diana, it was hard to believe her two daughters came from the same stable. Cassy was the easy one, even as a baby, always trying to please. Tara came into the world screaming with colic and didn’t much care whose toes she trampled on. Her features were sharper than her sister’s. So was her tongue.

‘Okay, Dad,’ she said coolly. ‘I’ll rephrase. Selfish. Self-centred. Witch.’

‘If you worked half as hard as Cassy did at school, you’d have a future as bright as hers.’

Tara had a summer holiday job as a waitress in a local café. The dress code was black but beyond that, it seemed, there were no rules. Her skirt stopped several inches above her knees, and her makeup was frankly … what was the word? Tawdry. She’d come home the previous week with more ear piercings—three in each, now. Mike was pretending he hadn’t noticed.

‘You’ve got a point though,’ he said, folding his paper. ‘Cassy hasn’t reported in for a while.’

He sounded irritated. He wasn’t used to things not happening in an ordered way. You’d think being father to two children would have taught him something about chaos, but he was a slow learner when it came to human frailty.

Diana picked up the phone. ‘Okay, well, let’s give her a bell. It’s … um, nine in the evening over there.’

Hi. This is Cassy. Either my phone’s switched off, or I’m out of credit. Leave a message. Bye.

Mike looked at his watch and mumbled, ‘Bloody hell, is that the time?’ Two minutes later, husband and daughter had slammed their way through the front door, hurrying to work and railway station, leaving a hum of silence. This is what it will be like when Tara leaves home too, thought Diana as she stacked plates into the dishwasher. The empty nest. And what about me? What will I have achieved?

She had a degree in history and was training to be a museum curator when she met Mike. Her career had been subsumed by his, because of the frequent relocations of army life. Perhaps she had no right to resent it—she’d known the score when she married him—but sometimes she felt a little bitter all the same. More than a little. She didn’t want that for Cassy or Tara.

Better keep my life full of futile activity, she told herself, or I’ll start to question the point of my existence.

Summer was always a good time for futile activity. As soon as they were settled in South London she’d found part-time work at the local arts centre. Today she had a meeting lined up with the man running the photo booth for the fundraising ball. Apparently, photo booths were mandatory nowadays. People couldn’t just dress up and dance like flapping chickens any more. No, they had to record it for posterity.

Before leaving the house, she sent Cassy another email. Keep it light, she decided. Keep it jolly.

Darling Cassy! I’m just off to work, all’s well here. Hope you’re having fun. What’s the news?? Get in touch when you’ve a moment. Mum xx

At lunchtime, she visited her mother. Joyce lived in a tiny studio in a retirement village. She’d nicknamed it the One-Stop Shop, because people came in able-bodied and bought flats, then descended through the serviced studios, the nursing home, the hospital wing and, finally, the Chapel of Rest.

Joyce’s studio smelled of rose-scented talcum powder and tea. Residents weren’t allowed their own toasters because people kept burning the toast and setting off the fire alarms, and that meant everyone had to be evacuated; but they could have a kettle, and she always put hers on as soon as a visitor arrived.

‘I’ve got chamomile and ginger, Earl Grey or builder’s,’ she said, opening a tea caddy with arthritic hands.

‘Builder’s, please. You know that, Mum. I’ve never had anything different in about forty years.’

‘Always a first time.’ Joyce nodded at the biscuit tin. ‘Have a rich tea. A drink’s too wet without one.’

Diana perched on the edge of the bed. Joyce wouldn’t sit in the lounge. Too many old people, she said, and the telly would make you deaf if you weren’t already.

‘She’s not going to stick with Hamish, is she?’ asked Joyce, settling in the armchair. ‘Hope not.’

She’d been at university when her mother buggered off to save the world, spending the next five years at Greenham Common, camping in a sea of mud from which all men were banned. To Diana and her bewildered father, self-sacrifice had never looked more selfish. Joyce had thrown herself into the nuclear disarmament cause with indecent enthusiasm. She was arrested four times, once in full view of TV cameras. Young Diana—along with half the nation—watched her on the news: wild-haired, passionate, dressed in homespun rags and screaming, I want a safe world for our children! as she was dragged away by two burly policemen.

The world hadn’t felt any safer for it. Diana hadn’t felt proud of her warrior mother. She’d felt abandoned. Sometimes—in her darker moments—she wondered whether she’d married a military man in order to get her own back.

Joyce didn’t look like a warrior any more. Back then she’d been small but upright—defiantly, angrily upright—but over the past decade osteoporosis had left her shrunken and bent. Her hair was white and fluffy, her hands veined. She looked the epitome of a little old lady, and people talked to her as though she were a child. Diana heard a care home manager do that, once. She took the woman aside and showed her a YouTube clip of the arrest at Greenham Common.

‘Cassy needs someone with a bit of spark,’ declared Joyce now. ‘A bit of a rebel. Otherwise she’ll wake up at my age and wonder where her life went.’

‘What d’you want her to do, join hands around an airbase? Make a public exhibition of herself?’

‘Oh dear.’ Joyce took a tissue out of her sleeve, carefully touching it to her mouth. ‘You’re not still harping on about that? It wasn’t easy, you know, it wasn’t a picnic. Some winters we almost died of cold. Do you have any idea how close the human race was to blasting the crust right off the earth, destroying all life forever?’ Joyce held up a thumb and forefinger. ‘This close. The planet’s clock was set at three minutes to midnight.’

‘D’you want to go shopping tomorrow?’ she asked, breaking the silence. ‘Anything you need?’

‘Right.’ Diana forced down the last of her tea—it was still hot and brought tears to her eyes. ‘Fine. Four-thirty?’

Tara stood in the kitchen and held out her phone, so that her parents could see a string of unanswered texts. Then she showed them Cassy’s Facebook page. The most recent update was from Auckland, almost a week earlier. Imogen had tagged Cassy in no less than seven posts about her wedding. The result had been resounding silence.

WHAT HAPPENED TART, DID YOU GET LOST IN MORDOR??? YOUR FAMILY ARE OBVIOUSLY SOOOOO EEFFFFFING BORING NOW L

CASSY? CASSY? CASSSEEEEEEE!!!!!