‘Chepstow,’ said Moira. ‘That has to be on the list. It was where your father and I lived after we got married – we had a little house on the edge of town.’
‘I remember you telling me.’ Lily reached for the bottle of wine and topped up their glasses. ‘The one with the pond?’
‘No, that was the cottage in Yorkshire. We moved there later.’
‘Right.’ Lily sipped at her wine, knowing she shouldn’t. She had the beginnings of a headache, a dull throb at the base of her skull, which wasn’t likely to go away until she took a couple of paracetamol and collapsed into bed. Helping her mother finish off this bottle of Merlot in a noisy bar wasn’t going to do the trick.
‘And we must go to Mull,’ Moira was saying. ‘That’s where we went on honeymoon. It was June and we’d been warned about the midges, but they were a nightmare. It felt as if we were being eaten alive. Your dad and I had so many bites around our ankles, it looked like we were wearing pink socks. Little fuck buggers.’
‘Mum, stop swearing!’
‘You’d call them little fuck buggers if they’d bitten your feet to pieces.’
‘I wouldn’t. Anyway, I’m not sure we can go all the way to Scotland.’
‘It is a lot of driving,’ said Moira. ‘But we’ll break it up by staying in nice hotels along the way. I’m paying for all of this, it’s my treat. I don’t want you to worry about a thing.’
‘That’s sweet of you.’ Lily smiled across at her mother, aware that Moira’s idea of not worrying about a thing was possibly rather different to her own. So far, she hadn’t been able to think of anything about this trip that wasn’t fraught with potential anxiety. First, there was the state of her beloved VW campervan; despite the fact that she had it regularly serviced, it was notoriously temperamental. The other week it had stalled while she was waiting at lights on the busy junction in front of the Brighton Pavilion. In her panic to start it again, Lily had flooded the engine and eventually a couple of students had pushed her and the van to the side of the road while drivers on all sides swore and hit their horns. Even when it was running well, the van wasn’t particularly comfortable; the suspension was about as forgiving as a metal dustbin lid and, although Lily had bought padded covers for the front seats, they were still awkward to sit on for long periods of time. Another potential source of worry was the fact that she didn’t know if she’d be able to take the time off work – she was still plucking up the courage to mention any of this to Gordon, and the longer she left it, the more awkward she felt about asking to go away at such short notice.
But these were minor issues when put beside her mother’s state of mind and her physical and mental ability to deal with any kind of journey. Moira really meant it when she said she didn’t want Lily to have to worry about a thing, but she was blissfully unaware of quite how stressed her daughter was feeling, and the fact that for the last couple of nights she had woken up in a cold sweat shortly before dawn, panicking about what was being planned.
But Lily knew this was all immaterial. She had promised Moira they could make this trip – and told Eleanor the damn thing was going ahead – so she needed to put all the negatives to the back of her mind.
‘Right. If we’re really doing this, we’ll need an itinerary,’ she said. ‘We can’t set off without any planning.’ She took another slug of Merlot and pulled a pad and biro from her bag.
‘There’s no need.’ Moira tapped her forehead with her finger. ‘I’ve got it all up here.’
‘That’s as maybe, but I want to know where I’m going. I need it all properly mapped out and organised. You mentioned Cirencester, where you and Dad got married. If we start by heading there, it means we’ll go around the M25, then west along the M4. From there, I don’t think it’s too far to drive to Chepstow.’
‘See.’ Moira smiled. ‘Easy-peasy. I knew you’d sort it out. This is all going to be wonderful. I’ve bought myself a new notebook from WHSmith, with margins in it, and I’m going to use that when we set off, to start writing my book.’
A group of men chatting at the table beside them exploded into raucous laughter and Lily flinched and rubbed her temples.
‘We must go to the Norfolk Broads!’ exclaimed Moira. ‘We had a wonderful holiday there, while I was pregnant with you, although I was so ill, I kept being sick over the side of the boat and your father fell in once, when we were trying to dock.’
‘Really? I’ve never heard that before.’
‘It wasn’t very deep, he only fell in up to his knees.’
‘We’re definitely not hiring a boat, I’m not good on water.’
‘Then there was that holiday cottage in the Peak District we rented for a month, after you’d gone off to university.’
‘Hang on,’ said Lily. ‘We can’t fit in all this, Mum. We can visit the places you used to live, obviously. But if we went everywhere you’ve been on holiday, we’d be away for months.’
The men at the next table roared with laughter again and Moira tutted and shook her head. ‘How antisocial!’ She turned in her chair and jabbed the shoulder of the man sitting nearest to her. ‘Will you kindly keep the fucking noise down,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘My daughter and I can’t hear ourselves think.’
The man’s mouth dropped open as he stared at the diminutive, white-haired lady, whose finger was still prodding him.
‘Mum, stop that! I’m so sorry.’ Lily smiled at him, and reached across to brush Moira’s hand away. ‘She’s… um… she’s very sensitive to noise.’
The man’s confusion had now turned to irritation, but he was clearly too polite to react.
‘This is a public bar, love!’ one of his friends called across. ‘If you don’t like it, go and sit in a library.’
‘They don’t serve red wine in libraries, you bloody idiot!’ Moira yelled back.
‘Right, that’s it, we’re leaving.’ Lily shoved her pad and pen into her bag, stood up and went round to the other side of the table, putting her hand under Moira’s arm. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m sorry again,’ she said to the table of men, some of whom were starting to laugh. She hoisted Moira to her feet, pulled her coat from the back of the chair and began to guide her away. The rowdy laughter followed them to the door and she could still hear it when they were standing outside on the pavement.
‘Honestly!’ huffed Moira. ‘What rude people. There was no need for behaviour like that.’
To her surprise, Lily found herself smiling. ‘You’re right, they were out of order.’
It was strange, she thought, as they walked towards the van parked at the far end of the pub car park, the mother she’d known and loved all her life would never have lost her rag like that in a crowded bar. Moira had always been unerringly polite; if anything, overly aware of social mores. The idea of causing any kind of scene in a public place would have horrified and appalled her, and she would have been mortified if her daughter had ever spoken out of turn in public. But now Lily wasn’t sure if her mother had any idea how badly she was behaving, or if she’d just stopped caring. Either way, it was upsetting and hard to deal with.
Over the last year it had felt as if Moira was developing a dual personality. Lily had begun to think of her as Good Mum/Bad Mum, and was never sure which she’d get on a daily basis. Of course, it wasn’t nearly that simple: Bad Mum wasn’t bad, she was just naughty sometimes – and extremely rude.
As they drove out of the car park, the men who’d been sitting at the next table were pouring out of the pub onto the pavement. One of them recognised Moira sitting in the passenger seat of the van, and he stood by the edge of the road waving at her and grinning.
Moira stuck her middle finger up at him through the window. ‘Fucker,’ she shouted.