It was a long time since Lily had driven Moira further than the doctor’s surgery or the local supermarket, and during those ten-minute journeys she had never thought much about her mother’s credentials as a travelling companion. But now that the two of them were buckled in, side by side, feeling every bump in the road and having to yell to make themselves heard above the roaring engine and the rattling interior of the campervan, going on a journey with Moira had taken on a whole new meaning.
Lily considered herself a patient human being; tolerance was something she possessed in spades. But by the time they’d crossed the Severn Bridge, she was at the point where she would scream if her mother made one more comment about the idiocy of the radio DJ, the lunacy of other motorists, or the way Lily herself was driving.
‘Look at that one! He’s going far too fast. He’s going to get stopped by the police… Did you see that grey lorry? He shouldn’t be in the outside lane. Who is this stupid bloody man on the radio? Why doesn’t he stop talking and let us listen to the music? Not that it’s very good music. Although I like this one by Abba. You know this one, don’t you, Lily? I remember the two girls were wearing those flared pantsuits when they sang it. Whatever happened to pantsuits? Lily, I think you’re too near to that car in front – you won’t be able to stop if it brakes suddenly!’
When they came off the motorway, Lily breathed a sigh of relief as the engine noise decreased; at least her mother could bend her ear at a normal volume now. She wound down her window and took several deep breaths in and out, relaxing her shoulders and trying to connect with her inner calm as she changed the radio station and found something soothing and classical.
‘I’ve never been to Chepstow,’ she said. ‘Can we have a look around first, before we go and find the house where you and Dad lived?’
‘Well, it’s not a very interesting town.’ Moira sniffed.
‘You’ve always said it was lovely?’
‘I don’t think I did, Lily. I would definitely remember if I’d liked Chepstow. It looks like a bit of a dump to me.’
They parked and had a walk around the castle, then sat outside a café, sharing a piece of cake and gazing up at the imposing stone ramparts towering above the river, the air filled with the cackling of rooks floating high up on the thermals.
‘When were you last here?’ asked Lily, spooning the chocolate sprinkles off the top of her cappuccino.
‘We left in the mid-seventies,’ said Moira. ‘When your dad got a new job. While we lived here, he was working for Cadw, as a groundsman at the castle. There wasn’t a lot happening socially though. Every Thursday night we used to drive up to Gloucester, to go dancing.’
‘I never knew that?’
‘He was a lovely dancer, your father. Very light on his feet. We went to the Ritz Dance Hall and we’d spend the whole evening whirling around.’ Moira raised her cup and circled it around in the air.
‘Mum, you’re spilling coffee on me!’
‘We did the quickstep and the fox trot – and the rhumba! Oh, my word, how your father could gyrate his hips to the rhumba. He was a very sexy man, you know.’
‘Please, stop.’ Lily dropped her head into her hands.
‘Anyway.’ Moira put her cup back down on its saucer. ‘Let’s go and find 14 Mount View. I’m looking forward to this. I wonder if the people who live there now will let us inside to have a look round? It was our first home, you know, did I tell you that?’
‘Many times.’
‘I ran up some curtains for the kitchen window – they were the only things I’d ever made and the material had big red flowers on. They didn’t quite meet in the middle, and one was shorter than the other, but I was very proud of them.’
As they got up from the table, Lily pulled out her phone. ‘Let’s have a quick picture of you, Mum, with the castle in the background.’
‘Good idea,’ said Moira, pulling her coat tightly across her body with one hand and throwing out her other arm to indicate the towering ramparts behind her. ‘Stilton!’ she yelled, as Lily took the photo.
When they got back to the van, Lily’s phone pinged with a text from Gordon:
She tapped out a quick reply:
They got into the campervan and drove through the town. Moira was leaning forward in her seat, directing. ‘Down here to the end, then take the next right.’
‘I’m impressed you still remember the way after all these years!’
‘Oh, that little shop is still there! It used to be run by such a lovely man. Alan, I think his name was. Or Aled? This is it, this road just here. The house is about halfway along on the left: number 14.’
Lily pulled up outside a small semi-detached house and they both sat and stared at it.
‘Oh dear,’ said Moira.
The grass on the front lawn was knee-high and littered with brightly coloured children’s toys. What had once been a flowerbed was now so overgrown that the shrubs in it lurched towards the sky, untamed green tendrils shooting out at angles, like water spouting from a fountain. A section of guttering was hanging below the roof, and a pane in one of the upstairs windows was broken, with a piece of cardboard flapping across it. They could hear music coming from inside the house, a pounding bass as regular as a heartbeat.
‘Shall we knock?’ asked Lily. ‘We can ask to go in and take a look round?’
Moira shook her head violently. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘It might be better inside, maybe they’re the kind of people who don’t like gardening.’
‘No, let’s go,’ said Moira, reaching for her seat belt.
‘Sure?’
Her mother nodded, keeping her head down, fiddling with the belt.
Lily started the engine and pulled away from the kerb, accelerating as soon as she had left the small estate and was back on the main road. For a few minutes, neither of them spoke.
‘There were all those toys in the garden, so they obviously had young children,’ Lily said, eventually. ‘It can be hard work, keeping everything together when you’ve got a family.’
Moira didn’t answer; she was staring the other way, through the side window. Lily glanced at her, suspecting she might be crying, but unable to see her face.
They drove on in silence for a few more minutes.
‘The state of that border!’ Moira said, suddenly. ‘I remember planting some roses in that flowerbed, when we moved in. They were beautiful. We pruned them every winter and the scent was wonderful. Such a waste. And there was ivy all over the side wall – did you see that? It’s going to get into the brickwork if they’re not careful.’
‘I know,’ said Lily. ‘It’s a real shame.’
Moira reached into her bag and pulled out her notebook and pencil, bending her head over the pages as she wrote. ‘Bloody idiots,’ she muttered. ‘Bloody selfish idiots.’
Lily was furious with herself – why hadn’t she done more research before they set out? She could have looked on that street view website, then she would have realised the house was in a mess. She might not have been able to persuade Moira not to visit, but at the very least she could have prepared her for the shock.
‘Where are we off to now?’ Lily asked, brightly. ‘We’re going towards Gloucester but do I need to get onto the motorway?’
‘Maybe,’ muttered Moira, her head still over her notebook.
‘Mum! You said we were staying in Worcester – is that right?’
‘We are going to stay with Oliver,’ Moira announced.
‘Oliver? Who the hell is that?’
‘He’s an old friend.’
‘What kind of old friend?’
‘How many different kinds of old friends are there? Honestly, Lily, you can be very stupid sometimes.’ Moira sighed and shook her head.
‘Charming, thank you. When did you last see him?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Years ago. Years and years. When you were a little girl. I think he came to see us once when we lived in Yorkshire.’
‘So, the two of you haven’t actually seen each other for more than forty years? Wow, this is going to be interesting. Why have I never heard you talk about him?’
‘You don’t know everything about my life, Lily! There are many things I’ve never spoken to you about.’
Lily sighed. ‘No, I realise that, but I do need to know where Oliver lives. Have you got his address?’
Moira tutted and raised her eyes. ‘Of course I have. Sometimes you treat me like a five-year-old.’ She reached down into her bag again and pulled out a scrap of paper. ‘Here you are.’
Lily pinned the note to the steering wheel with one hand and glanced down at it. ‘Wolverhampton? Mum, you said Worcester!’
‘No,’ Moira said. ‘I most definitely said Wolverhampton.’
‘Fine, whatever. Does this Oliver person actually know we’re coming to stay?’
‘Of course. It’s all arranged, I wrote him a letter.’
‘But did you hear back from him?’
Lily’s phone pinged as a text came in and she glanced at the dashboard. Although only part of the message was showing, she could see it was from Eleanor. She reached up and swiped to clear the screen. She certainly wasn’t going to respond to that for a while; she was still angry about yesterday’s phone call, the way her daughter had shrieked at them both and tried to bully them into abandoning the trip.
‘You shouldn’t let her boss you around, you know.’ Moira had guessed who the text was from. ‘She doesn’t treat you very nicely.’
‘I know,’ Lily said. ‘But I don’t think she’s ever going to change. My daughter is a force of nature.’
‘For years you let Nick get the better of you. Now Eleanor does the same.’
‘I know, Mum,’ Lily said. ‘You don’t need to tell me that.’
‘Well, you should do something about it then.’
Lily changed gear more forcefully than was necessary, and the van stuttered and nearly stalled. She knew Moira was right, but she wasn’t in the mood to hear it. Eleanor had always been so much more like her father than like Lily. She could hear her daughter’s voice in her ear, during their phone conversation a couple of days ago, telling her to have some backbone and stand up to Moira. The irony of it all wasn’t lost on her. Thirteen years after the divorce, Nick’s voice still rang in her ear, coming out with the sort of belittling things he’d said to her dozens of times during their marriage: ‘You’re such a pushover, Lily. You should learn to stand up for yourself.’
It still stung, even after all this time. The memory of how he had constantly put her down was like an open wound that never quite healed. Over the years it would stop itching for a while and she would almost forget about it, then something would fire it up again; usually Eleanor would make some throwaway comment about how amazing her dad was or what a good time the two of them had recently had together – and Lily would be right back where she’d started: vulnerable, insecure and desperate to scratch at an old itch that had never really gone away.