‘Stop!’ Moira yelled, banging her palms on the dashboard.
‘Jesus, Mum!’ Lily slammed her foot onto the brake pedal and the campervan shuddered as it slowed down. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘We’ve got to go back!’ Moira was turning around in the passenger seat, staring through the rear window at the stretch of road they’d just driven along.
‘Why?’ Lily’s heart was thundering almost as loudly as the cars that were flying past them as they sat on the side of the dual carriageway. A horn blared out as a lorry rumbled by, the flow of air rocking the van.
‘I just saw the road where the Ritz was!’
‘What the hell is the Ritz?’
‘The dance hall, Lily! The one where your father used to take me. Quickly, turn round, we need to go back, it’s down there on the other side.’
More horns blasted as Lily moved back into the traffic. ‘There’s a roundabout up ahead, I’ll turn there. Honestly, Mum, you nearly gave me a heart attack.’
‘Never mind that, go back. That’s it. Down here. Keep going. Now, do you see that turning up ahead? That’s the one.’
Lily pulled off the main road. Moira was leaning forward in her seat, pointing. ‘Up there. Then take a right. Now pull into that car park.’
Lily cut the engine and they sat in silence for a few seconds. ‘Mum,’ she said, gently. ‘This can’t be it.’
‘I’m sure it is.’
‘But this is an Asda superstore?’
Moira was shaking her head and tutting. ‘This is the Ritz Dance Hall, I remember it as if it was yesterday. We used to park over there, by those trees. Thursday was always a popular night. You could hear the music playing as soon as you got out of the car.’
Lily reached across and put her hand on her mother’s arm. ‘I think you may have got this wrong. Or maybe it’s just not here anymore? It was probably knocked down to make way for the supermarket.’
‘I have not got anything wrong,’ snapped Moira, pulling her arm away. Before Lily had a chance to react, her mother had unclipped her seat belt, opened the passenger door of the van, stepped down onto the tarmac and was making her way across the car park, the edges of her coat flapping behind her.
‘Shit!’ Lily muttered. ‘Mum, come back here!’ She got out and began to follow, running back to the van when she realised she’d forgotten to lock it. By the time she was halfway across the car park, Moira was disappearing through the supermarket’s huge sliding entrance doors.
It was now Sunday afternoon and it seemed as if the entire population of Gloucestershire had picked this particular time to do a weekly shop. Lily pushed her way past people who were coming out through the doors, apologising as she bumped against their over-stacked trolleys, her eyes darting backwards and forwards as she looked for Moira’s dark red coat.
‘Hey, watch it!’ said a man with a small child balanced on one hip and a bag of shopping in the other hand.
‘I’m sorry!’ Lily said. ‘I’ve lost my mother.’
She ran through the fruit and vegetable section, then along the back of the store, aware of the pungent smell of freshly baked bread as she stopped at the top of the dairy aisle, peering through the crowds of shoppers. She could feel panic rising in her chest and her breath was coming in jags. There were so many people, she was never going to find her like this. She ran down the aisle, banging her hip against one trolley and sending it spinning into another. ‘Sorry!’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Really sorry!’
At the far end, by the tills, she looked up and down again. No sign. Turning the corner, she ran up the length of the next aisle. Then the one after that. She went past pasta and packets of soup, then past home baking and tinned fruit. Ahead of her was the bakery section and, as she got near, she noticed some sort of commotion going on and a woman was shouting. Heads were turning and at the top of the aisle shoppers were moving to get a closer look at whatever was happening just around the corner. Lily squeezed past a family with young children and spotted a flash of burgundy up ahead, just as she realised the woman’s voice was terrifyingly familiar.
‘Get your bloody hands off me!’
‘Madam, you can’t do that.’
‘Don’t you tell me what I can or can’t do, young man. How old are you? You look about fifteen, shouldn’t you be in school?’
Moira was standing beside a security guard; she was clutching a half-eaten doughnut, while vigorously trying to shake off the guard’s hand which was curled tightly around her upper arm.
‘Let go of me, you fucker! Get off my arm!’
‘Calm down, lady,’ the guard said. ‘There’s no need for language like that.’
‘Fucking fuckwit!’ yelled Moira. ‘You’re hurting me!’
The children beside Lily were sniggering, and a young couple were laughing out loud while the man pulled a phone from his pocket.
‘Please, let go of her!’ Lily said, walking forward. ‘This is my mother. I’m sure she hasn’t done anything wrong. Mum, what are you doing? What have you got there?’
Standing to one side was a woman wearing a hairnet and a plastic apron over an Asda T-shirt. ‘She stole that doughnut!’ she said, pointing at Moira. ‘Picked it up off the counter and took a big bite out of it. When I told her she had to pay for food before she ate it, she stuck up two fingers and walked away, bold as brass.’
‘I stuck up one finger, you idiot!’ Moira shouted.
‘Oh God, I’m so sorry.’ Lily grabbed the doughnut Moira was waving in the air and passed it back to the woman. ‘She’s not well and doesn’t always know what she’s doing.’
‘I’m fine!’ yelled Moira. ‘Give that back to me!’
‘She’s taken a bite out of that, you need to pay for it!’ the woman said, holding up her palms in front of her as if to ward off the offending doughnut.
‘It’s custard! I like ones with custard in the middle.’
Lily pulled her purse from her coat pocket and pulled out a five-pound note. ‘Here, this should cover it. I’m really sorry.’
‘I can’t take that. You need to pay at the till!’ snorted the woman. ‘What are you trying to do, get me sacked?’
‘No! Of course not. Look, we’ll pay on the way out. I’m really sorry again, for causing all this trouble.’ The security guard – who actually did only look about fifteen – had dropped Moira’s arm and stepped back; Lily threw him a grateful look and put her arm around her mother’s shoulders. ‘Come on, let’s get back to the van.’
‘What about my custard doughnut?’
‘You can have it when we get outside. I need to pay for it first.’
‘I don’t want it outside, I want it now!’
Lily pulled her mother through the crowd of gawping onlookers, knowing her own face was scarlet. The young man with the phone was now taking photos and she glared at him, imagining herself reaching out and knocking the mobile from his hand so it shattered into hundreds of pieces on the polished tile floor.
People were laughing out loud behind them, and she could hear the woman from the bakery counter talking indignantly to the security guard. Suddenly Moira stopped and shrugged off Lily’s arm. ‘It’s here somewhere, I know it. Maybe on the other side.’ She started walking back the way they’d come and Lily followed her. ‘It’s definitely here.’
‘Mum, please! Where are you going?’
Moira turned into the next aisle, which was lined with washing powder and conditioner.
‘There was a band at one end, up on a stage with a bar along the far wall,’ she called back over her shoulder. ‘Your father bought me Campari and soda, that was my favourite drink. I always had a Campari and soda before the dancing started, then I’d have another one in the break. I was sometimes a little tipsy by the time we finished. All that spinning around, with your father doing that sexy thing with his hips.’
She suddenly stopped in the middle of the aisle, and a woman glared at her as she was forced to move her trolley to one side. Lily caught up and took Moira by the arm again. Her expression had changed. She no longer looked animated; now her brow was furrowed and she was staring around her in confusion. ‘I don’t know what’s happened, Lily. Why are we here?’
‘Come on,’ Lily said. ‘Let’s get back to the van.’
‘Why did I come into this place?’
‘I’m not entirely sure, Mum, to be honest. But let’s leave now.’
She dragged Moira towards the self-service tills, where she handed the five-pound note to a bemused looking shop assistant. ‘It’s for this doughnut,’ she said. ‘Keep the change.’
‘I can’t do that!’ the assistant called after them. ‘You have to scan it through the till.’
‘Can you do it, please?’ Lily called over her shoulder, pulling Moira towards the entrance doors.
By the time they got back to the van, Moira was walking so slowly that Lily felt she was half carrying her. She helped her up into the passenger seat and gently pushed a strand of white hair back from her mother’s forehead. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, reaching for the seat belt and pulling it gently across her body.
Moira looked at her and smiled. ‘Oh yes. I’m right as rain.’
‘Good,’ Lily said. ‘Then let’s get away from here.’
Even though they were out of that place, she was still trembling and her heart was racing. She couldn’t stop thinking about the expressions on the faces of all those shoppers as they’d gathered around Moira like spectators at a circus. The disbelief, the amusement and – in some cases – the contempt. There had probably also been a few sympathetic faces: people who understood what they were going through. But if so, Lily hadn’t noticed them. The whole thing had been horrible. As she put the keys into the ignition and the van engine roared into life, she made herself take several deep breaths. It was over now; everything was going to be all right. That scene had been upsetting and worrying, but none of it was Moira’s fault.
Putting the van into gear, Lily remembered the text she’d sent to Gordon this morning:
Maybe that had been a little premature after all.