Her phone pinged when she got down to the lake. She stopped and clicked on the message.
Lily had long ago stopped feeling offended that Eleanor never signed off with x, let alone xx. She wondered if, away from public view, her daughter was more loving with her boyfriend, Paul. They’d been together for three years and Lily had no doubt who had the upper hand in the relationship. They’d just bought their first flat together in Hove and it sounded as if Eleanor had chosen everything from the location and the number of bedrooms, through to the art they’d hang on the walls. Paul was a nice lad though and he clearly adored Eleanor, so it seemed as if being bossed around was a price he was willing to pay. Anyway, when it came to standing up to her daughter, Lily was in no position to criticise.
She didn’t mention Oliver, that would really set the cat among the pigeons. As she carried on walking down the hill, her phone pinged again almost immediately.
Lily could hear the exasperation in her daughter’s words as clearly as if she was standing beside her saying them.
The blue text icon started flashing: Eleanor is typing her phone helpfully informed her. Lily stood watching it; this message was a longer one. Why didn’t she have the strength to carry on walking and ignore her daughter?
‘Oh, does he indeed!’ Lily said out loud, glaring down at the screen. ‘Well, he can just sod off!’
A woman walking past, stared at her, but Lily was too angry to care. This was typical of Eleanor, talking to Nick about what was going on; and it was typical of Nick to wade in with an opinion. Of course he was going to agree with his daughter that Lily wasn’t being sensible; in the twenty-eight years they’d known each other, he had rarely given her credit for anything. But this was none of his bloody business! Come to that, it wasn’t any of Eleanor’s business either.
She swiped to delete the message notification and turned off the phone, shoving it into her pocket and marching on around the lake, blood pumping through her temples. She should be used to her ex-husband and daughter ganging up on her – she was used to it. But it still hurt. She couldn’t remember a time when the two of them hadn’t seemed pitted against her in every sense of the word and, while the father/daughter alliance had been hard enough to bear while she and Nick were still married, it was even more galling now. He hadn’t been part of her life for years, so he had no right to offer an opinion on how she lived it.
The trouble was, Eleanor didn’t see it that way. She had been the ultimate daddy’s girl when she was growing up – from the moment she’d started talking and taking her first steps, Eleanor was Nick’s little princess. Lily adored her daughter, but she could also see the need for creating boundaries and setting rules. Nick, on the other hand, behaved like some throwback hippie parent from the sixties, insisting rules were wrong for children and too much dull routine would rot Eleanor’s young brain. Lily found it infuriating, and was convinced he only said those things to wind her up. Which it did. But their clashing parenting styles quickly drove a wedge more deeply into what was already a rift in their relationship. By the time Eleanor was toddling around on her little chubby legs, poking sticky fingers into electric sockets and upending bowls of cereal on top of her own head, her parents were at loggerheads most of the time.
Nick told Lily she was too hard, too controlling; he indulged while Lily tried to discipline, he praised everything Eleanor did, while whatever Lily said was taken as criticism. Petulant, spoilt behaviour from their daughter was always Lily’s fault, because Nick insisted she was handling the situation badly. She hated being cast as the bad cop, but it invariably ended up that way. She’d always wanted more than one child and, as Eleanor got older, that desire intensified. She didn’t care whether it was a boy or a girl, she just longed for another baby who would even things up a little. Their next child would be calmer than Eleanor, more rational, less needy. She was determined that, second time around, she would do a better job and make sure she and Nick treated this next baby differently, not over-indulging to the point where their lives were ruled by their child, instead of vice versa.
But she never got pregnant again. Many years later, she looked back on that period in their lives and wondered if it was the stress and unhappiness which had been messing her up physically, as well as mentally. But realistically, she didn’t get pregnant because she and Nick were rarely sleeping together. To all intents and purposes, the marriage was over long before Eleanor was old enough to start school, and Nick’s affairs were numerous and invariably blatant by that time – even though Lily tried not to let herself acknowledge them.
The late afternoon sun on the water was beautiful and, despite her anger, she was cheered by the sight of it. Some sailing boats were moored at the edge of the lake, and gulls shrieked as they swooped down to gather up crumbs left by picnickers along the shore. She lifted her face as she walked, catching the last rays of sunshine and enjoying how the warmth stroked her skin and made it tingle.
Although Eleanor still consulted her father about everything, and shared her disapproval of most of what her mother did or said, Lily knew Nick didn’t care. He had moved on and whatever had gone wrong in their marriage, or with their joint parenting, was ancient history. But, of course, he still felt entitled to give his opinion and make sure Lily knew about it.
She often wished she could be as relaxed about it all, but her exclusion from their family unit and her ongoing unhappiness had underpinned everything the three of them did together. It was only when she looked back on Eleanor’s childhood, years later, that she was able to understand the damage it had done to her own relationship with her daughter. After Nick left, she and Eleanor – then in her early years at secondary school – struggled to get along, but by that time the pattern of their dysfunctional relationship was already too established and raging teenage hormones and resentment on all sides did nothing to make life any easier. Lily loved Eleanor and longed to find a way to improve the frostiness between them, but her daughter’s lack of respect for her, coupled with her adoration of the father who’d walked out on them, made her feel she’d failed as a mother.
The sun was now setting on the other side of the lake, throwing beams of orange and burnt umber across the darkening water. The wind had dropped but it was chilly and Lily pulled her coat more tightly around her. Up ahead was a hotel called The Hamilton, with beautifully tended window boxes and a pretty little garden to one side. It looked smart but by no means exclusive. She stood and stared through the windows, which were lit by the soft glow of table lamps, and before she knew it, she was walking up to the front door. She would have one quick drink, as a reward for her long day of driving and all the accompanying angst of dealing with Moira’s unpredictable behaviour.
When she pushed open the door she was hit by a gust of warm air and a subtle combination of wood smoke and furniture polish. The place was quiet, with just a few tables in the bar occupied.
‘Gin and tonic, please,’ she said to the barman.
‘Double?’ He smiled back.
‘Why not.’
She had brought her bag with her, but her book was in the suitcase, still sitting unpacked on the bed in the rear bedroom at the guest house. Not wanting to sit and drink with nothing to do, she grabbed a newspaper from a pile at the end of the bar, and took it to a free table. A group of women were further along on one side, their heads bent forward in animated discussion over glasses of wine. A man was sitting alone at a table on the other side. He glanced up as Lily sat down and she smiled at him, mellowed by the clink of the ice in her glass and the prospect of a quiet hour to herself. She tended to catch up with the news through her phone and the television, and rarely read a newspaper. It made a nice change to flick slowly through the pages, reading about other people’s lives and crises that were far removed from her own worries about Moira and Eleanor. There were graphic photographs of a riot in a South American capital city and looking at them made her feel small, reminding her how minor her domestic dramas were, when compared to the hell going on in other people’s lives.
After half an hour, she reached for her glass and realised it was empty. Damn it, she was going to have another gin. It didn’t seem entirely responsible, sitting here while Moira was on her own back at the guest house; she felt like a schoolgirl who’d bunked off double chemistry. But her mother had suggested she go out and have a couple of hours to herself. Anyway, Moira was probably already asleep, and there was definitely no point Lily hanging around at the Glenmorrow on her own. The only place to go was the residents’ lounge and, if she popped in there to test out the sofas and tiny television, she risked getting dragged into the dining room by Archie and Joan to sample some of their spectacularly mediocre home cooking.
The thought of food made her realise her stomach was rumbling.
‘Can I eat here?’ she asked the barman, as she paid for her gin.
‘Of course, go on through to the dining room,’ he said, pointing towards an archway. ‘Monday evenings are always quiet, no need to book.’
As a waitress showed her to a small table in the corner, Lily realised the man who’d been drinking in the bar had moved in here as well. He was at the next table, tucking into a plate piled high with meat, potatoes and vegetables and he grinned as he looked up and caught her eye.
‘I can recommend the pork casserole,’ he said. ‘This place has the best menu in Keswick.’
‘Thanks, I might go for that,’ she said.
She had worked her way through the newspaper, so folded it over and studied the crossword while she waited. The clues were ridiculously complicated – or maybe she was just tired – but by the time her food arrived, she’d only managed two answers.
‘Would you like some wine with your meal?’ asked the waitress, as she set down the plate.
‘A glass of Pinot Grigio would be lovely,’ said Lily.
She began to eat, thinking again about Eleanor’s text. There was no point dwelling on it, but she couldn’t get the hurtful words out of her mind. If Moira had been here, she would have told her about it, needing to share the hurt and seek reassurance that she wasn’t being oversensitive. Over the years her mother had always been Lily’s champion, constantly offering support and bolstering her against Nick’s criticism and disparagement. After he dropped his bombshell, packed his bags and left Lily for the first of several younger models, Moira had hardly been able to contain her rage. ‘He was never good enough for you,’ she said. ‘I could murder him for treating you so badly.’ But, of course, they both had to swallow their anger, because while Nick was moving into a pretty little mews house with a woman half his age, Lily and Moira were left to pick up the pieces and their main priority had to be the disturbed, wounded – yet still ferocious – twelve-year-old child whose father had left her. So, they put their own feelings to one side and tried to adjust to the new normal, which – with hindsight – ensured that Eleanor’s self-centred, egotistical view of the world, was never challenged.
‘Excuse me?’
Lily jumped at the voice right next to her.
‘This is really cheeky and I promise I don’t normally do this sort of thing. But I saw you sitting here on your own, digesting your pork casserole, and I’m sitting over there on my own, doing the same. I wondered if you’d mind if I joined you, while we finish our drinks, and we can do some digesting together?’
Lily stared up at the man who’d been at the next table. She was so taken aback, she couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘God, that was naff, sorry.’ He looked so appalled at himself, that she started to laugh.
‘It was fine until you got to the bit about digesting.’
‘I know.’ He shook his head. ‘Mutual digesting. Jesus, I’m so embarrassed.’
‘Sit down. Please.’ Lily pointed to the free chair on the other side of the table.
He pulled it out and sat, setting down his glass of red wine in front of him. ‘I’m Jake,’ he said, reaching out his hand.
‘Lily.’ She smiled, taking it. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘Apologies. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever come out with something that cheesy in my life.’
She laughed again. ‘I’m flattered you thought I was worth the effort. How long did it take you to come up with all that digesting stuff?’
‘Hours,’ he said. ‘I’ve been planning it since I saw you walk into the bar.’
He had the most amazing brown eyes. Lily found herself staring at them for slightly too long, and lowered her own eyes to the table again, feeling a flush spread across her cheeks.
‘Are you staying here?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘I wish! I’m staying at a guest house, further up the hill. I was out walking and saw this place and thought I deserved a drink. Then it somehow turned into dinner.’
‘The pork was good though, wasn’t it?’
‘It was very good, thanks for the recommendation.’
As he grinned back at her, she noticed the laughter lines spreading out from the edges of his eyes, his skin still lightly tanned from the summer. He had dark hair, with a few flecks of grey, but it was hard to tell how old he was – possibly mid to late-forties, like her?
‘So, what are you doing in Keswick, Lily?’ he was asking. ‘Here for work? On holiday?’
‘Just passing through,’ she said, as she lifted her glass to her lips and stared at him over the top of it. ‘I’ve never been here before, it’s beautiful.’
For some reason, she was strangely reluctant to tell this handsome stranger about the road trip or the fact that she had an elderly mother tucked up in bed, half a mile away. It was exciting to be having a conversation with a man who knew nothing about her, but who had liked the look of her enough to risk being knocked back when he asked to sit at her table in a restaurant. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before.
‘You’re lucky with the weather,’ he was saying. ‘It’s not always so sunny at this time of year.’
‘It was beautiful, looking out over the lake this evening,’ she said, twisting the stem of her wine glass between her thumb and forefinger. She was rubbish at small talk, and he clearly wasn’t much better. Her heart was beating slightly faster than usual and she felt light-headed – mostly because of the alcohol, but also because of the way this good-looking man was leaning towards her across the table, his brown eyes seeming to bore right into her soul.
‘Fancy another one?’ he asked, glancing down at her empty glass.
She smiled across at him. ‘Why not?’