She hadn’t expected to hear from Jake all day, but still hoped for it. Every time her phone pinged, she grabbed it and swiped to wake up the screen, desperate to see his name appear, only to slump with disappointment when the message was from someone else. Once it was Gordy, another time her friend Rowena. There was even an automated message from Southern Water saying her next direct debit payment was due. But nothing from the one person in the world she wanted to hear from.
It was ridiculous to be on tenterhooks like this – she knew he wasn’t free because, over wine in the Hamilton last night, he’d told her he was going to see his ex-wife to clear up a few final issues; there were documents to be handed over, one last outstanding joint bank account to be closed, a couple of boxes from the house move which had ended up going to her new flat but which belonged to him.
Lily had never met Claire, but she disliked her with an irrational passion. There was absolutely no logic to how she was feeling. Claire and Jake both had copies of their decree absolute, and were starting out on their separate, newly single lives. Jake had told Lily he wasn’t in love with his ex-wife and was glad they’d made the break. But he’d also told her he still loved Claire. That wasn’t surprising – in many ways it was a good thing, because if they cared about each other, it meant the whole business would be less antagonistic and unpleasant. But Lily was surprised at how much it had hurt to hear that. She wouldn’t know Claire if they passed within inches of each other in the street, but the woman’s very existence was like a little dark cloud, sitting over her shoulder, overshadowing whatever it was that had been going on with Jake. Which was madness! Claire and Jake had eleven years of shared history; Lily had known him for precisely six days, which was no time at all. Despite the fact that they’d fallen into bed together on the night they met, they still hardly knew each other; she had no rights over this man. But she didn’t want Jake to love Claire – even as a friend. Over the course of the last six days, she hadn’t been able to stop herself starting to feel very strongly about him. It had been wonderful to snatch an hour and a half in his company last night. He had walked her back up the hill to the Glenmorrow again, once the bottle of wine was finished – she’d been remarkably self-restrained and resisted his attempts to buy them another one – and they stood and hugged beneath the darkness of the trees across the road from the guest house. One long, lingering kiss turning into several more. And ever since she’d woken up this morning, she had been thinking about him and resenting the fact that he couldn’t be with her. She wanted this man she hardly knew to love and adore her – and her alone. It was crazy and baseless and stupidly insecure, but she didn’t want Jake to be spending Sunday with his ex-wife. Especially when she had spent a good proportion of the same Sunday at the bloody Pencil Museum.
‘What now?’ asked Moira, as Lily started the van and they drove back into town.
‘Now, we go back to the Campbells and you rest.’
‘I don’t need to rest, I’m fine.’
‘You start packing then. We’re leaving early tomorrow morning, straight after breakfast. We all need to be ready to get on the road.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ Eleanor announced, from the back. ‘I’ve cancelled that train ticket.’
‘Oh good!’ Lily smiled at her in the rear-view mirror. ‘I’m so pleased. It will make the journey much nicer for us, won’t it, Mum?’
‘I suppose so,’ Moira said. ‘But I have to sit in the front. I get very car sick if I sit in the back of vehicles.’
Lily laughed. ‘Mum, I’ve never known you to get car sick in your life.’
‘You don’t know everything about me, Lily. You think you do, but I’ve got complex needs.’
Lily looked in the rear-view mirror and saw Eleanor grinning back at her and rolling her eyes.
‘Also,’ Moira continued, ‘I’m now fairly old, so my comfort has to be your priority.’
‘Right,’ said Lily. ‘Got it.’
‘And another thing, Eleanor, you can’t keep shouting into that phone of yours. I know what you’re like when you’re working. You yell at people and cause all sorts of commotion.’
‘Granny, that’s ridiculous,’ said Eleanor. ‘I do not yell at anyone. I just have to deal with people who sometimes don’t know their arse from their elbow, and in certain situations I need to sort them out.’
‘Fucking glad I don’t have to work for you,’ said Moira. ‘You’re far too bossy.’
‘My role is very wide ranging and I have a team behind me, so it involves a certain element of management,’ said Eleanor. ‘I need to manage people.’
‘Well, just don’t manage them too loudly,’ Moira said. ‘If you need to run the entire bloody world while we’re driving down the motorway, please do it quietly.’
Eleanor muttered something else behind them, but Lily couldn’t hear what it was.
They were waiting at a set of traffic lights and her phone pinged. She let out a small cry of delight as the screen lit up with his name.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Moira.
‘Nothing. I’m fine.’ She couldn’t read the whole message, but the first line was enough:
The relief of hearing from him was so immense, she could feel her face flushing and her heart rate increasing as blood pounded faster through her veins. How insane to get this excited by one text! But she felt as if someone had just called to tell her she’d won the entire prize fund of this week’s EuroMillions draw. All of a sudden, the sky didn’t look so overcast and the streets of Keswick didn’t look so grey.
‘Lily! People are tooting!’ Moira said.
The lights had turned green. She started to drive forward, but her foot slipped off the clutch and the van stalled; she had to turn the key in the ignition three times before the engine roared back into life. ‘Sorry, sorry!’ she muttered, as horns blared out behind her. They lurched across the junction, just as the lights turned red again.
‘Please don’t drive this badly on the way home,’ said Eleanor. ‘I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t cancelled that train ticket.’
‘I’m beginning to wish I’d bought the train ticket from you,’ said Moira.
‘Do shut up, both of you.’ But Lily couldn’t stop smiling. Those five little words on the phone screen were enough to brighten her day, lighten her mood and help her cope with any amount of bad temper and ridicule from her mother and daughter.