Lily pulled her phone onto her lap as she replied, making sure the others couldn’t see who she was texting:
She slotted the phone back into its holder on the dashboard and started the engine. There was more traffic around now, and they had to queue to get out of the car park and back onto the slip road leading to the motorway. Another text pinged in, this one displayed in full as the screen hadn’t had time to lock itself again.
She jabbed at the screen, trying to swipe away the message. His words were so beautiful they made her heart swell, but she almost couldn’t bear to read them because he was right; every mile nearer to Brighton was another mile she was putting between herself and the only person in the world she wanted to be with right now.
As she accelerated onto the motorway, Moira leant back against the seat. ‘I think I’m going to have a little sleep,’ she said. ‘It’s been a very tiring day so far.’
Lily caught Eleanor’s eye in the rear-view mirror. ‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’ she asked. ‘Did your meeting go okay?’
Her daughter nodded. ‘It was fine. There are some issues I’ll need to sort out when I get back into the office tomorrow. But nothing too awful.’
‘Good,’ said Lily.
‘Mum.’ Eleanor was looking down at her hands and Lily couldn’t see her face in the rear-view mirror. ‘I’m sorry about earlier.’
‘Earlier?’
‘You know, those things you said about us. The way we’ve been behaving. I’m sorry you think we haven’t been supportive and haven’t thought about you during all of this.’
Lily was so surprised, she was temporarily speechless. Eleanor didn’t usually do apologies – in fact Lily couldn’t remember her ever apologising for anything, because she was invariably convinced that whatever she said or did, was gospel.
‘Well!’ Lily said. ‘Um… okay.’
‘It was very unfair of us to do that to you,’ Eleanor continued. ‘You’re right, Granny and I have both been a bit selfish.’
‘Oh, never mind,’ Lily said. ‘It’s just one of those things.’ It wasn’t. As the words came out of her mouth, she realised she was doing what she normally did – and had been doing for years – downplaying the hurt. ‘But thank you for apologising.’
‘We’ve been taking you for granted,’ Eleanor said. ‘I didn’t think about it like that before, because you’re always just there, doing stuff for us – Granny in particular – and you always have done. So, I guess it never occurred to me that you weren’t happy in that role.’
‘I am happy!’ Lily glanced in the mirror again, catching Eleanor’s eye. ‘I love looking after Granny, and I feel awful that I told her I resented bringing her on this trip, because that’s not the case. But some days I feel like I’m a bit-part player in everyone else’s life. I keep things on track and ticking over and every now and then a bit of resentment about it builds up inside me.’
‘That’s not surprising.’
‘Also, if I’m being honest, I’m feeling a bit down today, and I think that’s why I lost my rag. I’m sorry for yelling like that. But in another way, I’m not sorry at all, because it helped us to start this conversation, which I think is well overdue.’
Eleanor nodded. ‘It’s good you told us how you feel. You had every right to shout at us.’ She looked up and their eyes met in the mirror. Lily grinned and her daughter smiled back her. It was so good to feel that they were on the same side. Lily still felt guilty about her outburst, but for once her words had hit home and had clearly made Eleanor stop and think. In her daughter’s reaction, there had been a touch of humility instead of sarcasm. Lily was relieved, and also extremely surprised. Maybe she should have stopped trying to keep everyone happy for all these years, and tried asserting herself instead. A little bit of yelling seemed to have gone a very long way. She was seeing a new, softer, side to this feisty daughter of hers.
‘I’m so glad you came back in the van with us, El,’ Lily said. ‘I know it’s not comfortable for you, and you can’t work properly. But I appreciate your company.’
Eleanor looked surprised. ‘Really? I didn’t think you wanted my company at all on this trip!’ She laughed, but it was a slightly brittle laugh.
‘That’s not true,’ Lily said. ‘Well, maybe it was a bit true at the start. But only because I resented you flying in like the cavalry, thinking you needed to sort out the mess I’d made of everything in Keswick.’
’You had made a bit of a mess of things, Mum. Be honest.’
‘I hadn’t! We were fine.’
‘You’d lost Granny!’
‘Well, okay. I had lost her, but I would have found her again.’ She laughed. ‘But despite all that, it has been good to have you around. I don’t see much of you or Paul nowadays. This is probably the longest amount of time we’ve spent with each other since you left home.’
Eleanor nodded. ‘I suppose you’re right. At least you’ll get to spend time with both of us again in a couple of weeks.’
‘What do you mean?’ Lily frowned.
‘At the wedding!’
‘Wedding?’
‘Dad’s wedding! Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.’
‘No!’ Lily had temporarily forgotten. ‘Of course I hadn’t. But I won’t be going.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not going to your father’s wedding.’
Eleanor looked shocked. ‘But you must! You have to be there!’
‘I certainly don’t.’ Lily signalled and pulled out into the middle lane to overtake a lorry. ‘I was at his last wedding, to horrible Sophie, and it was awful. He made those cruel comments about my dress looking like I’d dredged it up from a charity shop – and there were all the nasty digs in the best man’s speech about his marriage to me.’
‘Were there?’ Eleanor looked confused. ‘I don’t remember.’
‘Well, it was really upsetting and I was embarrassed.’
‘Best man’s speeches are always a bit unpleasant.’
‘That one was particularly vile about me. Then Sophie’s maid of honour made a so-called joke in her speech about Nick’s “baggage” and everyone sitting nearby turned to stare at me.’
‘I don’t remember any of that,’ said Eleanor, shaking her head. ‘I guess I wasn’t old enough to be aware of all the nuances. I just enjoyed poncing around in my bridesmaid’s dress and being the centre of attention!’
‘That’s fair enough,’ Lily said. ‘You were at a difficult age. I was more worried about how you’d cope with it all.’
‘Sophie was a cow,’ Eleanor said. ‘Anyway, she had no reason to be smug, she didn’t last long. They were divorced by the time I started in sixth form, and he was soon on to the next one. You were with him for much longer than any of those other women.’
This wasn’t really relevant, but Lily thought it was meant as a back-handed compliment and was strangely touched by it. ‘I know, El. But I can’t go through all that again, and I don’t want to. It’s weird he even invited me to this wedding, to be honest. We never see each other nowadays and I don’t know his fiancée – what’s her name? Helen. I can’t understand why he’d want his first ex-wife at his third wedding.’
Lily hadn’t actually sent back the RSVP slip. It had arrived weeks ago and she’d put it on the stack of paperwork she kept at the end of the kitchen worktop, where it had got lost amongst unpaid bills, insurance renewal reminders, bank statements and flyers that had been pushed through the door advertising dog walking, babysitting and aromatherapy. Every now and then she had come across it, while looking for something else entirely, and had then shoved it back into the pile. It was one of those things she always intended to deal with another time. But the wedding was now so near, it was rude of her not to have replied; she must send back the reply slip first thing tomorrow.
‘Mum, please!’
Lily looked into the mirror in surprise; Eleanor looked distraught.
‘You have to come! I really need you to be there with me.’
‘Why?’
‘As moral support! It’s not that he’s getting married again – God, I really don’t care about that, I’m used to his stream of bloody girlfriends. But Helen is so young, it’s humiliating! She’s younger than me and the whole thing is going to be awful. Dad doesn’t understand what people think about him, he can’t see when they’re laughing at him. Even people he’s known for years, like John and Tony, they say awful things about him. He had a party a few weeks ago and they all got really pissed, and when he was out of the room, they were joking about him being a cradle snatcher and how they ought to shop him for sleeping with young girls.’
Lily couldn’t hide her surprise. Not at the news that Nick’s friends bitched about him behind his back, but at the fact that her hard-nosed, self-confident daughter was suddenly displaying such vulnerability.
‘I just really need you to be there,’ Eleanor said. She wasn’t looking at Lily in the mirror anymore, she was staring out of the side window of the van, biting at the skin around her thumbnail. ‘The whole thing will be hideous, but Dad is so madly in love with this girl that he won’t see any of it. He’ll just get really drunk and make a dick of himself and be fawning all over her at the reception. Then, within six months I bet you anything they’ll have fallen out and he'll be back on his own again and everyone will be laughing about it.’
There was a string of red taillights in front of her, and Lily dragged her mind back to the road, braking as the traffic bunched up ahead. She was amazed at what she’d just heard. She couldn’t remember hearing Eleanor criticise her father like this. Ever since he’d left them, fifteen years ago, she had only ever got one version of events from their daughter: Dad is so amazing; Dad is such fun to be with; Dad is so laid-back about life now he’s not living with you anymore. When Eleanor was younger and still so bitter about the divorce, Lily knew the comments were primarily intended to hurt her. But more recently, they had just seemed like a factual report about Nick’s life: Dad is so happy now he’s met a new girlfriend; Dad and his new girlfriend seem so good together; Dad this, Dad that. Dad, Dad, Dad. Eleanor had always been the loyal little girl who took her father’s side against Lily and the rest of the world. But particularly against Lily.
‘I can understand how hard the wedding will be for you,’ Lily said. ‘And if there was something I could do to make it easier for you, I would. But the one thing I won’t do is put myself through the stress of being there. It’s too much. I’m sorry if that sounds selfish, but I just can’t bear to do it. Even for you.’
Eleanor looked up at her again. ‘I get it, and I don’t blame you. I just don’t want him to marry this bloody girl, she only left university a couple of years ago. It’s all too awful.’
‘Do you have to go, if you feel that strongly about it?’
Eleanor took a deep breath and nodded. ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot, but I know I have to be there. He needs me. He hasn’t really got anyone else.’
Lily nodded. ‘I guess that’s true. You’re a good daughter, El. He’s lucky to have you.’