The days passed easily enough. I went to work, I browsed charity shops for cookery books, I checked my email for training application responses. I cooked at Milo’s, smiled at work, and avoided my mother at all costs. It didn’t seem to work. The less she saw of me, the more she tried to goad me into giving her attention. It was like dealing with a 5-year-old, and I wondered whether I’d ever been allowed to be the kid, even when I was a kid.
She lazed around, watching TV, throwing out irritable comments about our life, how exciting everything was, how she wasn’t at all surprised that I’d chosen this over a life on the road, having adventures with her.
In the kitchen one morning she hovered over my shoulder as I made coffee, telling a long story about some roadie she used to know.
‘You remember him, Savvy, right? He gave you a doll.’
I shrugged. ‘How old was I?’
‘Oh, I dunno – a baby, I think.’
‘Well, I’m not likely to remember then, am I?’ I rolled my eyes, reaching for the milk. She got there first, handing it to me.
‘Well, anyway, he left. Said he wanted something more. I saw him last week! He’s waiting tables at a restaurant!’
‘Uh… huh.’
‘The man was on the Utter Darkness tour! Do you remember that tour? I was my best, then, baby, I was… and he left! To wait tables in a restaurant. And he got married and had two kids. Has a mortgage and a kid-friendly car. Everyone says it’s women who have a biological clock – it’s men! Giving up brilliance for the same mediocre existence everyone else has!’ She huffed, arms crossed, like she expected me to agree.
I rolled my eyes again. ‘Do you hear yourself sometimes? Like, do you have any ability to feel empathy? To understand that maybe someone doesn’t have the same dreams as you?’
‘But what is it? I mean, it’s exactly what your dad did. Got old and chubby and… dad-like. With the thinning hair and the house and the sensible car. And what is it with him and Jen? She’s so much older than him and he ferries her around like an elderly aunt. Did you ask him to look after her?’
I snorted, enjoying her discomfort. She glared at me, long blonde curls falling over her shoulders, looking so much like a petulant teenager that I laughed.
‘Jen and Dad are friends. They’ve been friends for ten years. Dad’s become a dad because that’s what he wanted. He wanted to have a relationship with me, a relationship we could have had years before, if you’d bothered to tell him I existed. But no, everything’s about Persephone Black and her big, exciting life.’ I tightened the lid on my travel mug and smirked at her, ‘Well, sorry, babe, but in this house, it’s our lives, and you’re not the star of the show. Dad and Jen care about each other, me and Dad have a great relationship, and that boring, sensible car is what he picked me up from prom in, took me to Cornwall for the week in, and drove all my stuff home in when my boyfriend dumped me. We have a life, and you’re just squatting. If it’s too boring for you, leave.’
I looked at her defiantly, my own crossed arms mirroring hers, my own blonde curls just as vibrant and heavy. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, and mumbled to herself inaudibly.
‘Just as I suspected. The superstar with thousands of dedicated fans and hundreds of Instagrammable super awesome best friends doesn’t have anywhere to go. Because none of them are real.’
She blinked at me, not a single thing on her face changing, except for something in her eyes that flickered and then was gone.
‘Have a good day at work, Savannah,’ she said, before leaving the room.
Somehow, the victory felt empty, but I left the house with a spring in my step anyway. I was going to watch Taya and Charlotte practise at the Martini Club, and then they were taking me out for lunch with Bel. I’d never really been included in work-friends outings before, and when they invited me, I stood silently, trying to rack my brain for a reason they would bother. They were these mystical, shiny creatures, all shimmy and sparkle, and… well, I was just me.
‘Why… why are you inviting me now?’ I had said, overly suspicious, like they were mean girls in a teen movie who were going to put chewing gum in my hair or steal my clothes when I changed for PE.
Taya frowned, raising her eyebrow at me. ‘Because you were never around before. You never spoke to us. You were polite, and you came to work and did your job, and went home to your boyfriend. Now you’re actually letting us get to know you.’
Charlotte nodded. ‘You brought me those kids’ books for Felicity, and you’ve told us about your goals and you’ve sniffled over your ex. You’ve cooked us food and drunk with us. That’s how friendships begin.’
She nudged me with her shoulder. ‘Amazing the time you have for fun and friendships when you’re not babysitting a selfish man-child.’
‘I do have a lot more free time,’ I nodded, grinning. ‘Okay, well, great!’
So there I was, sitting in a booth at the club with Bel whilst the girls rehearsed.
‘God, I wish I could make people notice me like that,’ I said suddenly.
Arabella looked at me. ‘You do. You just do it through your fingertips, darling.’
‘I guess so – not as pretty though.’
‘But longer lasting. You could be impressing people through food until you haven’t got teeth to taste anything any more.’
‘Maybe longer,’ I agreed.
‘Here’s to talent that pays the bills.’ Arabella smiled, perfectly white teeth bared as she tapped her glass of Champagne against mine.
‘Is… is the club doing okay?’ I was tentative. This new, sort-of friendship with my boss still had boundaries and limitations.
‘She’s okay. She’s always okay. She’s my baby,’ Bel said fondly.
‘She’s magic,’ I agreed. ‘The Martini Club has changed my life, really.’
Bel smiled at me. ‘I don’t think it has, darling. You changed your life and it was here. The rest is just sparkle.’
‘No, you guys looked after me when Rob dumped me, Jacques set me up with the food app, Ricardo got me to cook, and all of you were kind, and supportive.’
‘It’s not hard to be fed delicious food, but I get what you mean,’ Bel nodded, then paused. ‘The club’s not doing as well as she needs to. It’s an expensive area and we’re small fish. But things will be fine, because they have to be. This place is my home, and you’ve done a lot to help too.’
‘I have?’
‘Those special cocktails? Cooking for everyone, supporting Ricardo. You’ve stepped up and proven yourself. And it’s helped.’ Bel patted my hand briefly, before turning to Charlotte and Taya as they jumped down from the stage, grabbing their bags.
‘I’m not sure about that track. I might feel better about it tonight,’ Taya shrugged. ‘We ready to eat? I’m starving!’
‘God, yes!’ Charlotte agreed. ‘You guys ready?’
Bel looked at me briefly. ‘Hey, I wanna throw a party.’
‘Now?’
‘Tomorrow night,’ she said simply, ‘and I want you to cook.’
‘Don’t we have a show tomorrow night?’
‘It’s slow. We have three tables booked and they’re all friends of friends, or repeat customers,’ Bel said. ‘I want to close it and make it a private party, celebrating the Martini Club and her lovely workers. To thank everyone.’
Charlotte and Taya looked at each other. ‘Is everything okay?’ Charlotte enquired.
Bel suddenly resumed her normal boss persona, raised eyebrow, tilted head. ‘Darling, doesn’t everything look okay? And if it didn’t, would I tell you?’
She avoided our gaze as she spoke, and we looked at each other, saying nothing.
‘So, a party, tomorrow. Savannah, whatever you want to cook. And bring that boyfriend of yours.’
‘Rob?’ I squeaked, shocked.
‘No,’ she huffed, ‘the new one. You know, the American bartender who thinks he’s Cary Grant.’
‘Humphrey Bogart,’ I said.
She frowned, ‘Why would he want to be Humphrey Bogart when he could be Cary Grant?’
‘No,’ I huffed, ‘you called him Humphrey Bogart last time.’
‘And he’s clearly more of a young Marlon Brando,’ Charlotte added. ‘Hopefully he ages better.’
‘Um, I’m not sure he’s… we’re not… we haven’t…’ I struggled to find the words.
Taya grinned. ‘Hey, Savvy, Bel says to bring that guy you’re casually seeing. That better?’
I nodded, sighing. ‘Yes, much better.’
‘Good! So, can we go get lunch now? I need another glass of Champagne after all that.’ Bel stood up abruptly, leading the way, not giving us any time to question. And I had bigger things to worry about. I suddenly had to cook for a big bunch of people, and had 24 hours to be as impressive as hell.
I wasn’t as stressed as I should have been about the party. I was focused, determined to impress without being too poncey. I wanted the food to be flavoursome, simple and high quality. I wanted someone to pop something in their mouth without thinking about it, and then stop and mouth ‘Wow’. That was the goal. I called Milo.
‘Are you free tonight? My boss has decided I can cook for a whole bunch of her friends and staff for a party. She’s invited you too.’
‘Me! I’m honoured.’ His voice was a slow drawl. ‘I’m on an early shift – I’ll stop by.’
‘Great!’
‘Hope she’s paying you for cooking? Everyone seems to want to make the most of your skills now.’
I didn’t know – huh, didn’t even think about it. ‘I assume so. I’ll check. But I’m excited to cook what I like. Ricardo’s going to be my sous-chef! Can you imagine?’
‘I absolutely can! Today has been so crap, I’m looking forward to seeing you.’ His voice was tired and low.
‘What’s up?’
‘Jamie got fired today.’
‘The one you said you hated because he never shared his tips? And weren’t you sure he was taking from the till? Isn’t it a good thing he got fired?’ I asked.
I could almost hear him shrug. ‘Yeah, I think the guy’s an asshat, but you shoulda seen him pleading about how much he needed the job, that his girlfriend was pregnant and he needed the money. The guy treated me like crap, but it was sad. And we were understaffed until they could send someone over from one of the other restaurants.’
‘Damn, that is sad,’ I sighed, remembering that I hadn’t particularly liked Jamie. I’d asked him which types of gin they had and he’d replied with an eye roll and, ‘Every kind. This is Soraya, madam.‘ I tried to remember if I’d mentioned that to Alba. I didn’t think so.
‘Anyway, any word on which cooking school in which country wants you?’ His voice was hopeful, overly cheery, but masking something else. Something I couldn’t put my finger on.
‘Not yet. Finally decided which country you’re going to open your bar in?’
‘Not yet,’ Milo said lightly.
‘Well, I guess the adventure continues then.’
‘It does.’ I could hear the smile in his voice. ‘See you at eight.’
It was nearing its end, obviously, this thing we were building. We were going to move in opposite directions, and we were no more than a moment for each other, a boost towards our individual destinies. And that was sad, but he was clear about it. It didn’t matter that my heart quickened when his lip quirked, or that his arms were warm and strong, or that he was really, really good at saying the right thing. That stuff was just beginning stuff. It didn’t mean anything, really. I had to focus on my dreams; I had already spent years sacrificing who I was for a guy. I couldn’t do that again.
And yet, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.
I didn’t have much time to think after that, because I needed to shop and cook. Ricardo took me to the market, and helped me work out the costings, the orders and how much it took to make things. He overestimated, and when I tried to pull him back to the budget, he showed me his calculations. They were precise and delicate, ensuring just the right amount of everything. It was almost like he could weigh it all out in his head, see how it would reduce or how much waste there would be.
‘Shit, I have so much to learn,’ I muttered, chucking the bags on the kitchen counters.
‘Of course you do, Africa, but that’s okay. That’s the point. You’re at the beginning of the journey. You can be a great cook, you can have a concept of flavour, texture, temperature. You can make it look beautiful and tell a story with your food, but there’s basic maths too. You wanna cook for a hundred people, you’ve got to do your maths. No point 3 people saying you’re a great storyteller and 97 saying you’re a moron who can’t count.’
‘Very true,’ I said, ‘so how do I fix that?’
‘You don’t panic, and you work in a kitchen for more than five minutes on a Friday night. You’ve got to keep your cool. And that’s it. The rest is art.’
I rolled my eyes a little, but he was right.
We spent the afternoon working companionably, side by side. I said what I wanted to do, and Ricardo talked me through it, shooting a hundred quick-fire questions at me.
‘How’s it cooked?’
‘Pan fried.’
‘Are you serving it straight away then?’
‘Sure.’
‘What about the garnish, the dressing? How many people you need in your kitchen?’
‘I… I… I don’t know!’
Ricardo raised an eyebrow at me. ‘See, things to think about, kid.’
I felt my shoulders drop, like I was physically deflating. I smiled at Ricardo and shook my head. ‘I’m not ready for any of this, am I?’
He grinned at me and patted my shoulder. ‘The only thing you need to know is that you’re a newbie. A lot of it comes with experience. If you’ve got the passion and the talent, but you’re green, there’s still work to do, Africa. That’s the only lesson I had to teach you. Let’s plan it out – I’ll show you.’
The day went quickly and I loved it. I was exalted, energized and even though I had so much to learn, I wanted to learn it. I wanted to be better, or more than that, I wanted to be the best. I didn’t just want Milo to look at me in awe, I wanted all of them to. I wanted to taste things and know that everyone wasn’t just being polite. And secretly, there was a fear that it was getting close to the deadline for a lot of those applications, and I’d heard nothing back. A bunch of friends telling me I was good at cooking was not as loud as the silence from all of the people who knew what they were talking about.
So maybe this would be my last hurrah. Maybe I would just stay here, train under Ricardo for a year or so. Maybe it was ridiculous of me to apply to cookery school when I’d been a bartender for years. I’d worked in an office. I’d worked in factories, been a barista and spent a horrific seven days as a tour guide at London Zoo before I got sad about how small the space for the giraffes was and got fired because I couldn’t stop referring to the zebras as ‘stripy ponies’. I had spent way too much time without thinking about the big goal, that one thing that I might be excellent at. I couldn’t just expect to waltz into cookery school without experience. Everyone else there would be the best of the best; they would have endless experience, stories to tell, things they’d learnt, ways they’d failed and succeeded. I didn’t have any of that.
The idea of staying didn’t seem so bad, though, really. Sure, it felt dramatic and powerful to go off to some exciting city, where I didn’t know anyone, where I could be a completely new Savvy, but already I was a new Savvy. I was Savvy with the bright pink tips of her hair, who cooked food and slept with a man who made her laugh. I had friends who were burlesque goddesses, shimmying on stage until the room was full of nothing but glitter and slack jaws. I could be this person without cookery school. Without Milo.
And yet, I worked hard all evening, obsessed with perfection, chasing it down the rabbit hole, tasting and fixing and tasting and adapting, taking Ricardo’s advice until he told me to calm the hell down and it wasn’t getting any better than it already was.
We presented the food beautifully around the room, piled up, plated perfectly, ready for people to walk by and experience. The other items were sent out as they were made, and Ricardo and I snuck out to watch as people ate. I leaned my head against the edge of the door, biting my lip in anticipation.
‘Please,’ I whispered, ‘please.’
Their faces lit up, they stopped their conversations. They pointed at what they were eating, and encouraged each other to try things. A ‘wow’ moment. Bel delicately nibbled on a mini roasted red pepper and goat’s cheese tartlet, closing her eyes briefly as she chewed. She opened them and looked straight at me, blew a kiss and winked.
‘Good job, darling,’ she mouthed. Then she thumbed behind her: ‘Your totty is here.’
I skipped from the kitchen, throwing my apron at Ricardo as I headed straight to Milo, jumping into his arms and kissing him.
‘Did you try the cashew noodle cups?’
He laughed at me, holding me close. ‘Um, hello, hi and no, not yet.’
‘Try them!’ I yelped. ‘Let me fix you a plate!’
‘I…’ His voice trailed off as I shook my head. ‘… am excited to eat food.’
‘Good answer!’ I grinned, grabbing Jacques as he walked past. ‘Jacques! This is Milo!’
Jacques looked him up and down, this time close up instead of across a room. He raised an eyebrow and nodded approvingly. ‘Nice to meet you, Milo.’
‘You talk, I’m getting food!’ I yelped, heading back to the kitchen where I’d put items aside. I pushed through the swinging doors with an overwhelming sense of power and pride, energized by what I was achieving. I was Wonder Woman. Queen of Food. I was invincible and everything was going according to my will. That was the way it was. And maybe the three glasses of Prosecco I’d had that evening weren’t hurting.
I grabbed the plate I’d prepared for Milo and sidestepped and shimmied as I moved through the crowds to get to them.
As I approached, I heard Jacques’ loud, dominant voice insist, ‘Well, really, I’m the reason you and Savvy got together. If I hadn’t signed her up to that app, you know…’
I paused, unsure whether to barrel in or wait. I hadn’t even thought about this. Why hadn’t I thought about it?
‘What app?’ Milo’s voice was still relaxed, just curious.
‘Well, she goes to all those fancy Restaurateur Club places, doesn’t she? Tastes the food and gives feedback.’
‘Oh, sure.’
I exhaled. Okay. This was going to be fine.
‘And the staff and service, stuff like that.’
‘The staff?’
Oh, God.
‘Yeah,’ Jacques blathered on, completely unaware that he was ruining everything. ‘If they don’t meet standards, if they’re impolite or break the rules. Stuff like that. My ex used to do it. Saw a bartender pocketing money and got him sacked. I mean, the places Savvy goes are fancier-’
‘-Sacked?’
‘You know, fired? He lost his job. That’s not usual, obviously, but –’
Milo cleared his throat, and I couldn’t see his face, just the stiff set of his shoulders as he moved. ‘Could you excuse me?’
I could hear the tension in his voice as he simply turned on his heel and walked towards the door. I ran after him, shoving the plate into Jacques’ hands and glaring at him.
‘What?’ he yelped.
‘Everything!’ I yelled at him as I turned towards the door.
By the time I’d crossed the room, passing the people who wanted to say hello, those regular patrons or the part-time performers who congratulated me on the food, I was terrified I would have lost him.
I climbed the stairs up to the street, bursting through the door into the fresh night air.
He was just standing there in the shadows, watching the people as they walked down the busy London backstreet, weaving and dodging past each other, like aggressive shoals of fish in a harsh, grey concrete ocean.
I took a breath, unsure where to start.
‘I know it sounds bad, the way Jacques said it, but it’s not a big deal. It’s nothing to do with you.’
His face was stone as he looked at me, those golden eyes completely cold. I had never seen him so lacking in emotion. From the twitch of his lip or the slight quirk of an eyebrow, I was used to seeing something. Some marker of how he felt, because he felt so much, so often.
‘You asked me to break the rules for you. I gave you Persephone Black’s details when no one was meant to know. Should I be waiting to get fired once you feed back to your superiors?’
My jaw dropped. ‘No, of course not, that wasn’t work! That was me asking you a favour.’
‘So there’s a difference?’
‘Of course there’s a difference!’
He paused, setting his jaw, then looking away from me. ‘Jamie getting fired – are you telling me you had nothing to do with that?’
I paused for slightly too long. He noticed.
‘Right, I guess it all makes sense now, doesn’t it? All of this has been about about a bloody app! And a free Restaurateur Club membership. Can’t just write scathing reviews online like everyone else?’ He paced back and forth, switching direction as he growled at himself. ‘God! All that stuff I said, moaning about the clientele and how snobby and stuck up they are!’
‘That wasn’t –’
‘And the stuff I said about the other bartenders! God, this has got to be the most boring honey trap, though, hasn’t it?’ He snorted, looking at me with disgust set into his bottom lip.
‘You don’t honestly think my job was to sleep with a bartender from a fancy restaurant in order to find out if he thought his boss was a dickhead? Are you insane? What kind of fucking pointless job would that be?’
‘Well, you tell me – what kind of fucking pointless job is it?’ He choked out a laugh, and I could see the depths of hurt in his eyes.
‘You can’t honestly believe that I –’
‘Lied to me about being a Restaurateur Club member, about every interaction you’ve had there. That you were there to spy on me and my colleagues? Is Persephone Black even your mom, or was that some story?’
I felt panic and fear building up in my stomach, a sick kind of terror as he looked at me like I was a stranger. Worse than a stranger – a liar.
‘Yes, she’s my mum! This was nothing to do with you. I signed up with this app to review restaurants... I met you. That’s it.’
‘Did they tell you to look out for the Yank who wasn’t good enough? All those months of telling me I wasn’t to the standard they wanted, I wasn’t the right kind of person, I was too casual with the customers, but they couldn’t fire me for not being of their class, for being too friendly… did they ask you to look out for me?’
‘No!’
‘I don’t believe you. I knew this was too easy, I knew it couldn’t be real.’
His words hung in the air briefly, before they were swallowed by the noise of a passing ambulance. I felt myself losing then, like I was falling backwards away from him, arms extended, fingertips grasping for the ledge. No hand reached out for me.
In that moment I could smell the leather of those seats on the tour bus, and as I watched him walk away, I could hear my mother’s voice:
Okay, baby girl, an ordinary life for you.
There wasn’t much I could do after he left. I went back into the Martini Club and hid out in the kitchens, throwing Jacques a glare as I passed. He knew better than to say anything then, but I knew what he was thinking: If you hadn’t lied, this wouldn’t have happened. You can’t blame me.
The frustrating thing was that I hadn’t lied, not really. I’d omitted. And okay, yes, maybe I had said something negative about Jamie, but I didn’t use any of the stuff Milo told me. At least, I didn’t think I had.
I couldn’t feel or think anything. I went numb, the way I always did when I needed to deal with things. But it wasn’t the same. I couldn’t hold the numbness close to me in the way I needed. I spent my time scrubbing a pot in the kitchen, desperately scouring until my hands were red and scratched and my lip was bleeding from how many times I’d bitten it to stop crying. I just had to wait. I had to wait, and he’d calm down and let me explain. And it would all be fine. He wouldn’t leave over a misunderstanding. Except… he was leaving anyway. So was I. That was my big, brave plan, wasn’t it? Not to be beholden to yet another man who held my dreams in his hand and could hand me the keys to them when he felt like it. If he felt like it. I was going to push him away, when I was strong enough, why not let it be now? Why not cut my losses, and let him be the one to walk away?
Because it felt like being stabbed. And twisted inside out. And set on fire. Guess I was a drama queen, just like my mother after all.
I stumbled home that night drunk on misery and whisky on an empty stomach. I stopped at the end of the road to vomit into Mrs Henderson’s recycling bin. The old bat thought recycling was something ‘enforced by those pricks in Belgium’ anyway. She deserved it, really. It was karma. Smelly, disgusting karma.
I collapsed through the front door, kicking my shoes off and padding along the hardwood floors. Well, I thought I was padding, but the walls were starting to sway and I reached out my fingertips to graze them, grasping for something solid. I briefly stopped, considering crawling along on my hands and knees as I had so many times before in that house. Those teenage years of rebellion, where I was sure I had nothing else to prove but how many drinks I could down before I stopped thinking about her, and what she’d say and whether she thought about me. That last time, when I ended up in hospital, that was when I’d stopped drinking. Jen’s ashen face as she explained what had happened, when she asked me why I wanted to kill myself for a ghost of a person who didn’t give a crap about me – that was what stopped me.
And now she was back, and she wasn’t even the reason I was drinking.
I clutched the door frame of the kitchen. Tiny sips of water, paracetamol and a cup of tea. All would be well as long as I could make a cup of tea and get to bed without passing out and drooling on the stairs. Maybe that would be the action to make Persephone Black think her daughter was anything like her, or had any fun qualities at all.
She was sitting in the dark in the kitchen. The only reason I saw her was the moonlight catching her blonde hair. Her knees were bent, clasped to her chest as she sat on the chair, staring at the moon through the window.
I heard her breathing.
‘You scared the shit out of me,’ I said, when it became obvious that she wasn’t going to say anything.
She smiled vaguely in my direction.
‘Sounds about right.’
There was something different about that smile. It was soft, sweet. I stared at her, trying to figure out what had changed. She watched me watching her, amusement playing around her mouth, tilting her head to the side, daring me to ask. And then I watched her ringed fingers tracing the edge of the whisky glass, the tiniest drop of amber liquid at the bottom.
She waited, small smile still there.
The barrier was down.
‘My operation is booked for tomorrow.’
It was easier to hear it then, the deep throatiness of her voice, the rasping edges. Her voice didn’t catch so much soaked drunkenness.
I put a hand out, resting on the chair opposite hers, thinking of sitting down, but ready to retreat if she responded in that way she always did, brash and mocking.
‘So you’re going to do it?’
She sighed, looking out of the window. ‘I don’t know. What do you think I should do?’
‘You’re asking me?’
‘Sure.’ She remained still in the near darkness as I pulled out the chair, scraping it slowly on the tiled floor.
‘Are you in pain?’
She nodded, resting her chin on her knees, looking suddenly so much like a little girl.
‘Does it make you sad?’
She nodded again, briefly, before looking away.
I paused, sighing. ‘Is the only reason you’re not doing it because you’re scared?’
She looked at me then, a wry little smile. ‘Good catch, baby girl. Good catch indeed. Don’t see you for years and you still get to the heart of the matter.’
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing, easing into the chair, my chin on my hand as I watched her watch me. She tilted her head.
‘You always had that way about you, even as a little girl. Straight shooting…’
I wanted to stop her, to tell her she had no right to be nostalgic, to waltz down memory lane like she had walked it even once before, but I didn’t. Because part of me yearned to hear her talk about me, to remember me. To hear that lilt of affection and humour in her voice, and to have it be real, just this once. Not some mocking, squawking voice spouting fake truths and half memories, half dreams. I wanted to hear what she remembered.
She paused, like she was waiting to be scolded, and then continued when it became clear I wasn’t going to stop her.
‘This one time, I will never forget, you asked me why I only remembered men’s names. We moved around every couple of days and you could be sure I would know the name of the cute guy behind the bar, or the stuttering kid who would blush as he took my luggage upstairs, or the waiter out there smoking on his shift. And you said, “Mama, why don’t you ever remember the women’s names?” something like that, and I just stopped. Because it was true, I didn’t know the name of the receptionist, or the lady who served the breakfast. Hell, we hired that tutor to teach you on the tour bus for six months, and I didn’t even remember her name most of the time.’
I bit my lip. ‘Do you remember what you said?’
‘I blathered something, desperately trying to make something up, some reason that this big bold woman I was meant to be, this feminist kick-arse icon of the music business, this person who was trying to raise a daughter in a shitty world – why she thought women didn’t matter. Why the only people who mattered were the ones who validated her and had a dick. I blathered something about how remembering people was important, I think?’
I smiled, shaking my head.
‘No?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I said, with a snort, ‘you most certainly did not.’
She resigned herself, closing her eyes, rolling her shoulders. ‘Okay, what dumb fuck thing did I say?’
‘You said you had to be good to the people who were useful to you.’
She made a face, but nodded. ‘Okay, callous, and not the lesson a 5-year-old needs, but true, and practical.’
‘That wasn’t the worst bit.’
‘Of course it wasn’t,’ she sighed, running a hand through her hair. ‘Come on then, I may as well pay penance tonight, in case they put me under anaesthetic tomorrow and I never wake up. Or I never sing again, which would feel the same as never waking up. Hit me with my past self’s ignorance.’
I took a kind of quiet delight in it, in being heard, in her admitting she had messed up, that she wasn’t mother of the year in the same way the papers called her the ‘mother of rock and roll’.
I looked away from her, remembering. ‘You told me there were important people, who made you confused and passionate and broke your heart, and everyone else was boring and unimportant, and they were just dust. You said it was very important not to be dust.’
The noise she made was somewhere between a cough and a gasp, and when I looked up I saw that her hands were clasped over her mouth. She let out two angry exhales before she screwed up her eyes, tears falling from the edges, catching in the crow’s feet around her eyes. She blinked, pressing her lips together as they trembled a little.
‘I do remember laying there that night. You were asleep on me, Rumble the cat tucked under your arm, and I just stared at the ceiling and thought, “I’m going to fuck this up. I’m going to teach her that nothing matters but being fuckable, being wanted. I’m going to ruin her life, and I don’t know how to fix myself quick enough to stop the damage.” It was like needing to cut off an arm to stop the poison spreading.’
‘“Golden Haloed Baby”,’ I said. ‘Quoting yourself, really?’
‘Hey, I thought it before I wrote about it,’ she exclaimed, then shook her head. ‘Dust. I told you normal people were dust.’
‘You were young,’ I shrugged, unsure why I felt the sudden need to defend her. Perhaps because she wasn’t defending herself. All these years all I’d wanted was for her to own up to what she’d done, to me, to Jen, to Dad. And now, it was like she was standing there completely naked and vulnerable. All too easy to destroy. ‘And you were right. I became dust.’
‘How did you become dust, Savannah?’ Her voice was gentle. Pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them, like a naughty child, she tilted her face towards me, like it was story time and I was lulling her to sleep.
‘I became as normal, as unlike you, as I could. I didn’t want to move again, or change. I didn’t want to be seen. I wanted to come home to the same boring house on the same boring street for the rest of my boring life. I didn’t want passion or loss or craziness. I just wanted to plod.’
‘You’re not dust, Savannah.’ Her voice was weary. ‘Dust never settles in one place. It has no weight, nothing to hold it down. No substance. It just coats everything else, whips up in the wind, and is gone.’ She raised her eyebrows at me.
‘I’m that other kind of dust, the stuff that settles when nothing moves. Heavy and thick and soft, keeping everything trapped in time. No dreams, no goals, putting the quiet ahead of any magic that might be found. I was a coward.’
‘Were?’
‘I’ve made changes.’
‘I can see that,’ she said, nodding.
‘And so have you,’ I replied. ‘I can see that too.’
‘Too little, too late, baby girl.’
‘I don’t think you get to be the one who decides that,’ I said. My mother’s eyes filled with fresh tears then, and she looked up at the ceiling until the glittering glaze was suddenly gone again.
I took a breath. ‘You know, this is the first real conversation I think we’ve ever had.’
‘I know. I used to make them up sometimes, in my head, on tour. I’d imagine you coming to me with a boy problem, or wondering what to do about the girls at school.’
‘Really?’ I grinned despite myself. ‘And what advice did you give me?’
‘The wrong advice – even in my head I never said the right thing. I usually told you to punch them or to tell them to go to hell,’ she snorted. ‘I’m glad you had Jen. She was always better than me. She always lived life properly. I bet she had all the right answers to your teenage questions, didn’t she?’
‘Probably. If she didn’t have the answer, I at least had a shoulder to cry on. I think maybe I could have used someone telling me to punch them, though. I don’t have much of a backbone.’
‘You?’ she snorted. ‘Savannah, you put up with a broken mess of a singer for a mum, you were raised by your aunt, your dad turned up when you were a teenager… Yet you’ve made a life for yourself. A life full of passion and purpose and people who love you. That takes guts. You need to be brave to be soft, to be bruised by life.’
‘If you’re writing a fucking song right now…’ I said, trying to sound threatening, but bursting out laughing. She laughed too in shock, a real laugh, that trilling, musical sound I remembered from childhood, from being swung around and danced with on endless empty stages.
‘I’m not, I promise!’ she chuckled, letting that warm sound trail off, before sitting up suddenly. ‘Let me make you some toast. You want some toast, right?’
‘Uh… sure.’
‘And some tea?’
‘Okay.’
‘Strong, two sugars, right?’
I frowned at her.
‘I’ve been watching. I know you think I haven’t, but I have.’
We listened to the sound of the kettle, growing to a hiss and then a whistle, before she cut it off.
‘Why now? Why have you finally cut the bullshit now?’
‘Because I didn’t want to die without having one real conversation with my daughter.’
‘You’re not going to die.’
‘Probably not, but realising the only people who would care are the ones in love with an idea of you is pretty disturbing. No one would know anything real about me. There’d be some priest giving a eulogy and he’d talk about my music, and that would be it. That would be all I had offered the world.’
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, before opening them suddenly when the bread popped from the toaster.
She handed me the plate, bringing over a pot of chocolate spread and a knife.
‘Assume you’ve moved on from jam and chocolate spread sandwiches?’
‘Never. What’s better than sugar, chocolate and carbs?’
‘Maybe topping it with peanut butter and deep frying it?’
‘Anyone ever suggest you might be the reincarnation of Elvis?’
My mother let out a brief chuckle. Her hands were clasped around the cup, and I noticed her long, perfectly pointed nails.
‘How long’s it been since you played?’ I gestured at her hands. I used to remember running my fingers over the hard, smooth pads of her fingertips, watching as the white lines became red from the grooves of the guitar strings.
‘Too long.’ She shook her head. ‘I guess I just didn’t see the point any more. It all seemed fake…’
The silence settled and she shook it away, reaching over and sneaking one of the toast crusts I’d cut off. I felt a bizarre rush of affection in that moment.
‘So come on, let me do the advice thing at least one time. What’s going on with that boy?’
‘What boy?’ The realisation hit my stomach like a stone, sinking slowly and nestling somewhere around my intestines, waiting for a kick in the kidneys every time I visualized his face.
‘The boy who’s making you crazy.’
I shook my head. ‘That’s not me. I don’t get crazy. I stay calm and reserved and in control.’
‘Yeah, but you feel crazy, even if you’re holding it in, right? There’s someone who does that thing, that magic thing, like the way they look at you, or how they sigh with their whole body when they’re happy, or how their face looks when they’re asleep. A little collection of the things that will bring you joy and make you insane quicker than anything else. You can’t tell me you don’t have that, I can see it in you.’
‘I… yes. Yes, I am crazy about him and I let myself get involved, even though he’s leaving and I’m leaving and it was a dumb, stupid, not-at-all-me thing to do… and I messed it up and he hates me.’
‘No one could hate you, baby girl.’
I raised an eyebrow at her, ‘Fine, well, he doesn’t trust me.’
‘Trust can be won back,’ my mother said, smiling. ‘At least, I really hope it can.’
‘Is there even a point? We’re both leaving, or we’re meant to, if by some slim chance I get into any of these cookery schools I stupidly applied to with so little experience.’
My mother, Clare Curtis, looked at me, from behind Persephone Black’s kohl-rimmed eyes, and smiled. Not that signature rock-star smirk, nothing but a tilted head and a small smile.
‘Of course there’s a point.’ She shook her head. ‘What’s more important than love?’
‘Dreams, goals, friendship… things that last. Things that don’t encroach on your life until you suddenly look up and realize you’ve sacrificed so much of who you are that you’re not even a person any more, just a collection of obligations and guilt.’
My mother raised her eyebrows, as if she was considering it.
‘I was in love before, and it made me boring and sacrificial and invisible.’
She grinned at me. ‘Well, then, it wasn’t love, baby girl. If it made you less, instead of more, it wasn’t love. It was desire, or security or something. I look at you now, and you’re like a light bulb, fizzing and vibrant. Not invisible at all.’
‘That’s not him, that’s loving my job and my friends, and cooking. That’s me changing into someone I wanted to be.’
‘And he wasn’t a part of that?’ My mother moved into the chair closer to mine, leaning in. ‘Savannah, I know I taught you that love is passing, it’s just pointless and everybody leaves. I taught you a whole bunch of fucked-up stuff that I believed at the time, but loving someone doesn’t make you weak. It doesn’t have to stop your dreams. If I’d figured that earlier, maybe I would have quit to give you the childhood you asked for, or told your dad you existed sooner. But if you push people away, denying love matters and not letting people in, you end up like me. Old, alone and scared as hell, with no one to turn to when you need to make choices about your life.’
I tentatively reached across and placed my hand on hers. ‘You’re not that old.’
That laughter burst forth from her, turning into a cough. I placed a hand over hers, clasping it tightly.
‘And you’re not alone.’
‘I deserve to be,’ she said quietly, not letting go of my hand.
‘Well, then, it’s a good thing we don’t always get what we deserve, isn’t it?’
We sat there in comfortable silence for a while more, just sipping tea and eating toast, each of us lost in dreams of what our futures might hold.