The Villa (19 page)

‘You’re welcome.’

And then Mitch came through the door, kids in tow, holding the cake between them – lemon drizzle with lots of silver balls and candles. Tess, Ginny and the kids (until Ginny left to meet up with a friend. Who were all these friends anyway? And when had Ginny stopped telling her everything – was there a precise moment?) had made it last night at Tess’s, while Mitch whisked Lisa off for a romantic birthday meal.

‘Oh!’ Lisa flushed, put a hand to her mouth and said, ‘However did you …? ’

And then one of the young guys started playing ‘Happy Birthday’ on his guitar and they all sang and Mitch produced
more cava and filled up lots of glasses and they proposed toasts, and Lisa cut the cake and wished …

Tess laughed and clapped and sang with the rest of them. She looked round at the cheerful faces and she danced – first with Lisa, then with the kids, then with Mitch and even with the forty-something man. But her heart had gone AWOL. She didn’t want to be here any longer. She wanted to be gone.

‘Maybe we should go out sometime,’ the man, who was called Mark and who was a colleague of Mitch’s, said after their dance.

You see, Tess told herself. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just selective. ‘I probably won’t be around much,’ she told him. She wouldn’t do that anymore, she decided. Accept dates with strangers she didn’t even want to get to know. Life was too short, time was too precious. Every minute could count.

‘Oh?’ He seemed disappointed. ‘Going away?’

‘Yes,’ she said. She didn’t know when. It depended on Ginny as much as anyone. She had thought – when she still had a job – that it would be in six months or so, depending on when she could wangle the leave. But now … It was a clear and defining moment. She knew the way forward.

What was it? Her mother’s secret past that she longed to uncover? The lure of the villa, or the turquoise bay? A promise made to a man at an ancient Greek temple? Whatever. The pull of Sicily was strong. And she didn’t even want to resist.

* * *

Tess had only been back home for half an hour when Robin rang. She almost didn’t pick up, then she thought of the party and what it felt like always to be on her own.

‘Got you,’ he said. ‘At last. Don’t ring off. I know you’re avoiding me.’ He sounded out of breath, as if he’d dashed out of the house on the pretence of emptying the bins or something.

‘You usually call when I’m at work,’ she said primly. Though not for much longer … She was working out her notice. Robin could say what he liked and it would make no difference. The future was uncertain, but hey, couldn’t that be exciting?

‘Tess, I was an idiot,’ Robin said. As it had always done, his voice slid through her defences like hot butter.

She decided not to disagree.

‘I should have come to Sicily with you. I shouldn’t have let Helen pressurise me. I got cold feet. I was scared. I can understand why you must hate me.’

‘I don’t hate you,’ she said. Which was strangely true. She was just irritated. It was all the same old stuff. The same old Robin. Nothing would ever change.

‘I’ll make it up to you,’ he said. ‘How about dinner tomorrow night? You can tell me all about it. The house. And everything.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Tess was almost surprised at her own resolve. Before, she would have given in; she just couldn’t help herself. But now … From somewhere she could feel the pull of Sicily and it was pulling against Robin. It was on the other side. And winning.

‘Tess. Tess, darling … ’ Practically a purr. He still thought he had her. ‘You’re upset. I can understand that. But if you just give me one more chance … It’ll be different this time.’

‘I’ve always wanted more of you, Robin,’ she said. ‘And now I realise that I can’t have it.’ She really didn’t know why it had taken her so long.

‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Robin said. ‘You can have more of me, because—’

‘I can’t,’ Tess said. ‘Because you’re married. And now … I don’t want even the little bit that’s left. Not anymore.’ She had always thought he was special. But there was nothing special about a man who sucked up to his in-laws because they had money. And there was nothing special about a man who kept you on the sidelines of his life. Lisa was right. She deserved to be a bigger priority.

‘But Tess … ’

‘Goodbye, Robin,’ she said. ‘Please don’t call again.’ She clicked off her mobile, straightened her shoulders and imagined she could feel Robin’s weight just slipping off. Nice.

She thought of Ginny and the exams that had already begun. A week on her own in the house and her daughter seemed more stressed out than ever; avoiding Tess’s eye and sloping off to meet up with this mysterious friend. Her daughter, she realised, was slipping away from her. Images skated through her mind: Ginny’s first tentative steps – arms up for Tess to rescue her and swing her round in a dizzy circle; Ginny’s first day at school – serious dark eyes in a pale face, navy cardigan and grey pleated skirt; the first time
Ginny looked at Tess appraisingly and said,
that colour suits you, Mum
… And they began clothes shopping together. Singing along to Oasis –
Don’t look back in anger
… Tess blinked back the tears.

And then she had an idea. Of course. She wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before. She had been given a chance to make it come right. She just had to take it …

Ginny was marching to Ben’s. She was marching because she was angry and trying not to cry. And she was trying not to cry because she’d just had a row with her mother. Rows with her mother left Ginny feeling resentful, upset and not wanting to admit that her mother could – under any circumstance – be right.

The row had been mainly about Ben, although like most rows it had turned into a different animal from the one it was to start with. It had run along the lines of:

‘What are you doing tonight, darling?’ (Mum)

‘Going to Ben’s.’ (Ginny)

‘Oh.’ (Mum)

‘Oh?’ (Ginny) ‘What d’you mean, oh?’

‘Nothing.’ (Mum). ‘So is he a boyfriend?’

‘No, just someone I see.’ (Ginny)

‘But you’re seeing rather a lot of him, aren’t you, love?’ (Mum)

‘I like him.’ (Ginny)

‘Fine.’ (Mum)

‘Is it?’ (Ginny)

‘Is it what?’ (Mum)

‘Is it fine?’ (Ginny)

‘Well, yes, I suppose.’ Pause. ‘But are you revising as much as you should be? You’re spending so much time with this … Ben, that—’

It was the ‘this Ben’ that annoyed Ginny the most. She knew her mother wanted to meet him, but she was a) reluctant to put Ben through this ordeal and b) pretty sure that when her mother did meet him she would do her utmost to discourage the relationship. So it wasn’t a hot idea.

Ginny tried to make her shoulders relax. She steadied her breathing. The Ball just loved it when she got uptight; this made It glow and grow.

Her mother had already asked the usual parent-type questions like:
How old is he?
(subtext: Is he
much
older than you?)
Where does he live
? (Subtext: Is it the
right
side of town?)
What do his parents do?
(Subtext: Are they
professional
people?) And
Has he always wanted to be a hairdresser?
(Subtext: Is this the
limit
of his ambition?)

‘They’re divorced,’ Ginny had told her. ‘His mum works in the Hare and Hounds.’

‘In the pub? Really?’ She had seemed surprised, though why she would think that everyone’s parents worked in banks or offices Ginny had no idea. And then: ‘Well, bring him round. I’d like to see what takes you out of the house every night.’ (Subtext: you used to stay home with me and now you go out gallivanting and leave me on my own.)

‘I will.’ But she hadn’t. Apart from a) and b), there was just too much subtext.

The trouble with Mum was that she never knew when to stop asking questions.

Ginny turned left at the end of the street and dug into her bag for a cigarette. She’d give up after the exams, she decided.

‘It’s my life!’ Ginny had shouted at her mother in answer to the time/revision/Ben question. She had shocked herself. Maybe she was feeling guilty about the whole exam thing. Maybe it was because the Ball was turning, turning, as if it might spin out of control.

Her mother took a step away from her at this apparently unprovoked attack. That was the other thing about Mum – she didn’t fight back.

Ginny knew she didn’t have to go in for the kill. But she did. ‘So why don’t you just butt out and let me live it my way?’
Butt out
was a good touch – she’d heard it on Friends.

Her mother stayed calm, but poured herself a glass of red wine – which showed that Ginny was getting to her. ‘Parental responsibility,’ she said. ‘That’s why I don’t “butt out” as you put it. You’re only just eighteen. And how well you do in your exams could affect your entire life.’

Fuck. ‘You’re just jealous,’ she informed her mother.

‘Of Ben?’ She looked confused.

‘Of the fact that I have a boyfriend.’ Talk about putting the boot in. And no one had been more relieved than Ginny when Robin dripped off the scene. At least she supposed he had; she sensed something was different and Mum wasn’t showing any of the Signs. But doing battle was about searching for your enemy’s weak spots, and then pressing the raw nerve.

Her mother, however, was made of stern stuff. ‘So he
is
a boyfriend,’ she said, with a small smile of triumph.

Ginny felt tricked. ‘Oh for Chrissake, Mum,’ she said.

That was when the row became something entirely different. ‘It’s just that I was wondering if – after the exams – you’d like to come to Sicily with me,’ her mother said. ‘For a holiday.’ She was beaming. Ear-to-ear stuff. ‘It would give us a chance to …’

Ginny jerked to attention. Sicily? What was she talking about? ‘You’ve only just come back,’ she pointed out. Did she want to go to Sicily? Well, no. And especially not with her mother. It wasn’t at all what she had in mind.

‘I’m going there again,’ her mother said.

Ginny wondered if the first visit had perhaps unhinged her mother’s brain. She’d come back in a weird mood, no sooner returned than she’d jacked in her job, no sooner jacked in her job than she’d apparently jacked in Randy Robin. And now she wanted to return to Sicily. And with Ginny. For why …?

‘I need to decide what to do with the villa,’ her mother said. ‘I need to think about things.’ She’d got that look on her face again. That odd look. On hold …

Ginny stared at her blankly. Why would her mother need to think about things? And where exactly did her thinking leave Ginny? She swallowed hard, to push the Ball from her throat. ‘I might do a gap year,’ she ventured. ‘I might not go to uni in September.’ And not any other time either, she added silently.

She heard her mother draw breath. Sensed her counting to ten. ‘You could take a gap year,’ she said. ‘I suppose. Only … ’

‘Only what?’

‘Sometimes it’s harder to go to university when you’ve had a gap year. Harder to … I don’t know, get into studying again.’

Yeah, thought Ginny. Because a gap year gave you the time and opportunity to realise it wasn’t what you wanted to do in the first place. After all, there were graduates flying around all over the place all too overqualified to get ordinary jobs and too inexperienced to get decent jobs. And they were loaded with debt. She knew all this from General Studies. In fact, in a strange kind of way you could say that General Studies was responsible for her not wanting to go to uni, which was also ironic. In fact, quite a lot of stuff was. Ironic.

‘I was thinking of doing some travelling.’ Ginny waited. Travelling would probably teach you far more than uni would – about life anyway. And if she went off travelling, wasn’t it just possible that the Ball would stay behind?

‘Or you could come to Sicily with me,’ her mother said, looking excited again.

‘For Chrissake, Mum!’ Ginny’s hand holding her mug of tea jerked back and she spilt some on the table.

Predictably, before she had a chance to react, her mother was on her feet getting a cloth. Ginny sighed. ‘Sorry.’

‘Well, what’s wrong with Sicily?’ her mother asked.

‘Mum, a gap year is about getting away from stuff.’ How
could she not understand? ‘It’s not something you do with your parents.’

‘No.’ Her mother tossed the cloth back in the sink. ‘I suppose not. But you wouldn’t go travelling on your own, would you, love? I wouldn’t feel happy about you—’

‘Dunno,’ she said. Though she would – if necessary.

‘But where would you go?’ her mother asked.

‘I dunno. I just want to get away.’ Rather to her own surprise, this emerged with rising bitterness, a bit like a snake spitting venom. Did she hate Pridehaven so much? Did she hate her friends and her life at home? Did she hate everything?

‘Is it because of this … Ben?’ her mother said, though she looked sad rather than angry.

‘No, Mum! You’re not listening. It’s because of me!’ And she’d walked out and slammed the door.

Ginny arrived at Ben’s house and banged on the door. Why could parents (or mothers in her case) never understand?

The following morning Ginny woke up with an odd feeling of dislocation. Then she realised where she was. Oh, shit. She was in Ben’s bed at Ben’s mother’s house and he was sleeping beside her. And she hadn’t told her mother she wasn’t coming home.

Also beside her were six empty bottles of beer, two plates with the greasy remains of beefburger, chips and beans stuck to them and two DVDs. Her clothes and Ben’s clothes were
strewn lifelessly around the room as if they’d gone to an all-night rave while their owners were asleep and had collapsed mid-jive with all the body knocked out of them.

This was a bit how Ginny felt. Everything had changed and yet nothing had changed. Should she get up? She considered her options. She had to go to college this afternoon, so she could slope off home to ‘revise’ for this afternoon’s exam. Not that she would. Not now.

She slipped out of the bed without waking Ben and went to the bathroom to pee. On the landing she paused and listened, but it seemed Ben’s mum was out of the house. Good. She didn’t want to stay here any longer than necessary – not even for a bacon sandwich.