St. John Palmer shook his head in what it did not feel melodramatic to describe as despair. “Saw you coming a mile away, didn’t he?”
“What was I supposed to do? Say, Sorry, strange man with whom I’m alone in my house, I, a small woman armed only with a cheese grater, demand that you leave without the money you’re asking for.”
“You’re not funny, Rosaline. What kind of example are you setting for Amelie if you keep letting people take advantage of you?”
Rosaline turned the kettle on with a vengeance. “Sorry. It just happened. I’ll try and do better next time.”
“Try to do better. And do you even have a hundred and twenty pounds to waste on tradesmen who do nothing?”
“Clearly yes,” she told the tea bags, “because I did.”
“So you won’t need any help with your mortgage this month?”
It was about that point that she decided she would sell her hair and her teeth on the streets of Montreuil-sur-Mer before taking another penny from her father. Well, not for a while anyway. “I’ll be fine. Now, can you take this through for Mum?”
He collected two of the mugs and left without further commentary. Rosaline picked up her own mug, realised her hands were shaking, and put it down again quickly. For fuck’s sake, she was twenty-seven. She wasn’t going to cry in her own kitchen because she’d disappointed her father. Again.
A few minutes later, she made it into the living room. Amelie was still on the sofa, a Grandparent on either side of her, all three poring over Real Life Monsters in a scene you could have fucking framed.
“That’s a moray eel,” Amelie was saying. “It says here it’s thirteen feet long.”
Cordelia Palmer followed her granddaughter’s finger across the page. “That is big. Do you know how many Amelies that is?”
“Probably not many. Mummy hasn’t measured me for a month and I’m much bigger than I used to be.”
“I don’t think you’re quite thirteen feet yet,” said St. John Palmer, laughing.
“I might be. I could be having a growth spurt.”
“Well, I would guess,” Cordelia Palmer told her, “that you’re about four feet tall. So how many Amelies is thirteen feet?”
Amelie screwed up her face. “One Amelie is four. So two Amelies are eight. And three Amelies are twelve and four Amelies are sixteen. So more than three and less than four. So three Amelies and a leg.”
St. John Palmer smiled at Amelie the way he’d once smiled at Rosaline. “Very good, Amelie. What a clever girl you are.”
“I am,” Amelie agreed. “I’m very clever. Auntie Lauren says I’m precocious.”
“You do know”—Cordelia Palmer gave a delicate cough—“that woman isn’t really your aunt.”
“Yes she is. I call her Auntie Lauren so that makes her my aunt.”
“No.” It was Cordelia Palmer’s most gentle and least yielding voice. “Words have meanings. And aunt means the sister of one of your parents.”
This was not going to go well. And her father had yet to touch his tea.
“I,” began Rosaline, “um . . . the train . . . I don’t want to be—”
“Auntie Lauren doesn’t think words have meanings.” Amelie swung her legs in happy indifference. “She says they’re meaningless signifiers. And she should know. She’s a playwright.”
Cordelia did not look impressed. “Let’s talk about this later. Grandma has to drive Mummy to the station.”
Putting the book down, Amelie ran across the room to give her mother a hug that Rosaline sorely needed. “Are you going to win this week, Mummy?”
Probably not. Probably not at all. “I’m going to try.”
“And trying your best is what matters,” said St. John Palmer, who had never believed that in his life.
Rosaline and her mother both kissed Amelie goodbye, and with that they were out and on the way to the station.
“You know we’d happily drive you down,” said Cordelia after a minute or two.
They’d certainly have driven her down. But they’d also have brought it up every opportunity they’d got. “It’s fine. I don’t want to be a bother.”
“You’re not a bother. You’re our daughter. And Amelie’s our granddaughter. And honestly, your father and I are a little concerned by how involved in her life your friend seems to be.”
Not this again. “Lauren’s my best friend. And she’s been there for me when no one else was.” The moment the words were out of her mouth, Rosaline knew it was the wrong thing to say.
Her mother got that distant look that suggested she’d been wounded but was too decent to show it. “We’ve been there for you. We’ve always been there for you.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Except, in a way, she had. Because her parents’ way of being there—desperately dependent on it though she was—was beginning to feel more and more disconnected from anything she might have chosen or wanted.
“I just think,” Cordelia was saying, “that having that woman around all the time must be very confusing for Amelie. I mean, how do you explain something like that to a child?”
“Explain what exactly?”
“You know what I mean. Children need stability and family, not strange women who have nothing to do with them filling their heads with ideas.”
“Lauren’s not a strange woman.” At least not in that sense. “And as you keep on pointing out, Amelie’s a very clever girl. She understands that Mummy used to go out with Auntie Lauren and that they’re friends now.”
“And you think that’s appropriate?” Cordelia’s mouth had grown thin and tight. “Are you going to keep introducing her to an ever-expanding legion of aunties and uncles depending on who you happen to be friends with at the time?”
Rosaline really wanted to smash something or leave, but since she was trapped in a car, she couldn’t do either. “My sex life is none of your business, Mother. But for your information, I haven’t been with anyone in a very long time, and when I do I’m extremely careful and you know that.”
“Actually, darling, if there’s one thing I know about your sex life it’s that ‘careful’ is not a word that characterises it.”
There was nothing to say to this. There had never been anything to say to this. They fell into a familiar, uneasy silence.
Until Cordelia said finally, “Your father mentioned that there was a very pleasant gentleman with you when he picked you up the other week.”
“Alain?” asked Rosaline warily. Her parents’ approval came so rarely these days that she didn’t quite trust it when it emerged. “Yes, he’s a contestant.”
“Well, he made a good first impression.”
This was beginning to smell like a trap. “You do remember it’s a baking show, not a dating show.”
“Well, I know that. But you so seldom get a chance to meet anyone suitable, and you might as well get something out of this . . . whatever it is that you’re doing.”
At this rate, her mum was perilously close to putting her off a guy she actually liked. “Yes. Winning is what I’m going to get out of it. Didn’t you always tell me to prioritise my career over my personal life?”