‘No buts,’ said Dad, holding up his hand before I could explain. ‘We have the Tyler reputation to think of and I know you said not to, but I did make a couple of calls last night. I think Vicky Price might be a possibility.’
‘Vicky . . .’
‘Price. She plays football for England and is available to step in.’
I knew who she was, I just couldn’t believe Dad had ‘stepped in’ when I’d specifically asked him not to.
‘She’s just had her second baby and I thought it would be an interesting twist to have a woman spearheading the project. Her agent was very keen.’
‘Have you approached the advertiser?’ I asked.
‘No, I thought I’d leave that to you,’ he said bluntly, piling the eggs Joan had scrambled on to a plate. ‘Now come on, eat up.’
I couldn’t believe he had gone ahead and done that. Bringing Vicky Price in was an inspired idea, but in doing it he had made me look completely inept.
*
After some cajoling from Joan, I did manage to eat a modest breakfast which was just as well, given the amount of work involved in sorting through Mum’s things. Had my belly stayed empty I would have probably ended up keeling over.
‘Half of this hasn’t even been worn,’ Dad grumbled, as he shifted outfit after outfit into the hanging boxes sent by the charity taking the clothes. ‘These have all still got the labels on.’
He was right and flicking through them I could see the amounts Mum had spent was breathtaking. The charity would make a fortune at the fashion show they were holding later in the year to auction off their very best donated stock.
‘No wonder her credit cards were always stretched to the limit,’ Dad moaned on. ‘Your mother had transformed into a professional shopper.’
I wanted to point out that her retail habit was most likely born out of boredom and all the hours she spent alone, but I didn’t. I had been hoping Dad might have felt able to express his grief once we started going through everything, but watching him move perfunctorily from one packing box to another, I wasn’t sure he felt any. Watching him move swiftly along the rails without a single lingering look made me feel incredibly sad.
‘No sign of the yellow sundress,’ I sighed in the hope that harking further back might evoke an emotional response.
‘The what?’
‘The dress Mum always used to wear to the beach when we holidayed in Wynmouth, remember?’
Dad straightened up. He looked wistful for a moment but then frowned.
‘Your mother was a different woman back then,’ he said stiffly.
‘And you were a different man,’ I muttered under my breath.
I knew my parents’ marriage hadn’t always been as perfect as the one they projected to the outside world but Dad’s apparent indifference was hard to take.
‘She probably parted with that dress the day she charged her first designer handbag, Tess.’
I nodded, but didn’t say anything further.
Looking at the packed rails of clothes brought a lump to my throat and made me realize I hadn’t spent anywhere near the amount of time with Mum as I had in the office with Dad. I hoped she hadn’t thought I had in some way ‘sided with him’ because I worked for him. I had always assumed that there would be plenty of time for us to catch up, but her fragile heart had other plans.
‘Well, I have to say,’ sighed Joan, as she appeared with a tray bearing cups of tea and a plate of biscuits just in time to stop me getting too maudlin, ‘it doesn’t look as if you’ve made much headway.’
‘We haven’t,’ I said, looking around. ‘I thought we’d be finished in here today, but we’ve barely scratched the surface.’
‘This is going to take far longer than just one day,’ said Dad, piling jewellery boxes and a small trunk next to the door. ‘Surely you realized that?’
I shrugged. It was beginning to feel like he’d done nothing but find fault with everything I’d said since the moment I’d arrived.
‘You look all in,’ he went on. ‘Why don’t you take this lot and go through it at yours?’
The lure of a long hot bath and a bedtime before midnight was very appealing and I was grateful that he had noticed I was flagging, even if he did make it sound like yet another flaw.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ he insisted. ‘You’ll need to be rested and raring to go Monday morning, won’t you?’
*
I tossed and turned that night and ended up dozing in bed for the larger part of Sunday morning. When I did eventually get up, I flicked through the TV channels to drown out the persistent buzzing in my head, finally settling on a show about couples looking to escape the rat race and settle in the country.
After coffee, I turned my attention to the small trunk Dad had packed into my car along with Mum’s jewellery collection. I was surprised to discover it was full of what looked like mementos – notebooks, letters, paintings I had presented her with as a child – not the sentimental sort of things I had associated with her at all in recent years and I felt the hot prickle of tears begin to gather behind my eyes. A photograph album caught my attention and I pulled it out and settled back on the sofa.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ I sniffed, as I scanned through the snaps.
There were dozens of Mum, Dad and me on holiday in the very place I had been dreaming of escaping to ever since my stress levels had started to get the better of me. Wynmouth on the Norfolk coast might not have been the dream holiday destination for most, but to me when I was growing up, it was utter perfection. Not just the little place itself, but the feeling of heady happiness it always instilled within me.
It had been a very long time since I had felt that kind of uncomplicated contentment. These days my pleasure levels were derived from beating someone else to the punch or muscling in on a project a rival firm had been hoping for. There was nothing straightforward or wholesome about my happiness now.
I had been a teenager the last time we visited Wynmouth and Mum and Dad were amazed that I could still be amused with a stroll along the beach and a forage among the alien rockpool worlds. There were no arcades, no fast food outlets, no noisy fairground rides, but there had been something, the sudden fluttering in my chest reminded me, to hold my teenage attention. I carried on flicking through the pages until I found one photo in particular.
‘I wonder,’ I mused, setting the album aside and reaching for my laptop.
It didn’t take long to find what I was searching for. Crow’s Nest Cottage in the heart of the sleepy village had always looked like the perfect holiday rental to me, hence my insistence that I was photographed standing in front of it.
Built next to the pub and just a stone’s throw from the dip down to the beach, it was a higgledy-piggledy little place, but full of charm. We had never stayed there. The limited holiday fund my parents had then was just enough to secure us one of the few static caravans on the clifftops outside the village, but I had always promised myself that I would stay at the cottage one day and here it was, still listed as holiday accommodation.
My fingers lingered over opening the availability enquiry form. Was there even a slim chance that I would be able to convince my father that now was a sensible time for me to take a break, and if I somehow did, would Wynmouth be the same? Would it be capable of filling me with that same sense of calm? Because that was what I was desperate for. That was what I was craving every bit as much as the invigorating sea air. Throwing myself into my work hadn’t helped me get over losing Mum, but perhaps Wynmouth would.