Chapter 1
Pepper Taylor visited her mother at the same time every Tuesday.
It was part of her routine, something she had done for a long time, without question.
Today, however, everything felt different. Because this particular Tuesday should have been her sister’s thirtieth birthday.
Bethan had been dead for almost twenty-three years now, and while the anniversary of her accident was always a difficult day, in some ways Pepper found birthdays the hardest of all.
She was not the only one.
‘Hello, Mum.’
Her mother always opened the door with the chain still fastened, and now she squinted at Pepper through the gap, apparently surprised to see her.
‘Oh,’ she said wearily. ‘Is it that time already?’
‘I brought cheese straws.’ Pepper held up a Tupperware box. ‘Baked them this morning.’
There was a pause as the door was closed and the chain removed. Pepper heard the soft patting sound of her mother’s slippers against the plastic hallway runner and wondered, not for the first time, why she didn’t just get rid of it. Once upon a time, it had served as a barrier between the muddy soles of her children’s shoes and the carpet, but now all it did was serve as a reminder that one of those children was gone, while the other was old enough to wipe their feet on the mat outside. Pepper had asked the question a few years previously, only to have her words waved vaguely away.
‘You know I prefer things spick and span,’ her mother had said airily, running an eye over the paint-stained shirt and leggings that Pepper had been wearing at the time.
While Pepper was by no means fastidious when it came to her home or her appearance, she was very particular about her work, and so she had let the matter slide. She had learnt over the years that it was easier to accept her mother’s foibles than attempt to change them, and now, to keep her happy, Pepper abandoned her tatty pumps by the door and ventured barefoot towards the kitchen.
She knew her mother must know what day it was, and how significant a year, but neither of them raised the subject of Bethan. Pepper watched on in silence as her mother made tea, humming faintly as she opened first the fridge, then the cutlery drawer. Her hair, once ash blonde like Pepper’s, was fine and silvery now, and she kept it cut short and neat around her face. Everything about her mother was unobtrusive; she dressed in mostly creams, whites and the palest blues, her nails clean, her make-up immaculate yet understated. Pepper, who favoured bold prints and colourful patterns, and never left the house without a slick of bright-red lipstick, often felt almost garish by comparison.
‘Shall we sit in the conservatory?’ her mother asked, and Pepper nodded. The small, glass-walled room was a relatively new addition to the house, and as such it always felt less oppressive somehow. There were no memories lingering in there, no traps liable to snap.
Pepper waited for her mother to sit first, then settled herself into the squashy wicker-framed chair opposite and brought her knees up under her chin. The weather had been unable to make up its mind all day, and the sky beyond the windows was the same sullen grey as a pigeon’s wing. It felt to Pepper as if spring was taking an awfully long time to arrive, and she said as much to her mother, who muttered something back about her daffodils having bloomed later than expected.
‘How’s work?’ they asked in unison, and Pepper braved a tentative smile.
‘You go first,’ she said.
‘Oh, you know,’ her mother said with a sigh. ‘Busy. Mr Patel retired last week, so we organised a small send-off. Just some party food and fruit punch, nothing too extravagant.’
‘Party food, eh?’ Pepper sipped her tea. ‘I thought dentists frowned upon anything sugary.’
The corners of her mother’s mouth did not so much as flicker.
‘Business is good,’ Pepper went on, when her mother said nothing further. ‘I’m getting regular bookings in London now, plus a slew of children’s parties. Oh, and did I tell you I’d branched out into candle-making?’
The clock in the kitchen chimed the hour.
‘Well,’ Pepper continued, ‘people kept asking about it, so I thought I’d best supply their demand. I’m hosting the first session at my studio in a fortnight, if you fancied joining in?’
Nothing. Her mother was staring hard at a point on the wooden floor, not listening.
‘Or instead, we could dye our hair purple, put tutus on over our normal clothes and dance along Aldeburgh high street reciting Wee Willie Winkie? What do you think?’
‘I see.’ Her mother did not look up. ‘Lovely. Well done you.’
Pepper fought hard not to sigh. She knew her mother didn’t mean to ignore her; it was more a symptom of her perpetual misery. She could not work up enough energy to engage, and it had been years now since she had pretended to try. To distract herself, Pepper dived into the cheese straws, cupping her spare hand under her chin so as not to drop flaky pastry crumbs.
‘Have you spoken to Dad lately?’ she asked between mouthfuls. This, at last, caught her mother’s attention and she looked up sharply.
‘Martin? No. Why? Should I have?’
Pepper had spoken to her father that morning. He had remembered the day, of course, had called to check that she was OK, to chat about Bethan for a time, share some stories.
‘I just thought that he––’ Pepper stopped abruptly when she saw the heat beginning to rise in her mother’s cheeks.
‘Never mind. Forget I mentioned him. Are you done with that tea? I can make us another cup, if you like. Or a pot? Why don’t we have a pot?’
Anything to escape the suffocating tension that had descended.
Pepper hurried back into the house, her heart battering against her chest, only letting go of the breath she had been holding in when the kettle began to boil, soothing her with its familiar sound. She was thirty-six years old, but still scared of her mother, too timid to pull at the threads of the past or stray into a conversation that she knew would cause upset. She had thought that today of all days the two of them might have found a way to talk about her sister, but it was clear now that the topic of Bethan was not only off the table but swept neatly under the rug beneath it.
When she returned to the conservatory a few minutes later, she found her mother distractedly picking dead leaves off a potted fern, the remains of one of Pepper’s homemade cheese straws on a plate beside her.
‘Are you busy on Saturday?’ Pepper asked, putting down the teapot.
Her mother glanced up, arched a questioning brow.
‘There’s a big fête happening over at The Maltings – that care home on the outskirts of town, where I go and volunteer sometimes.’
‘I thought you volunteered at the RSPCA shop?’ her mother countered.
‘I do,’ Pepper said. ‘But that’s only every other Monday. And The Maltings is far more fun – I do art and crafting sessions with some of the residents, help out with lunch, that sort of thing. Some of them are only young, and it’s––’
‘I’m afraid I can’t do Saturday.’ Her mother went back to pruning. ‘Perhaps another time.’
‘Please come.’ Pepper curled her bare toes. ‘I’m hosting a bric-a-brac stall and you know how terrible I am at maths. I’ll end up giving people the wrong change.’