Chapter One
Stella
‘Shit! Shit!’ Stella cursed under her breath as she struggled to wrangle her two-year-old, Rory, into the lurid orange foldaway seat of the supermarket trolley. One of his legs was wrapped over the handle and a pudgy arm was trapped beneath; a second arm was caught in the brake handle; a second leg was wedged into the seat mechanism. There seemed to be a final additional limb she couldn’t account for; in it he gripped a long-melted and now leaking bag of gold chocolate coins. As she struggled to unravel Rory’s multiple limbs, her caramel Celine Micro-Tote bag, a perk from her former career, slipped to the ground and spilled its contents across sticky, germ-varnished vinyl flooring. She cursed again, louder this time. She was not having a good day. Actually she’d been having a bad week. Since at least Monday, her life had been a mess. Since the call from the credit card company. The call she was going to return as soon as humanly possible. Tomorrow, maybe.
‘Sorry!’
She was blocking traffic, blocking every other mother’s access to wholesome produce, messing with their minutely choreographed schedules. One tutted, another coughed, as they stepped over, around, and between the spilled contents of her beloved Celine.
‘Sorry! I am so sorry!’
A line of pastel-wearing young mothers – picture-postcard yummy mummies, who wafted in to complete their effortless weekly shop – and their pale celery-sucking progeny had formed; the clean-mouthed, rosy-cheeked children perched upright in their foldaway seats nibbling contentedly on gluten-free, dairy-free snacks as they were chauffeured along well-trodden and orderly paths through the aisles. Her own trips followed a less precise agenda. As if to prove the point, Rory began to screech. Stella knew from experience that she had about ten seconds until the whole supermarket witnessed her motherhood failure. Panicked, she quickly wrestled her snot-faced, chocolate-smeared child out of the seat and plonked him into the body of the trolley. He stopped screaming, sitting in open-mouthed disbelief at his demotion. His jaw began to wobble in preparation for another outburst, so she squeezed the contents of an almost liquid chocolate coin into Rory’s open fist, which he immediately shoved in his mouth. Ignoring the filth on the floor and happy she was wearing her trusty Pineapple Studios sweatshirt (it was Thursday so she definitely hadn’t been wearing it for more than three days – OK, three and a half), she used her forearm to sweep together the pile of lipsticks, chapsticks, moisturisers, hand sanitisers, used wet wipes, tampons, chewed toys, painkillers and belly-fluff into a pile.
Anxiously checking on Rory, she saw that he’d had enough of licking chocolate from his fingers and had moved onto the seat. Someone with tanned shoulders and a solicitous smile was standing beside the trolley.
‘Let me,’ she said, and pulled an industrial pack of wet wipes from her South American, hand-crafted Inca shoulder bag. It was the Van Nesses’ nanny. Stella had met her, briefly, probably at the school gates. Without any fuss, and most importantly without objection from Rory, starting from the mouth and working outwards down each limb, finishing with the handle of the trolley, she cleaned every chocolatey surface. ‘There. Who’s a clever boy?’ She ruffled his hair and passed the handful of dirty wipes to Stella. ‘There, he no longer looks, how do you say, as happy as a pig in shit?’
Stella laughed at the unlikely phrasing and the Spanish accent. She couldn’t remember her name, but she knew it had something to do with chocolate.
‘Thank you. I’m… err… Stella.’
‘Yes, I know.’
Stella stared at her, waiting for the shoe to drop, but the girl just stared at her, all big green eyes, Mediterranean skin, and electric red lips pressed into a cheeky smile.
‘I don’t remember your name.’
‘I know.’
Her lips parted, revealing a smile that would have been a dental hygienist’s dream. Stella could smell suncream: shea butter and banana with a hint of vanilla.
‘I’m Coco. I work for the Van Nesses.’
‘Yes. Of course. I knew that. Yes. Lovely to see you again, Coco. I love that top on you. Is it Tom Williamson?’
‘This? I don’t know. I borrowed it. I love the colour.’
She flicked at one of the yellow spaghetti shoulder straps.
That colour. That yellow colour, like a field of sunflowers, held such happy associations for Stella. It was exactly the same colour as the bridesmaids’ dresses she and Ana had worn for Dixie’s wedding. She still had a photo of the three of them: Dixie dressed in an embarrassing pink, like a prom dress, and Ana and herself, Dixie’s sun-kissed, smiling, co-conspirators. The marriage itself was obviously a catastrophe, but the wedding was as wild as any she had ever attended. There was still a gossip embargo on at least half the stories from the after-party. They would have been about Coco’s age back then, and Stella had been as young and hot and self-assured as Coco was now. She missed that feeling, but had she ever really been that hot?
‘Aren’t you cold in that?’
Coco laughed carelessly and pulled a hoodie from her bag. Stella caught a lemon scent.
‘Yes, a little. But it’s spring. It’s so important to get sun on the skin, don’t you think?’ She lifted her forearm and stroked the taut, satin flesh. Tiny blonde hairs stood up from the bronzed skin. Stella shivered. She stopped herself from comparing the tanned arm of the 25-year-old Spanish au pair with the pock-marked, UV-damaged epidermis of a 40-year-old mother of two who hadn’t had a shower or changed her clothes in about four days.
‘Lovely to see you again, Coco. How are the Van Nesses? I haven’t seen Penelope in weeks.’
‘Oh, they’re marvellous. Mrs Penelope Van Ness is on a retreat in Goa.’
‘How amazing! Well, lucky her. Say hello from me. Come on, Rory. Let’s try and get this horror show over before your halo slips.’
Rory’s eyes followed Coco as she laughed, oggling her as if she were chocolate-coated. Stella watched as she leaned down and kissed him. First on the forehead and then on the lips.
Stella had to stop herself slapping the girl away. The lips. Too much. Yuck.
‘He likes you. Very unusual.’
‘Kids love me. They know that I love them unconditionally,’ she said with great seriousness.
Eugh, thought Stella. Another new-age hippy lost in fantasy fairyland.
‘Yes, I’m sure that’s it. Lovely to see you, Coco. I’m sure I’ll see you again.’
She hurried her trolley and child into the fruit aisle as Rory tried to lean around her to grin at Coco.
‘I hope so. I’d like that,’ said Coco.
As they rounded the piled pyramid of potatoes, Rory lost sight of her and began to wail. Stella squeezed another coin into his mitt and began to surround him with food that he might – God willing – one day eat: carrots, celery, cucumbers, clementines. All the c-words. Rory sat himself down amongst the piling rainbow of fruit and veg and found himself some chocolate to lick from a receipt he’d found in the bottom of the trolley.
As she passed in front of the chilled dairy section, she caught a glimpse of Coco’s bare brown back in the biscuit aisle. She was filling her basket with Hobnobs, chocolate digestives and ginger creams. In addition to the yellow spaghetti top and the soft, grey lemon-scented hoodie (no doubt left in her bed by some 20-year-old surf instructor) now draped over her shoulders, she was wearing white trousers, spandex, whose stretch, when she reached down for a packet of Oreos, revealed she required no additional support or protection. Stella regretted her choice of tatty pink Sweaty Betty jogging pants, pants that had never broken into a run.