‘So have you got a flight? Can you give me the flight number? What time should I pick you up?’
‘I’m not actually booked on one yet… Communication here is… quite difficult.’
And yet our mobile call was completely crackle free.
‘But it will be Sunday.’
‘Sunday, or possibly Monday.’
‘Alice!’
‘I can’t help it. I don’t know. I can’t magic up a plane ticket. But most likely Sunday.’
‘But you must have some idea.’
‘As soon as I do I’ll let you know.’
‘But what am I supposed to tell the girls? Will you Facetime them this evening? Have you got Wi-Fi?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘No, Alice. You must. They miss you.’
‘Tell them Mummy loves them and she’ll be home as soon as she can.’
I groaned. That kind of vagueness wasn’t fair to them.
‘Oh Claire, live a little. There’s so much more to life. It’s so beautiful here. I feel so alive. No clocks to watch, nowhere to be, just spiritual cleanliness. It’s amazing. Don’t worry, the girls will be fine and it will do you good to connect with them. No offence, but what else are you going to do until you go back to work?’
Sleep eluded me after that and I spent the rest of the early hours racking my brains as to how I was going to break the news to the girls and how I might make it up to them this weekend. Disney movies at the cinema were in short supply at the moment.
Predictably, Ava cried big, noisy sobs on my lap in the kitchen until I made her a bacon sandwich for breakfast and Poppy just nodded, her face tightening with a terse frown. She didn’t say anything and as soon as she’d eaten her toast, she disappeared upstairs.
‘Come on, Ava. Let’s sort your hair out.’ As usual, it looked like a bird’s nest that a couple of noisy crows had fought over. ‘You go up and find the brush and bobbles. I’ll be up in a minute. I’ll just wash up quickly.’
I’d only just filled the washing up bowl with hot soapy suds when an outraged scream came from upstairs. And yes, I bloody left the tap running as I hared off into the hall and sprinted up the stairs to the girls’ bedroom.
Sending a quick narrow-eyed squint of suspicion at Poppy, who stood just inside the door with a far too innocent expression framing her face, I hurried into the bedroom to find Ava wailing and, like a whirling dervish, clutching an armful of toys and pawing through a mound of clothes on her side of the bed.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
Ava’s face crumpled and she started to sob. ‘P-Poppy’s being mean. She did it.’
I turned to see Poppy standing ramrod straight, her hands stiff by her sides.
‘Did you do this?’ I asked pointing at the pile of clothes.
She lifted one shoulder in defiant lethargy. ‘I’m fed up with her mess. She always leaves clothes and toys everywhere. I just tidied them up for her.’
Count to ten, Claire. Count to ten. ‘You mean, you dumped them on her side of the bed.’ Points for sounding calm and in control, I told myself; in my dressing-gown pockets, my fingers were clenched into tight little fists. This counted as stress and I was supposed to be avoiding it. I could feel my blood pressure rising.
‘Serves her right.’ Poppy’s mouth crushed itself into a mutinous scowl.
This was just a reaction to Alice not coming home. It wasn’t their fault. I chewed at my lip and assessed the inadequate room. They were going to have to share for another week and I could relate to Poppy’s frustration; Ava’s cheerful disregard for shelves, cupboards, and wardrobes drove me mad too.
‘Poppy, you need to help Ava tidy up her bed. Ava, stop making a fuss. You need to put all your clothes away properly.’ I raised a finger as both of them began to protest and said in my best scary-Auntie, second-cousin-to-Darth-Vader, voice which seemed to hold a measure of authority, ‘And I don’t want to hear another word from either of you. We’re leaving for school in twenty minutes.’ I gave them a bland, I’ve-got-this-taped, Mary Poppins, serene smile while inside my heart was thumping uncomfortably but it was rather satisfying to see them both jump to it. For once, I almost felt like I knew what I was doing with them. Thank you, Hilda. Her words of wisdom had helped; we had a good routine, and after living with them for a whole week, I now had a much better understanding of what made each of them tick.
Later that morning, Hilda bounced up to the bench as I was recovering from my longest run yet – according to my phone I’d notched up 4k today, and despite Ash’s claims that it was probably wrong, I was taking it. Buoyed up by my success with the girls this morning – not only did we make it to school on time but I also remembered their PE kits – I’d pushed myself to do an additional loop of the park and it had felt good. I was starting to get addicted to the endorphins that running was definitely releasing.
‘Morning,’ she chirruped and before I could swipe it out of reach, she lunged for my coffee.
Feeling pleasantly weary, I grinned when she pulled a face. ‘Ugh, where’s my cappuccino?’
‘One, it’s not your cappuccino and two, it serves you right.’
‘Polygamous coffee drinking is all wrong.’
‘Says who? I needed the espresso this morning. I’ve been up half the night.’
‘Me, of course,’ said Hilda, calmly digging out a couple of sachets of sugar from her pocket and dumping them in my double espresso before I could stop her.
‘What did you do that for?’
‘It’s the only way I can drink black coffee,’ she replied, as if this was entirely reasonable and she’d not just poisoned my drink.
‘You might as well have it now,’ I muttered sulkily.
‘I will, thank you. So why black this morning?’
‘My bloody sister rang at ridiculous o’clock this morning.’
‘Oh dear, is her flight delayed?’
‘You could say that.’ I sighed heavily. ‘By a week.’
‘Good Lord, where’s she gone? Mars?’
‘No, India. The good news is that she’s found herself; the bad news is that there’s been a landslide and she can’t get to the airport.’
‘Convenient,’ said Hilda. ‘And she discovered this today.’
‘Apparently so.’ She put voice to my own sceptical thoughts. ‘And my nieces are upset of course.’ And I was furious that Alice hadn’t been more proactive about speaking to them. ‘We had tears this morning.’ I was going to phone if she didn’t Facetime later and force her to speak to the girls.
‘Understandable. But they’re young; you just need to take their minds off things. Cake always helps.’
‘It would if I could bake.’
‘Well, I can help with that. I’m a whizz in the kitchen. Dear Mary – Mary Berry, you know – always said I had the lightest touch with a sponge. I miss baking. I don’t get the chance these days and I’m not allowed anywhere near the kitchen at Drearyside, not since I got peckish in the middle of the night and nipped into the kitchen to make some popcorn. I set off the smoke alarms. You’d have thought they might have been quite grateful that they got the chance to test them thoroughly when it was a false alarm. But if they will make them so sensitive, what do they expect?’