That was step one. For step two, she picked up her phone and scrolled to ‘recent contacts’. Lilian Dearman picked up immediately.
‘Marnie, my dear girl. What a lovely surprise, how are you?’
‘Lilian, did you mean what you said about Little Raspberries? Could I rent it from you? Could I—’
Marnie was cut off by an exhilarated Lilian.
‘Of course, of course. I’ll ask Herv to cut the lawn and we will have it ready for you. When are you thinking of coming?’
‘Tomorrow, is that too soon?’
‘It’s not soon enough. I’m delighted. I’m absolutely delighted.’
As soon as Marnie got home, she set up a mail redirection service and informed the estate agent of her new address so they might forward anything that came for her until it kicked in. There was no point in changing all her documentation because she didn’t know how long she was going to be staying in Wychwell: a few weeks at most, she figured. Then – who knows?
She’d sold nearly all of her furniture to move in with Aaron, so she reckoned she could get most of what she owned into her trusty Renault. She called in at the local Quality Road bargain store because they always had a bank of boxes for people to take and then she emptied her kitchen cupboards into them. Books filled another two boxes, her clothes went into her three suitcases and her laptop, printer and stationery went in another. She filtered the items before packing and put plenty of things into black bin liners for the charity shop. For instance, she would never again wear the suit she had on when Suranna Fox was trying to scalp her. She would drop off some surplus bedding at the animal shelter. Amongst them the sheets that she and Justin had rolled around on when he visited that one time. And the towel he’d used when he came out of her shower – when he’d washed off their sex-odour and her perfume to make himself neutral for his wife.
By suppertime, her life was all packed up. She had a few boxes that she couldn’t fit in the car and rang her mother to see if she could store them in her cavernous garage. Her mother sighed and said that she supposed so. Everything Marnie said to her seemed to exasperate her. Marnie said she’d call round in the morning.
For once, she had no trouble at all going to sleep that night. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so well or so deeply.
Chapter 13
The family home – Salty Towers II – was a substantial terraced town villa just outside Penistone. It had high ceilings, period features and large square rooms. Despite the chunky central heating radiators, Marnie’s principal memory of the house was that it was always cold. Judith had never liked the house; she had preferred the one they had before in Wakefield. The one they’d had to move from. Because of Marnie, as she was so often reminded.
Marnie hadn’t seen her mother since she’d dropped off her present before Christmas. She rang once a fortnight – never the other way around – and sometimes her mother picked up, sometimes the answering machine did. The conversations were always short and dutiful: was her mother all right, did she need anything? Her mother always replied that she was perfectly fine and if she wanted anything, she would ask. There was little more to the interchange than that. Marnie had long since learned that any attempt at telling her mother what was going on in her life was met with indifference, although she sometimes still tried, ever hopeful of a breakthrough.
Marnie carried her boxes into the garage, storing them neatly at the back, then went into the house. Her mother hadn’t put the kettle on, she wouldn’t have even thought to. Marnie thought she’d lost weight that she didn’t have to lose; the skin at her neck looked more sunken in than usual and gave the impression that her head was being supported by tent poles. She was huddled in a thin cardigan, a step away from teeth-chattering.
‘It’s cold in here, Mum,’ said Marnie.
‘I’m not putting the central heating on in May,’ said Judith. ‘Besides, I’m not sure it would make any difference.’
‘Well it would,’ argued Marnie. ‘You’d be warm for a start, you look frozen.’
Judith walked over to the mantelpiece and took a card from it which was propped up against a clock. ‘I’ve never liked this house,’ she said and Marnie knew what was coming next. ‘I never wanted to leave the lovely one we had in Wakefield. Here.’ She handed the card to Marnie. ‘I didn’t have a chance to post it.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ said Marnie thinking that all roads led to the lovely house in Wakefield, and the wonderful rose-tinted life they’d all led there until she ruined it. She could have started a conversation about Charles Manson and in three steps, her mother would have bent it around to the lovely house in Wakefield.
‘So where are you going?’ asked Judith.
‘I’m staying in the Dales for a while.’
‘The Dales? Whatever for? How are you going to get to Leeds every morning from the Dales.’
She imbued the word with all the disapproval that she might have saved for a sewerage leak.
Marnie braced herself for the onslaught that would surely come. ‘I’m not working in Leeds any more. I’ve got a new job, for now anyway.’
She really hoped her mother wouldn’t ask what that new job was.
‘Gabrielle has a new job too,’ said Judith, nibbling a rough edge from one of her short, neat nails. ‘It involves a lot of travelling to New York.’
‘Oh, good for her,’ said Marnie, fearing that it had come out sounding sarcastic.
‘Business class too. She doesn’t travel anywhere these days unless it’s first class, she says.’
Marnie did her best not to react. Her job would sound extra shit at the side of Miss Bloody Perfect Gabrielle’s international career. She would have to lie if asked. She couldn’t tell her mother the truth.
‘How long are you intending to leave that stuff here?’ asked Judith.
‘A few weeks. Is that all right?’ Surely it would be, considering that her boxes and a chest freezer were the only things in the garage. Her mother didn’t drive; she took taxis when she needed to go anywhere, or someone from her bridge club gave her a lift.
‘I suppose so,’ said Judith; her stock, weary phrase. ‘What sort of job are you doing now, then?’
International envoy for Yorkshire, Marnie was tempted to say. It involves lots of travelling to the space station – beat that, Gabrielle.
Then Judith said under her breath, ‘I don’t suppose it’ll be an upward move,’ and Marnie felt the hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise.
‘I’ve opened up a cheesecake factory,’ she heard herself saying as her mouth broke loose from the straps tethering it to the sensible part of her brain.
There was an obvious silence after that, broken only by Judith Salt’s jaw hitting the floor. Then her mother said:
‘CHEESECAKE? CHEESE. CAKE?’
‘Yes, Mum, cheesecake.’
‘You are not telling me that you are leaving your job to—’ The sentence was severed and Judith’s face formed that mask of disappointment that Marnie had seen so many times and Gabrielle had seen just the once, when she had failed her Grade 8 flute for playing some bum notes.