One Summer In Paris

The crying grew louder. Anxiety balled in Audrey’s stomach. It felt as if she’d swallowed a stone. “Mum?”

She tried the handle and the door opened. Her mother was sitting on the floor leaning against the bath, a bottle of wine in her hand.

“I’m a bad mother. A terrible mother.”

“Oh, Mum.” Audrey’s insides churned. She felt exasperated, anxious and a little desperate. Most of all she felt helpless and scared. She didn’t know how to deal with this. Once, in a state of desperation, she’d called a help line for children of alcoholic parents but she’d lost her nerve and hung up without speaking to anyone. She didn’t want to talk about it. She couldn’t talk about it. It would be disloyal. Despite everything, she loved her mum.

She wasn’t alone, but she felt alone.

Her mother looked at her, mascara smudged under her eyes. “I do love you, Audrey. Do you love me?”

“Of course.” Despite her dry mouth, she managed to say the words. It was a routine that happened often. Her mother drank, told Audrey she loved her, sobered up and forgot all about it.

Audrey had given up hoping that one day her mother might say those words when she was sober.

“Give me the bottle, Mum.” She eased it out of her mother’s hand.

“What are you doing with that?”

Audrey poured it down the sink before she could change her mind, bracing her shoulders against her mother’s distressed wail.

“I can’t believe you did that! I was having one drink, that’s all, to give me confidence for tonight. What did I do to deserve a daughter like you?” She started sobbing again, apparently forgetting that a moment before she’d loved Audrey. “You don’t understand. I don’t want to lose Ron. I’m no good on my own.”

“Of course you are.” Audrey put the empty bottle down on the floor. “You have a good job.” Which she was afraid her mother might lose if she didn’t sober up.

What would happen then? Did Ron know her mother was an alcoholic? Would he walk out once he found out?

She clung to the idea that he wouldn’t. Hope, she’d discovered, was the light that guided you through dark places. You had to believe there was something better ahead.

Audrey grabbed a packet of wipes and gently erased the streaked mascara. “You have pretty eyes.”

Her mother gave a tremulous smile, her earlier nastiness no longer in evidence. “You think so?”

The vulnerability made Audrey queasy. Most of the time she was the adult, and the responsibility terrified her. She didn’t feel qualified for the role. “Definitely. People wear contact lenses to get this shade of green.”

Linda touched Audrey’s hair. “I hated having red hair when I was your age. I was teased all the time. I wanted to be blonde. You don’t get teased?”

“Sometimes.” Audrey reapplied her mother’s makeup, her approach subtler than Linda’s.

“How do you handle it?”

“I can take care of myself.” Audrey styled her mother’s hair and stood back and admired her handiwork. “There. You look good.”

“You’re so much stronger than I was.”

“You’re strong, too. You’ve just forgotten it.” And if you stopped drinking it would help.

She didn’t say it again. Her mother was calm now, and Audrey didn’t want to do or say anything that might change that. They lived on a knife edge. One slip, and they’d all be cut.

Her mother studied herself in the mirror, touching her cheekbones with the tips of her fingers. “You’d better get back to studying. Thanks for your help.”

It was as if the emotional explosion had never happened.

Audrey returned to her bedroom and closed the door.

She wanted to cry, but she knew that if she cried she’d get a headache and then she’d fail her test. If she failed her test, she might fail her exams and she hadn’t come this far to fall at the last fence. A few more months and she’d never have to study again.

Half an hour later a deep rumble of laughter announced that Ron had returned home.

Audrey covered her ears with her headphones, turned up the volume on pounding rock music and drowned out whatever was going on in the room above her.

Only when she glanced out of the window and saw her mother and Ron heading out of the house together, hand in hand, did she finally relax.

Don’t blow it, Mum.

When she was sure the coast was clear and that her mother wasn’t about to return for a bag, a coat or any other number of things, she ventured downstairs.

She could hear a dog barking in the street outside, and one of her neighbors shouting at another. She didn’t know them. It wasn’t that kind of street. In this particular London suburb, people came and went and never spoke to their neighbors. You could die, and no one would know. It was one of the cheaper areas of the city, which basically meant you paid twice what you would anywhere else in the country and got half as much for your money.

Rain was sheeting down, obscuring the view from the window.

Hardy, their rescue dog, was curled up in the warmth of the kitchen but when he saw Audrey he greeted her like a long-lost friend.

Audrey dropped to her knees and hugged him. “You are the only thing about this place I’m going to miss. You’re my best friend, and I wish I could take you with me when I go.” She giggled as he licked her face. “I hope she gets out of bed long enough to feed you when I’m gone. If not, scratch at the door. Or bite Ron on the ankles.” She stood up. “Food?”

Hardy wagged his tail.

She put food into his bowl, freshened his water and was wondering what to eat herself when her phone buzzed. It was Meena, asking if she could come over so they could study together.

Audrey and Meena had both moved to the school two years earlier, at an age when everyone else was already in groups and cliques.

Their friendship was one of the best things about the place for Audrey.

Given that she was likely to have the house to herself for hours, Audrey messaged back a yes. She would never, ever have contemplated having a friend around when her mother was home, but she occasionally invited Meena, provided the house was empty. Her parents were both doctors and Meena had the kind of stable home life Audrey could only dream of. She had uncles, aunts and cousins and Audrey wanted to implant herself in her family.

She checked the fridge.

It was empty apart from two bottles of wine.

She’d asked her mother to buy milk and cheese, but instead she’d eaten the few things Audrey had stocked up on the day before.

Tired, Audrey grabbed the open bottle of wine and tipped it down the sink. It was like trying to bail out a sinking ship with an eggcup, but still she couldn’t help trying to fix the situation.

There was no time for her to shop, so she headed for the freezer. Fortunately the frozen pizzas she’d bought the day before were still there. She threw them in the oven and retrieved a packet of chocolate biscuits she’d hidden for emergencies.

The moment she answered the door to her friend, she knew something was wrong. “What?”

“Nothing.” Meena pushed past her into the house. “Close the door fast.”

“Why?” Audrey peered out into the street and saw two girls leaning against a wall. She recognized them immediately. They were in her year at school. “What do those hyenas want?”

“My carcass. For dinner. Close the door, Aud!”

“They followed you again?” Audrey felt something hot and uncontrollable burn inside her. “What did they say?”

“The usual.” Despite the cold, Meena’s face was sweaty. Her eyes looked huge behind her glasses. “It doesn’t matter. It’s just words. Please don’t say anything.”

“It matters.” Audrey was out of the door and across the street before Meena could stop her, carrying all the extra emotion leftover from her encounter with her mother. “What is your problem?” She directed her question at the taller of the two girls because she knew she was the ringleader. Her name was Rhonda and she and Audrey clashed regularly.

Rhonda folded her arms. “I’m not the one with the problem. But you should stop hanging out with that dumb bitch. You need to rethink your friends.”

“Yeah.” The smaller girl standing by her side sounded like an echo. “You need to rethink your friends.”

Audrey glared at her. She couldn’t even summon up the girl’s name. She was a mouse who hid in Rhonda’s shadow. “When you have an original opinion you can voice it, but until then shut up.” She shifted her gaze back to Rhonda. “I don’t need to rethink anything. And seeing as Meena gets top grades in everything, the only dumb bitch I see is standing right in front of me.”

Rhonda lifted her jaw. “She should go back to wherever it is she came from.”

“She comes from here, you brainless baboon. She was born half a mile down the road from you but you’re too stupid to even know that, and who the hell cares anyway?”

“Why are you defending her? This isn’t your business, Audrey.”

“My friends aren’t my business? Is that a joke?” Audrey felt the last threads of control unravel. She took a step forward and had the satisfaction of seeing the other girl take a step back.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“It’s you who shouldn’t be here. This is my street. My wall. I don’t need a bunch of mean girls leaning against it.” Audrey stabbed Rhonda in the chest with her finger. “Get out of here, and if you come near Meena again I swear I’ll hurt you.”

“You and whose army?”

“I don’t need an army. I’m my own army. Now fuck off back to wherever you came from, which is probably the sewer.” With a threatening scowl that she’d spent hours perfecting in front of the mirror, she stalked away from them. They called something after her and she lifted her finger and kept walking.

She found Meena shaking like a baby fawn, her phone in her hand.

“I thought they were going to kill you.”

“You have so little faith in me.” Audrey glanced at the phone. “Why are you calling emergency services?”

“I thought you needed backup.”

“We’re not in an action film, Meena. Put the phone away. And stop shaking. You look like a kitten someone dropped in a puddle.”

Meena rubbed her arms. “I wish I could be like you. You’re funny and everyone likes you.”

“Yeah? Well, I wish I was like you. You have a brain and a place at Oxford.”

“I’d rather be popular and fit in. Pathetic, I know. Those girls say I just got the place to fill their diversity quota.”

“Yeah, well, those girls are mean as snakes and dumb as shit. They’ve got to say something to make themselves feel better because their lives are crap. But you—” Audrey grabbed Meena and swung her around. “You’re going to rule the world. And because you have me to do your hair, you’re going to look good while you do it. Be proud! You’re, like, insanely smart. I can’t even spell engineering, let alone study it. I boast about you to everyone. My friend Meena is going to Oxford.”

“You don’t hate me for it?”

“What? Don’t be crazy. I’m proud of you. Why would I hate you?”

Meena looked sweetly anxious. “Because studying is so hard for you.”

“Life is hard for you, too. I don’t have to put up with the crap that’s thrown in your direction on a daily basis.” Audrey shrugged, trying not to think of her own life. “Everyone has something to deal with, right? I’ve got your back and you’ve got my back.”

“No one will have my back at Oxford.” Meena wiped the rain from her glasses. “I wish you were going, too.”

“No, you don’t. You’ll be hanging out with smart people, saying smart things and doing smart things. Now stop letting them get to you. Be mad, not scared. And if you can’t actually be mad, then act mad. You need to be meaner than they are. You need to be meaner-Meena.” She collapsed, laughing, and Meena giggled, too.

“Meaner-Meena. I like that.”

“Good. Because right now you’re far-too-nice-Meena. Let’s eat.”

Meena followed her into the kitchen and sniffed. “Is that pizza?”

“Mushroom and olive.”

“Bliss. Well, apart from the olives, but I can pick those off.” Meena dumped her bags on the kitchen floor and stripped off her coat. Her long black hair was damp. She wore jeans and a black sweater that belonged to her sister. Audrey would have loved to have a sister to share clothes with, but mostly she would have loved to share the load of her mother.

She watched as Meena sent a text.

“Who are you texting?”

Meena flushed. “My mum. She made me promise to let her know I arrived safely.”

“You live, like, two streets away.”

“I know. It’s embarrassing, but it’s either that or she drives me here and that’s more embarrassing.”

Audrey felt a stab of envy. “It’s great that she cares so much. You have the best family.”

“Aud—”

“What?”

“I smell burning.”

“Shit.” Audrey sprinted across the kitchen and opened the oven. “It’s fine. A little burned maybe, but not totally charred. Can you grab plates?”

Meena opened a cupboard. “Are you nervous about leaving home and living alone?”

“No.” Audrey dumped the pizza on a board. She virtually lived alone now. No one cared what she did. She didn’t have a curfew or rules. She’d reached the point where she’d decided that genuinely living alone would be an improvement. “Are you?”

“A bit, but it will be nice to have some independence. Mum is determined to make sure I eat healthily while I’m revising so every hour she brings me a healthy snack.”

The mere thought of someone thinking to bring her a snack, let alone a healthy one, almost made Audrey bleed with envy.

“And she’s on my case the whole time.” Meena unloaded her books and piled them on the table next to the plates. “We should get started. My uncle is coming at nine thirty to pick me up.”

“I could walk home with you if you like.”

“Then you’d have to walk back alone.”

“So?” She walked everywhere alone. “What do you want to drink?”

“Anything.” Meena walked to the fridge and opened it before Audrey could stop her. “What happened here? Why is your fridge empty?”

“My mother was defrosting it. It was so full, it needed clearing out.” The lie came easily, as lies always did to Audrey.

Yes, Miss Foster, everything is fine at home.

My mother couldn’t make parents’ evening because she’s working.

She could control the story she told. Less easy to control was the shame. It clung to her like sweat and she turned away, terrified it might be visible. “This pizza is getting cold. We should eat.”

“You’re lucky. Your mum gives you so much freedom.”

Audrey switched on her habitual smile. “Yeah, it’s great.”

Why didn’t she just tell Meena and her other friends the truth? It was partly because having started this story it was hard to untangle it, but mostly because it was embarrassing to admit that your own mother thought a bottle of wine was more important than you were. What did that say about her? At the very least, that she was unlovable.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do this summer?”

“I’m going to Paris.” Audrey snapped the top off a can of soda. They had no food in the house, but they always had mixers. “I’m going to find a job and somewhere to live.”

“That’s going to make Hayley sick with envy. You need to post photos that are cooler than hers. Have you seen her Instagram? Spending a month by the pool in Saint-Tropez this summer. #lovemylife.” Meena crunched her way through the overcooked pizza and licked her fingers.

“Yeah. I’ve got my own hashtags. #yousmugbitch or maybe #hopethepoolturnsyourhairgreen or #hateyourguts. Trouble is, I can’t spell any of them.”

“I’ll spell them for you if you promise you’ll post at least one smug photo of you in Paris. How are you going to communicate? You don’t speak French.”

Audrey nibbled her pizza. “I can say I’m hungry, and I know the words for hot guy. The rest is going to have to be body language. That’s universal.”

“Do you think you’ll have sex?” Meena pulled at another slice of pizza, catching the cheese that trailed in strands. “You’ve done it, right?”

Audrey shrugged, not wanting to admit what a total letdown sex had been. She had no idea why so many books were written about love and passion. There was obviously something wrong with her. “It’s like going to the gym. You can get physical without having to engage the brain. Not that I exactly have a brain to engage.”

“Stop it! You know that’s not true. So you’re saying sex is like being on the treadmill? What happened to romance? What about Romeo and Juliet?”

“They died. Not romantic.” Audrey nibbled her pizza. “Also, that Juliet had no street smarts whatsoever.”

“She was only thirteen.”

“Well, I can tell you that even if she hadn’t drunk that poison, she never would have made it to old age.”

Meena giggled. “You should write that in your exam. So do you want to revise?”

“You don’t mind? It’s not like you exactly need to.”

“I do need to. And I love being here with you. You always make me laugh. What do you want to start with? Physics? I know that’s really hard for you because of all the symbols. It’s hard for me, too, and I don’t have dyslexia. Whenever I open my book I’m just one atom away from a brain explosion.”

Audrey knew that wasn’t true, but she was touched by her friend’s attempts to make her feel better. “I think I’m getting there, but ask me some questions and we’ll find out. Shall we have some music?” She finished her pizza and reached for her phone. “I revise better to music.”

“I love coming to your house. Everything is so relaxed here. Where’s your mum tonight?”

“Out.”

“With Ron?” Meena watched as Audrey chose a track and pressed Play. “Now that’s romantic. All those years widowed, missing your dad, and now she’s in love again. It’s like a movie.”

“Widowed” sounded so much better than “divorced three times.”

Losing a husband in tragic circumstances attracted sympathy and understanding. Being divorced three times attracted suspicion and incredulity.

Audrey figured that with the way her life was, she was allowed a little poetic license. And since she and her mother had moved to this part of London only two years before, no one was likely to find out the truth.

“I love this song. Revision can wait.” She slid off her chair. “Let’s dance. Come on, meaner-Meena, show me what you’re made of.”

She turned up the volume and danced around the kitchen. She swayed and bumped to the music, her hair flying around her face. Meena joined her, and soon they were whooping and laughing.

For ten glorious minutes Audrey was a teenager without a care in the world. It didn’t matter that she was going to fail her exams and that the rest of her life would be ruined. It didn’t matter that her mum preferred to drink than spend time with her daughter. All that mattered was the pump and flow of the music.

If only the rest of her life could be like this.

Grace

“Do you want me to come in with you?” Monica pulled up outside the hospital. “You’re shivering.”

Was she? Grace felt removed from everything, even the reactions of her own body. It was hard to believe that three days had passed since that night in the restaurant. “I need to do this on my own, but thanks. You’re a great friend.” She stared down at her feet and realized she was wearing odd shoes. One navy. One black. Visible evidence that she was falling apart. “Losing it” as Sophie would say.

“I still can’t believe it. I mean, David. You two are the perfect couple. And he’s such a family man. He takes Sophie swimming every Saturday and does backyard barbecues.”

“This isn’t helping, Monica.” Should she go home and change her shoes? They offended her sense of order.

“I’m just so angry. I could strangle David with my bare hands.” Monica thumped the steering wheel with her fist. “How could he do this to you?”

How? Why? When? Her brain was stuck in a loop.

What had she done? What hadn’t she done?

She’d thought she was the love of David’s life. The one.

Finding out that she wasn’t overturned her entire memory bank. What was real and what wasn’t?

“Apparently, he’s bored with his life.” Her mouth felt dry. “And since I was a large part of his life, I guess that means—”

“Do not tell me you’re boring,” Monica spoke through her teeth, “because we both know that’s not the case.”

“He said I organize every part of our lives and it’s true. I like predictability and order. I’ve always seen that as a good thing.”

“It is a good thing! Who wants a life full of chaos? Don’t do this to yourself, Grace. Don’t make it about you. The truth is you’re so competent, you’ve bruised his ego.”

“I don’t think so. David is very secure and sure of himself. I think I’ve made him feel—redundant. But it’s not a manhood thing. He isn’t like that.”

“Don’t you believe it. He’s having a full-blown midlife crisis. His little girl is leaving home, and suddenly he feels old. He’s faced his own mortality—literally, in the last few days—it’s classic.”

Grace stared out of the window, remembering David’s face that night at dinner. “He hasn’t bought a sports car or dyed his hair. He hasn’t given up his job. The only thing he seems to have changed is the woman in his life.”

Images played through her head, as if she’d accidentally clicked on a porn site on the internet. She wanted to cover her eyes. Reboot her brain. Cold, she tugged her coat around her.

Monica turned the heat up. “You have no idea who it is?”

“No.” Grace looked at her friend. “How could I not have known this was going on?”

“Because David is the last man on the planet you’d suspect of having an affair, so you weren’t looking. You need to ask him right out who it is.”

“The hospital staff say he mustn’t have any stress.” And she knew, deep down, she was postponing the moment when she’d have to hear the details. A name would make it real.

Monica snorted. “He mustn’t have stress? How about you? He’s a man who chose to tell his wife he wanted a divorce during a dinner to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Any other woman probably wouldn’t have resuscitated him when he collapsed.”

“It crossed my mind not to.” Perhaps she shouldn’t have admitted that. “What does that say about me?”

Monica reached out and took her hand. “It says you’re human, and thank goodness for that.”

“I stood there and couldn’t move—I don’t know how long it was—” Her heart had been beating frantically while his had been failing. “I thought I couldn’t do it.”

“But you did,” Monica said gently.

“What if I walk into his room and she’s there?”

Monica swallowed. “Surely David wouldn’t be that tactless?”

“He’s in love with another woman. I think tact has gone out of the window.” She twisted the edge of her coat with her fingers. “At dinner he kept rubbing his jaw. I thought he needed to see a dentist, but it turns out that can be a sign of a heart attack. I missed it.”

“Please tell me you’re not blaming yourself for that!”

“David was so stressed about hurting me, it brought on a heart attack. Even breaking up with me, he was inherently decent.”

“Grace, please. He was a heartless rat bast—” Monica broke off and lifted her hands in apology. “Sorry, but I can’t bear to hear you make excuses for him. How is Sophie taking it?”

Acid gnawed at her gut. Maybe she should see a doctor. “I haven’t told her yet.”

“What? Grace, she—”

“She needs to know. I’m aware. But telling her that her father had a heart attack and was in the hospital seemed like enough at the time. She’s upset and worried sick. I couldn’t bring myself to make it worse. She idolizes him. They’ve always been close.”