Page 33 of The Holiday Cottage

Patrick didn’t do what she did and wait with her breath held for life to crumble in her hands. He didn’t touch wood or wear a lucky snowflake charm or look desperately for a second magpie when just one was perched outside the window.

He pulled her closer. “I do know that. I mean, look at us. And look how great our friends are. There aren’t many people who have known their friends since before they could tie their own shoelaces.”

“I know. And I want the girls to have that. I want them to have what we had. Good people in their lives who know them well and love them.”

“They have that. The girls have great friends. They’re lucky.”

It was true, for the moment at least. But luck, as she knew, could change. And sometimes there was nothing you could do about that.

8

Imogen

Imogen paced the corridors of the hospital. She’d spent far too much of her life in places like this, waiting for news on her mother. She’d eyed enviously the anxious relatives who formed small groups, supporting each other through their own crises. Imogen had stood by herself, handling it alone.

In the beginning it had been fine, mostly because of Terry, the man her mother had married when Imogen was seven. Imogen had liked Terry. He’d read to her, helped her with homework and took her to the park, although for some reason she hadn’t understood, his attentions seemed to annoy her mother.

Leave the kid alone. She’s fine.

Her mother had been relatively stable during those years and Imogen’s homelife fairly normal, if lean on affection and warmth. Occasionally, her mother would drink and she and Terry would have a huge fight about it, but they always seemed to make up.

And then when Imogen was eleven, two things happened. Her mother lost her job, and Terry decided he’d had enough of Tina and walked out.

Imogen had been bereft. It had felt like losing a father.

Things had gone downhill from there. For the next few months her mother was drunk more than she was sober. On one occasion, Imogen had taken her mother to hospital to be stitched up after a fall and someone had called social services. A woman had arrived and had asked awkward, probing questions about Imogen’s home life and Imogen had smiled and made up a story that seemed to satisfy her.This has never happened before. Yes, things are fine at home.My aunt comes to look after me when necessary, and I can always stay with my grandmother.

That was when she’d learned that sometimes presenting a fictitious life was better than revealing the truth. She’d read enough to be fairly sure that if they knew the truth about her homelife they wouldn’t be happy. Her mother, while far from the figure she read about in storybooks, was her only family. And even though her mother would never admit it, Imogen knew she was needed. It was the two of them against the world.

Gradually, her mother had got herself back on her feet. She’d found another job. Stopped drinking. It was a nonstop struggle, but she’d gone a whole year before lapsing again.

And that was how it continued.

Whenever things were bad, Imogen had reminded herself that this was not all her mother’s fault. She’d been abandoned by her own family at a vulnerable age, and that was inexcusable in Imogen’s opinion. No wonder her mother knew so little about stability. She didn’t know how to mother because she hadn’t really been mothered herself. She didn’t know how to give unconditional love because she hadn’t received it from her own family. Her own mother had thrown her out of the house when she’d become pregnant.

Imogen had constantly reminded herself of that. Her mother had no faith in family. It was up to Imogen to fix that and heal her. It was up to Imogen to prove that some family could be relied on to step up and be there.

It had sounded straightforward, and it had been anything but.

When she was twelve, social services had done a spontaneous home visit, possibly triggered by another trip to the hospital with her mother, but by then Imogen was keeping house. Their small apartment was clean and tidy. Her schoolbooks were stacked on the small kitchen table, and a pot of homemade soup was bubbling on the stove. Fortunately, it had been one of her mother’s good days. Her hair and her clothes were clean, and she’d returned to her job in the local pub (Imogen had tried to persuade her to take a job in a bookstore, or a coffee shop—anywhere that didn’t have temptation under her nose—but her mother loved the pub). Often she’d come home with someone she’d met there and Imogen would lock herself in her room and try not to listen.

Social services had apparently been satisfied with what they’d seen because they never came round again, and for much of the time Imogen’s homelife had been uneventful, if lonely. Despite her best efforts, her relationship with her mother was never more than transactional.

And it was still that way.

Imogen sighed. This whole scenario was wearyingly familiar.

Her mother. In hospital.

The staff kept asking her to take a seat, but sitting just made her agitated. She’d thought this would be quick. She’d thought she’d be able to see her mother and leave, but it hadn’t worked that way. They’d asked her to wait. And wait a little longer. Things were taking time. Her mother wasn’t back from having her scan. Her mother needed a blood test.

To make matters worse, her phone was exploding with messages from Sophie, each more urgent than the last. She’d switched it to vibrate, but then it kept buzzing against her thigh like an angry wasp.

Imogen, how long until you get here?

Imogen, can you call me—it’s pretty urgent.

Imogen, where are you?

---