Page 94 of Winter at Wishington Bay
‘You should get that.’
I looked at him in shock. The bell rang again.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said,’ he repeated slowly, the sneer back on his face, ‘that you should get that.’
‘I am not your maid, Jeremy, and I do not need to be told who I should and shouldn’t answer my own front door to. That lot have been banging on it all morning.’
He turned the phone screen towards me briefly, showing me the text he’d just received, instructing him to open the door. ‘This time it’s your mother.’
28
I crossed to the window to see a current model Range Rover bumped up on the kerb behind Jeremy’s Bentley. The window was down and I recognised my mother’s driver at the wheel. I let out a breath slowly between my teeth. Today was just one surprise after another. I closed my eyes briefly as the doorbell rang again, this time more persistently. Opening them again, my gaze was caught by something on Jeremy’s windscreen, flapping slightly in the stiff breeze. He always did think rules were for other people. However, parking on the kerb violations in Wishington Bay applied to everyone, no matter how titled you were, or how entitled you thought you were. A small smile crept on to my lips. It disappeared just as quickly when the door rang again.
‘Are you going to let her in?’ Jeremy puffed at me, his cheeks a vivid shade of plum.
‘No. I didn’t invite her, and I have no wish to see her.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he said, before trailing a string of expletives behind as he yanked the top door open and stomped down the stairs. I leant on the door jamb. Even I knew my mother was going to have to come in at some point, but I was in less of a rush than Jeremy was. He was now staring at the exterior door. A grin slid on to my face as he stared at it. Jeremy hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth – he’d had the whole cutlery canteen. Right now was probably one of the rare times he’d ever had to open a door for himself. Even his student accommodation had had Louis XIV furniture, a butler, valet and several other staff. After a few moments, he worked it out and opened the door. I left them to it, avoiding the intruding camera lenses trying to peer their way up the stairs, before I heard the noise muffle again as, I assume, Jeremy closed the door. My mother was even less likely than him to do any simple or menial task herself.
Her disdain seemed to enter the room before she did. I didn’t bother to stand as she made her entrance. She’d made her position clear when I’d contacted her to tell her I’d left. People like me didn’t do things like that. There had been no understanding, no support, no offer of comfort. Like Jeremy, she was only concerned about how it would reflect on her and what ripples it would cause within the family and her social set. Her daughter was crumbling into pieces, had no home and no idea what to do and the only thing my mother was worried about was how it would all look up at the country club. She’d told me to stop being so selfish and get back to my place and hope that Jeremy hadn’t noticed I’d gone. To be fair, she probably had had a point there – I suspected it had taken him a little while to realise I’d actually left. But it had shown me where she stood – and it was firmly the other side of the fence to me. And now, here she was, in front of me.
She glanced round. ‘So, this is where you’ve been hiding out all this time.’ The disapproval laced itself through her words but, after years of cringing at it, doing everything I could to make it disappear, I realised that now, it didn’t bother me. I no longer cared whether my mother disapproved of me, my home, or anything else. I knew what mattered to me now and, after so many years of trying to earn it, her good opinion was no longer one of those things.
‘No, Mother. This is where I’ve been living, very happily – until now.’
‘It’s very small.’
I didn’t reply.
‘That’s what I said,’ Jeremy butted in. ‘Very pokey.’ Had his tone always been that ingratiating towards her?
She turned away from him without acknowledgement.
‘Living happily cleaning other people’s bathrooms and sleeping with other people’s husbands?’ Her tone was cool, in contrast to my face which flamed at her last comment.
‘Yes, I have been doing some cleaning to help supplement my income and also to help out a friend. I actually quite enjoy it.’ My mother paled at the comment. ‘It can be very calming.’
‘This friend you’re helping out. Is it her husband you’re sleeping with?’ I’d tried to move past her original comment, but she knew she’d hit a mark and continued to twist the verbal knife.
‘What I do with my life is none of your business. You made it quite clear you had no interest in it when I needed you. However, as I think it’s best that before you leave, which I’m sure you will be doing very shortly, you have your facts straight and get your information from a more reliable source than theDaily Mail’s column of shame, I will clarify a couple of points for you. Yes, I was seeing someone briefly, but he was separated, and had been for some time.’
‘But his wife is here in the village with him now, so I understand.’
She really had had someone on the case, or at least someone scouring the internet for her information.
‘Yes, that’s correct. But at the time they were separated with no intention of any reconciliation.’
‘So you threw him back in to the arms of his ex?’ Jeremy snorted, apparently amused.
‘It would appear those ridiculous trousers are letting even less oxygen up to your brain than usual,’ I returned, keeping my tone cool.
Jeremy narrowed his eyes at me, before turning away and giving his clothing another surreptitious pull. I glanced at my mother. There was the slightest glimmer of amusement in her eyes.
‘Talking of reconciliation, I don’t suppose there’s any chance of that happening here?’
My ex-husband turned his nose up as if a bad smell had just wafted there. ‘Hardly! After all she’s put me through?’
