Me, You and Tiramisu

‘Just pop in for ten minutes. It’s on your way back to the motorway anyway. For an old lady?’ They all gave her hugs, and she squeezed Will’s hand, ‘Marvellous to meet you, you seem every bit as fine as Jayne said. Now look after my girls, they’re rather special.’

‘I know, and I will. Lovely to meet you Mrs.… Helen.’

Ten minutes later the Ford Focus they’d borrowed from Will’s friends Duncan and Erica for the day was swerving along the coast again, its windows down, with them all laughing about Helen’s fabulous eccentricities when Rachel shrieked, ‘Hell no! We’re not going to Crystal’s, Jayne. I said I’d only come if we just went to Gran’s; I’m not going to Crystal’s. Stop the car. Will, stop the goddamn car!’

They swerved into a bus stop and Rachel started clawing at the handle, desperately trying to open the child-locked door. Jayne swivelled around in her seat and said, in what she hoped was a soothing tone, ‘Rachel, she’s our mother, just say hi and then we’ll go. Seriously, two minutes tops. In and out. We’re almost there, anyway. We can’t come all this way and not even have a cup of tea with her.’

‘Well, I’m not coming in,’ Rachel replied sullenly, crossing her arms and pouting, ‘I’m staying in the car.’

As they pulled up onto the driveway, a stunned silence filled the car as they each took in the beautiful freshly cut lawn, completely devoid of overgrown yellowing weeds and thistles. Planted borders lay where previously only discarded fag butts had been and gently cascading flowers in hanging baskets framed the newly painted front door. They parked behind a shiny silver Mercedes with a disabled badge in its window. ‘Has she moved, do you think?’ Will asked finally.

‘She must have done. I’ll just go and see.’ As Jayne got out of the car, she reasoned that it wouldn’t be entirely out of character for Crystal to have legged it without telling anyone. When they were five she dropped them off at Helen’s for the night with their teddy bears and Strawberry Shortcake pyjamas and picked them up four months later with a tan and a smattering of Spanish by way of explanation as to her whereabouts for a whole season.

Jayne walked up the driveway and surreptitiously peered in through the kitchen window as she passed it. It had been less than a year since she’d last popped in for a quick coffee with her mother, on her last visit to Helen, and nothing had changed then, but this time everything seemed different. Gone were the crusty dishes that perpetually lived in the sink, and a pristine white Shaker-style kitchen had replaced their grubby cream-and-brown one. A recycling bucket lay next to the front door; in it were empty Granola boxes and plastic smoothie bottles, evidence of a different class of consumer to the cheap wine-swigging previous owner. She rang the bell and turned back to the car, where Will and Rachel were leaning forward in their seats staring and shook her head and shrugged, as if to say, ‘your guess is as good as mine’.

The door was opened by an elderly man, probably in his early eighties, slightly stooped but otherwise sprightly, ‘Hello, hello! How can I help you, young lady?’

‘I’m really sorry to bother you, but my mother used to live here, until recently, and I just wondered if you knew where she went, or if you have a forwarding address for her?’

‘Oh my, are you Jayne or Rachel?’ he boomed cheerfully.

‘Um, Jayne?’

‘Your mother is going to be delighted to see you back in one piece!’ He went to the bottom of the stairs and shouted up, ‘Come down, Jayne is here!’ Turning back to where Jayne stood uncertain and more than a little stunned, he enthusiastically beckoned, ushering her into the living room. ‘Come in, come in.’

She had no idea what was going on, who this man was, or why this house sort of looked like her old one, but after a 60 Minute Makeover. Behind the reproduction Victorian fireplace was a wall covered in a beautiful cornflower-blue-and-cream wallpaper, the type that depicts French scenes – she could never remember the name of it, toile something she thought, Rachel would know – depicting historic country life, delicate sketches of peasants shovelling hay into carts and flocks of geese about to take flight. When she and Rachel lived there with Crystal a broken three-bar electric fire was surrounded by a nasty 1970s brickwork fireplace, Jayne couldn’t even remember what colour the lounge walls were, a sort of nicotine shade, she imagined.

‘When did you land?’ he asked affably.

‘Um … land?’

‘Yes! Is this a short trip back to the UK, or are you back for longer? I don’t suppose you can say too much about it, eh?’ He tapped the side of his nose, ‘Mum’s the word, sorry, no more questions, I don’t want you to have to kill me!’ he chuckled.

‘Darling! How wonderful to see you! I can’t believe it!’ Crystal swept into the living room, but, much like the surroundings, she’d been the recipient of a drastic transformation. Her bleached platinum hair had been replaced by a sleek dark-blonde feathery cut, her make-up was still substantial but looked like it had at least been put on with a selection of task-appropriate brushes rather than a garden trowel. She was wearing some sort of emerald silk kaftan that shimmered slightly as the light caught it and made a faint rustle as she walked. As she enveloped Jayne in a big hug, possibly her very first from her, she was shrouded in a cloud of Issey Miyake. What the hell? On Jayne’s last visit a year ago she’d opened the door a couple of inches, which was as much as the chain would allow, dressed in a stained dressing gown, her hair comically sticking out as if in mid-electrocution, eyes bleary and breath honking of stale cigarettes and last night’s bar bill.

Jayne peered at her, disbelieving, ‘Crystal?’

‘Oh hush, darling, you know I hate it when you call me that!’ She squeezed her shoulders just a tiny bit too hard, ‘This is such a wonderful surprise. Now, darling, sit down and tell your mummy everything!’ Mummy? Jayne looked back at the old man, who was rocking back on his heels, hands in his cardigan pockets, smiling at what looked, for all intents and purposes, like a touching mother-daughter reunion. For a split second Jayne thought that she was either being secretly filmed by a Saturday-night TV show and Ant and Dec were going to spring out from behind one of the new linen drapes that were dusting the floor, or she’d stumbled into some kind of parallel universe. Crystal tapped the sofa seat next to her, ‘Come on, Jayney, and don’t leave anything out!’

‘Um … Rachel and my boyfriend, Will, are in the car … I should go and fetch them.’

Crystal clapped her hands together in delight, ‘Oh my goodness, my Rachy’s here too! And you have a boyfriend? You never said!’ Jayne didn’t quite know during which make- believe conversation she was meant to have relayed this information, seeing as they hadn’t spoken since her last visit, but decided to play along to whatever was going on in her mother’s head.

‘Um, yes, Will, sorry about not mentioning it before, I … er … wanted it to be a surprise. I’ll, um, go get them in, then, shall I?’

‘The more the merrier!’ Crystal and the old man chorused.

During her deliberately slow walk to the car she tried to understand what had just gone on before she tried to articulate it to the two people who knew her best in the world. And what she came up with was: ‘Mum’s gone loop the loop, you better come in.’

Rachel’s arms crossed defiantly, ‘I’ve already told you, I’m not setting foot in that house.’

‘Believe me, Rach, you’re going to want to see this. I think she’s got some sort of dementia, and there’s this old guy, who might be her carer or something, and the house looks like it belongs in Country Living. I don’t know what’s going on, but you have to come in.’

‘Dementia?’ Will slammed his door, ‘does she recognise you?’

‘Yes, but she wants me to call her Mummy and sit on the sofa and, you know, talk to her.’

‘Is she pissed?’

‘No, that’s the weird thing, she seems completely sober. It’s like she’s got a wholesome twin we never knew about and they’ve swapped lives.’

‘Okay, okay, this I have to see.’ Rachel begrudgingly got out of the car and all three of them trooped into the house.

‘Rachel!’ A flash of emerald and a swoosh of silk and suddenly Crystal was hugging a stiffened Rachel, whose arms remained resolutely at her side, one of Crystal’s arms then loosened, drawing Jayne into the embrace too. ‘My babies, my babies are back!’

Rachel mouthed ‘What the fuck?’ over their mother’s head, and Jayne gave a little shrug back. Will was loitering by the door taking in the whole scene; he told them afterwards that he was trying to work out how to take his phone out with no one noticing and start filming the scene in case they needed to use it as evidence to have her sectioned.

Briefly breaking away from her daughters when she spotted Will, Crystal visibly straightened and purred seductively, ‘and who is this?’

In an act that can only be described as pure territorialism, in fact, Jayne couldn’t have been more blatant had she peed in a circle around him, she darted to his side, grabbed his hand and said, ‘Crystal, er, Mum, this is Will, my, er, boyfriend.’

Crystal looked at him, then at Jayne, then back at him in sheer disbelief, her mouth slightly ajar, eyes narrowed, if she had the ability to raise one eyebrow, this would have been the moment that skill would have been used for. ‘Well you’re not the only one to bag yourself a hunk,’ she slowly walked over to the fireplace and slipped her arm around the old man’s waist, who seemed to be leaning against the mantel for support, and said, ‘Darlings, I want you to meet someone rather special to me, my gorgeous Stanley.’ They then kissed in the way only old people can, Stanley with his dry, wrinkled lips pursed together, eyes closed, their mother taking this show of affection to an entirely unnecessary level by putting her hand on his chino-clad bottom.

‘Jesus Christ, Crystal. You’ll give the old man a heart attack,’ muttered Rachel with a disgusted sigh.

‘I think that’s the point,’ Will whispered and flinched as Jayne poked him in the ribs.

‘So, who’s for tea?’ Stanley asked brightly, clapping his hands together.

Before his words had even finished forming, Rachel snapped back, ‘We can’t stay.’

‘I think we can manage a quick cuppa,’ Jayne widened her eyes at Rachel and Will before following Stanley into the kitchen to help. She still hadn’t got a hold of the situation unfolding. There was this arthritic pensioner who Jayne charitably thought seemed very nice, there was her mother, who’d quite clearly been possessed, and this house that resembled the one where they grew up only by the number on the front door. Stanley clattered some Denby cups and saucers onto a tray.

Growing up, all their crockery had the emblem of Little Chef on their bases, which had been slipped into Crystal’s bag when she’d done her first and only shift there. Remnants of those six hours she’d spent employed had been scattered liberally around the house – including salt-and-pepper shakers, a clock, batteries and an extension lead. She would have taken the electrical appliances that had been attached to the lead as well had she brought a bigger bag to work that day. ‘Rookie error’ she’d described it at the time.

Jayne filled up the kettle and started making inane comments about how nice the garden was looking, and was Stanley a keen horticulturist – the type of questions that old people love, but you never thought when you were younger would actually ever come out of your mouth.

‘I do enjoy going round the garden centre, I must admit, choosing what should be planted, although the days when I can bend down, fingers sifting soil, have long gone, I’m afraid. But Crystal’s found this young chap who’s ever so nice, to come round a few times a week and tend to it when I’m out. He’s a bit slow on the old weeding front. Sometimes when he’s been here for an hour or so I don’t really know what he’s done, but Crystal tells me he’s been ever so busy, so I don’t really like to probe.’

He raised his voice over the noise of the boiling kettle. ‘I’ve been so lucky finding Crystal.’

‘Um, how did you two meet again?’

‘Well, she found me, actually, my wife had just passed – we’d been together for fifty-two years – and a little article came out in the Torbay Gazette about Beryl. She was once the Mayoress, you see, so they wrote this lovely piece about her and Crystal wrote to me after that, giving her condolences and passing on a message that Beryl had for me from the other side. She’s terribly gifted, your mother, and we struck up a friendship. She’s like a breath of fresh air to me, so loving, and she could see that I was rambling around in that big old house by myself, seeing Beryl in every room, so when she suggested selling it and moving here with her and using the money to make our own little palace, I thought, what a lucky chap I am!’

Jayne opened the large American-style double-door fridge under the pretext of getting the milk out, but she took the opportunity while her back was turned to close her eyes and take a deep, steadying breath without him seeing. As she closed the fridge door a photograph that was tacked to the front of it with magnets caught her eye. It was a picture of two female soldiers in camouflage gear, grinning through their war paint at the lens, long rifles and cumbersome backpacks slung on their shoulders. ‘Are these your grandchildren, Stanley?’ Jayne asked, thinking it best to try to show the old man any ill will they had was not aimed in his direction. She admired his sentimentality and patriotism, proudly displaying his granddaughters.

He chuckled, ‘That camouflage paint certainly does a good job if you can’t even recognise yourself! That’s the photo of you and Rachel you sent your Mum from Iraq. She didn’t want to put it up, though, official secrets act or something, she said, but like I said to her, Crystal dear, I think Al Qaeda have better things to do than keep an eye on houses in Paignton for clues, I think we’ll be okay! Do any of you take sugar?’

Jayne was stunned; she’d clearly underestimated the depths to which her mother could sink to. ‘Um, yes. Please, one for Will and me. Rachel will just have black. Um, Stanley, what else did my mum say about our, um, time in, er, Iraq?’

‘Oh don’t worry about me, my love, all your secrets are safe with me.’ He mimed zipping up his mouth, locking it at the corner and slipping the imaginary key into his breast pocket. ‘What you girls are doing for our little country, it’s admirable. I was a year too young to fight the Germans, more’s the pity, and so I have nothing but awe for you two.’ His eyes started to look a little watery, ‘We’re just both thrilled that you came today. I know that you only get leave every few years, which is why you couldn’t make our wedding, so this is a really lovely surprise.’

Wedding? ‘We’re really big on surprises in our family.’ Jayne flashed him a smile that hovered between sympathy and commiseration. ‘Shall I carry the tray in? It looks heavy.’

As they walked into the living room the atmosphere was dripping with vitriol. Unpleasantries had obviously been exchanged and the three of them were sitting in stony silence. Will and Rachel, who shared a sofa, were staring at the floor in front of them, while Crystal was flicking the screen on a jewelled iPhone that she tossed under a cushion before flashing Stanley and Jayne a wide smile that ended at the corners of her lips. Will stood up and Jayne thought he was going to take the tray from her, but instead he said, ‘You know what, Jayne, I don’t think we’ve got time for tea, I think we better hit the road.’

Rachel rapidly jumped to her feet, ‘Absolutely, come on, Jayne.’ They both bundled her out of the door, leaving a bewildered Stanley standing in the middle of the lounge holding a teapot and Crystal idly lounging, Cleopatra-style, on her chaise longue, giving a cursory wave to their departing backs.

‘What the hell was that all about?’ Jayne snapped angrily as soon as they reached the newly crazy-paved driveway, ‘that was so rude – Stanley had made tea.’

‘Darling, seriously, it’s much better for us to go now.’ Will slammed the passenger door on Jayne as soon as she’d sat down. ‘Your mother’s not right in the head, and I wanted us to go before she upset you.’

‘Why, what did she say?’ Jayne caught Will flashing warning eyes at Rachel in the rear-view mirror.

‘Nothing in particular, she was just a bit off.’

‘She’s been a bit off all our lives – that’s no reason to just up and leave! I think we should go back in there to apologise!’

‘Jayne, listen to Will, and Will start the sodding engine.’

‘Guys, what’s going on? What did she say?’ Jayne turned around in her seat to look at her sister as the car reversed down the driveway at top speed, ‘Jesus, Rach, I can take it, I’m a big girl, what did she say?’

Rachel sighed and Jayne was sure she detected a note of uncharacteristic embarrassment in her voice, ‘She asked Will how much you were paying him to pretend to be your boyfriend.’

‘What?’

‘She thought I was a gigolo,’ Will added, rolling his eyes to emphasise the lunacy of this suggestion.

‘That’s not entirely idiotic – if I pimped you out we could seriously earn a fortune. None of this teaching and chutney-making, we could make big bucks.’

‘Jayne, you don’t get it. She was serious. She said that there’s no way that you could pull someone like Will, so you must have hired him to impress her. She started naming figures that you’d paid him.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Will snapped, and reached over to put his hand on Jayne’s thigh, ‘she was probably high on something, Jayne, take no notice. You’re gorgeous and fabulous and worth ten of me.’

‘But she needs to know what Crystal said. You don’t need to protect her, Will.’

‘Rachel’s right, it’s okay.’ Jayne shrugged. His reticence was sweet, but unnecessary as far as her mother was concerned. She wouldn’t be surprised at anything Crystal had to say. Her mother’s lack of diplomacy and social niceties didn’t surprise her at all, but Crystal had probably merely said what most people were thinking. She’d seen the double-takes of people in the street whenever they walked by holding hands; that moment that lasted a split second too long between her saying, ‘let me introduce my boyfriend’ and the polite but baffled responses.

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