receiving polite and not unenthusiastic thanks from the producer. She left the building carrying a hand-tied bunch of Heavenly Scent flowers, a Diptyque candle and a card from the regular presenters thanking her. She had pretended not to see the producer hurriedly signing on their behalf when she’d thought no one was looking. The card that Julia Keen had given her was burning a hole in her pocket.
*
Not until Christie sank into the grey-leather back seat of her chauffeur-driven Mercedes and she was watching the black ribbon of the M40 disappear beneath them, did she stop to take stock. Only then did she realise that she had no idea what she’d said at any time over the past hour or so, or if any of it had made sense. Her brief conversation with Julia had taken on the quality of a dream. She dismissed it as an aberration. The woman had only said what she felt she had to. Hadn’t she?
The driver had been asked to drop her off at her mother’s where she’d left her car. There was just time to drop in before she went home to meet the children when they got back from school. The door chimes pealed, and through the dimpled glass, she saw the distorted silhouette of her most ferocious critic coming towards her. The door opened to reveal Maureen, slim, her streaked blonde bob as aspirationally gamine as ever, beady eyes darting this way and that, thin mouth stretched into a smile, a hand on the string of pearls that crowned her heather twinset.
‘Christine! We all watched you, darling. You were surprisingly good, although I wasn’t sure about your lipstick.’ She held the door so Christie could just squeeze through. ‘And the dress. A bit revealing but the colour wasn’t bad.’ She led the way into the sitting room where the only one of the ‘all’ who was left was Ted Brooks, Maureen’s ‘gentleman friend’, whose right hand enveloped a sherry glass. Not the first of the day, if the colour of his cheeks was anything to judge by.
‘Ah, Christie.’ He glowed. ‘Marvellous show.’
‘Thanks, Ted. I was very nervous.’ She waited, not wanting to have to prompt either of them to congratulate her on her contribution.
‘I say, that Sharon is an attractive woman.’ His watery blue eyes misted over, presumably in memory of that spectacular cleavage.
Maureen briskly changed the subject. ‘I didn’t expect you to know so much about alcohol or men, or to broadcast the fact to the entire nation. Are you looking for a new father for the children? It would have been nice if you’d at least told me first.’
‘Oh, Mum, you know I’m not. That was just what they wanted me to talk about so I went along with it. But, anyway, why shouldn’t I if the right person came along?’ She ignored her mother’s raised eyebrow.
‘I’m not sure I liked everything else you talked about.’ Maureen was lemon-lipped as she sat down, smoothing flat her tight catalogue yoga pants as she did so. ‘Flatulence!’ She could hardly say the word.
Ted laughed. ‘Nothing wrong with the occasional farty wallah, Maureen.’
Maureen, pink, continued, ‘Or S-E-X.’
‘Nothing wrong with that either.’
‘Ted, I think that’s enough. It’s only half past three.’ Then she turned back to Christie. ‘Alice and Joan left as soon as it had ended. I didn’t really know what to say to them.’
‘But did you think I was all right?’ Christie could wait no longer, dying to hear that she had been, that her mother was proud of her. As the distance between her and the Tart Talk studio had grown, she had begun to piece together snippets of the show, remembering that, as the audience listened to her and laughed with her, her confidence had grown until she had become as opinionated and outspoken as the others. Being in front of a live audience was a quite different experience from recording her prepared or OB pieces for MarketForce. What was more, she had loved the whole experience of throwing round opinions with like-minded women and, for the first time in a long time, being herself. Not just mum, daughter, sister, widow.
‘Well, yes. But you could do so much better.’
‘For God’s sake, Mum!’ Christie experienced an overwhelming urge to smash one of her mother’s precious collection of Lladro figurines into the immaculate tiled fireplace piled with artificial coal. ‘What’s happened to you? You’ve got so narrow-minded. These are the sort of subjects that should be talked about openly. Mourning, dating, farting and drinking.’
Maureen visibly recoiled.
‘Weird mix, I grant you. But we all do them.’
‘I’m not sure everyone in the village would agree with you, dear.’
‘Of course they wouldn’t. They’re stuck in the dark ages.’
‘Will you be on again?’ Ted asked, his eyes slightly unfocused as he lay back in the neat chintz-upholstered sofa that, like him, had seen better days.
‘Oh, Ted! I think Christine’s destined for higher things, don’t you?’
‘You’re impossible, Mum. I came round hoping you’d have enjoyed the show – or that at least you’d say you had. And I’ve no idea whether I’ll be asked on again. Probably not, if they felt the same about my lipstick as you did!’ Christie stood up and crossed the room, dodging the occasional tables with their coasters and empty teacups, the only reminders of the disapproving audience of Alice and Joan.
‘Now, Christine. Please don’t show off in front of Ted.’ Maureen’s reprimand turned to alarm as she realised Christie was making for the door. ‘Where are you going? Have you had anything to eat?’
Her mother always grabbed any opportunity to press food on her visitors. That was her raison d’être, and didn’t Ted know it, Christie thought, glancing at the checked waistcoat that pulled across his rotund stomach – currently filled with Maureen’s ‘tiffin’, as former ex-pat Ted liked to call it – then feeling ashamed of her lack of charity. They made each other happy in their own way and that was what mattered.
‘Home. And I’m not hungry, thanks. I’ve got to get there before Fred and Libby get back from school. I’ll let myself out. ’Bye.’
As she climbed into her car, Christie was fuming. However hard she tried to please Maureen, she never quite managed to reach the high standards expected of her, the elder child. But a word or two of encouragement wasn’t asking much, was it? That was something her father had never failed to give either her or Mel. Maureen had always been harder to please. She must realise that being asked to appear on Tart Talk was a positive step forward from writing for the Daily News, a paper with a dwindling circulation and a new slash-and-burn editor. But Maureen’s horizons had been limited by living in the sticks. Christie shuddered as she foresaw the same thing happening to her. Like mother, like daughter? Not if she could help it. She retuned the car radio to Radio 1.
As she turned into her driveway, singing loudly to the Kaiser Chiefs’ ‘Ruby’ she stopped the car and looked at her home: a proper double-fronted house, its bricks a warm red in the spring sunshine, its windows glinting, especially the large ox-eye above the front door that let light flood onto the landing upstairs. She remembered the day they’d arrived, when she had felt so angry with Nick for not being alive to help her with the move, the fuse boxes, the over-excited children and the bloody DVD player. That night, after Libby and Fred had gone to bed, she had opened a bottle of wine, poured the first glass and sobbed. The next day, she had woken up, ignored the booze-induced headache and unpacked the silver frame with her favourite
