surprised to be honest, given that Laura had insisted even New Labour were traitors to the cause.’ Dee’s smile became rueful.
‘I thought Laura was a lesbian?’ She’d never managed to get to the bottom of how Art had been created, because no one had ever spoken about his father. But given how demonstrative Laura had always been with Delshad, her partner at the commune, Ellie had begun to suspect Art might have originated from a petri dish in a sperm bank.
‘So did Laura, I suppose.’ Dee tucked a stray tendril behind her ear and picked up a dishcloth to wipe the already pristine table. ‘But apparently she wasn’t. Or not where Rupert was concerned. She left a note for Art, explaining why she’d left, but he never told me what it said.’
Had his mum just left him behind then? With a note? He’d only been fifteen.
The spurt of sympathy though was blasted into submission by a disturbing memory flash of Art at fifteen. His lean wiry nut-brown body lying in the long grass by the millpond, the bloody ink on his left bicep rippling as he held his…
Heat blossomed in her stomach and crawled over her scalp, the same way it had all those years ago, when she’d watched him unobserved from her vantage point in the derelict mill house and realised what he was doing.
She cut off the memory. But the heat refused to subside as she had another memory flash, closer to home, of the same ink peeking out from the rolled-up sleeve of Art’s overalls a few minutes ago.
Note to self: jet lag, a failed marriage and a year with only the occasional duty shag can seriously mess with your mental health. Enough to delude you into fixating on an arsehole like Art Dalton and his tacky tattoo.
She needed to crash, and soon.
‘So Laura never came back?’ she said. ‘Delshad must have been devastated.’
Any sympathy for Art on the other hand would be misguided. She couldn’t imagine him being devastated. His mum had probably run off with Rupert the Lib-Dem – and jettisoned her political beliefs and her sexual identity in the process – to get shot of him. After all, he’d been more wild and feral at fifteen than that bloody dog.
‘Actually she did come back in a manner of speaking,’ Dee said, throwing the dishcloth into the sink.
‘Oh?’
‘A young man called Jack Harborough turned up five years ago with her ashes in a Tupperware container. He said he’d been living with her in a squat in Tottenham. He had photos of the two of them together. Apparently she died of lung cancer. She did look terribly thin in the photos. Like someone from a concentration camp. Awful,’ Dee said mildly. ‘That’s what roll-ups can do to you.’
Ellie was still trying to get her head around the thought of Laura coming back in a Tupperware container. The thought of the stunningly beautiful radical socialist looking like a Belsen victim simply wouldn’t compute.
And she thought her life had become a soap opera.
‘Where’s Pam?’ Ellie heard herself say, deciding she would have to kick the elephant in the room eventually. And getting sidetracked with Laura’s story had given her a headache. And some memory flashes she really didn’t need to go with the foggy feeling of exhaustion.
Dee’s smile didn’t falter, but the warmth in her eyes died. ‘She’s dead, darling. She died four years ago.’
‘I didn’t know. I’m… I’m sorry, Mum.’ The words felt inadequate. And somewhat hypocritical, given the emotion arriving on the heels of the revelation was a massive surge of relief. ‘Why didn’t you tell me in any of your emails?’
Was Pam’s death the reason why Dee had decided to get in touch again out of the blue? Surely it had to be.
Ellie’s spine stiffened a bit more. Get over it.
It was churlish to feel cheated that her mother’s grief had been the only thing prompting her to build bridges that had been broken for so long. Why should her mother’s motivations matter? After all, she and her mother weren’t close, would never be close – and Ellie’s reasons for being here were equally as self-serving as her mother’s reasons were for wanting her here.
‘I didn’t want to bother you with it,’ Dee said easily enough. ‘After all, you and Pam didn’t care for each other.’ The words were said without any censure, but Ellie’s chest tightened.
Pam had tried to get on with her. It was she who had refused point blank to get on with Pam.
She headed round the table, and laid a palm on her mother’s arm. ‘Yes, but you cared about Pam.’ While Ellie might once have managed to convince herself her mother’s affair with another woman was nothing more than a juvenile mid-life crisis, it was hard to escape the fact the two of them had lived together for fifteen years. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
Her mother’s skin felt soft and cool. And the gesture felt awkward, and insincere. Especially when Dee said: ‘Thank you, Ellie. You know, it was Pam who begged me to contact you, to re-establish a relationship with you before she died,’ she added, confirming Ellie’s suspicions. ‘And I’m glad I did. It’s wonderful to finally have you here.’ Dee’s hopeful expression did nothing to ease Ellie’s guilt or her discomfort. Exactly what was her mother expecting from this visit? ‘And I’m so looking forward to getting to know Josh.’ Dee patted her fingers. ‘He seems like a lovely boy. So open and so very American.’
The mention of Josh gave Ellie a jolt. In the shock of seeing Art and the new improved farm and hearing about Laura’s Lib-Dem love shock and Pam’s untimely death, she’d completely forgotten about her son.
‘I’m sure he will. But who was that boy he went off with?’ she asked, her protective-mother instinct charging to the fore.
Actually, it was a bit surprising Josh hadn’t returned already. He wasn’t usually confident with strangers. Especially strange kids. And the boy who had led him off had reminded Ellie of the wild kids who had roamed the commune before. Skinny with a smudge of something on his chin, his short dark hair sticking up, wearing torn jeans and a grubby T-shirt, his eyes too big for his freckled face, the boy had looked decidedly feral.
‘Toto, you mean?’ Her mother smiled as if enjoying a private joke.
‘Yes, Toto, that was it. He said he was taking Josh to their clubhouse. Is it safe?’ She should have asked this before. Josh wasn’t the most agile of children. And she didn’t want him to feel awkward. Or worse, end up in some hideous initiation ceremony. Like she had. ‘Isn’t Toto a dog’s name?’ Why would anyone give their child a name like that?
‘Toto’s short for Antonia.’
‘That boy’s a girl?’ The obese gymnasts relaxed. Surely a tomboy would be less feral than an actual boy.
‘Yes, she’s Art’s daughter.’
The obese gymnasts began doing backflips in Ellie’s stomach.
Less feral, my arse.
‘Dad, Dad, Dad, you’ve
