Martha has performed some kind of miracle.
“I’m not surprised,” replies Cherie, reaching out to smooth Martha’s hair behind her ears and somehow, amazingly, managing to keep her hand. “I could tell right away that this was the right place for these two.”
Our first night in Lilac Wine is neither a roaring success or a complete disaster. On a scale of 1-10 – with 1 being ‘please pass me the Valium’ and 10 being ‘zippety-doo-dah’ – it’s probably about a 6.
The cottage itself is lovely; all exposed beams and chintzy furniture and comfy cushions. There’s a gorgeous old fireplace that I can imagine lying in front of on colder nights, accompanied by a bottle of gin, and a battered pine dining table laden down with gifts of wildflowers and home-baked bread and cupcakes and organic wine. These people are definitely feeders.
There are two bedrooms, both of which are en-suite, which is excellent news as it means Martha and I can avoid seeing each other naked by accident. There’s also, bizarrely, a TV in my bathroom – which, I don’t know, might be a good thing? Maybe I can watch Antiques Roadshow while I’m having a poo. Take that, Fiona Bruce.
Most of the other cottages are now empty after the end of the main summer season, although there are some holiday lets coming up – I expect to be seeing strangers wandering around at some point or another, and vow to try not to scare any of them with my feral appearance. I mean, I’m hardly the epitome of groomed style and sophistication when I’m at work – it can only get worse now I’m a country bumpkin.
Lilac Wine looks out onto the main green area, and at the moment, the only people living at the Rockery are us, Laura and her kids, and Matt, who it turns out is the village vet and lives in the big house called Black Rose. They seem to share custody of Midgebo, the dog, which I suppose is a good a way as any of taking baby steps towards something more official.
Cherie and Frank live at his farm, and the others at various places in the village itself – which I presume is where they all take themselves off to by the time their welcome party dies down.
I unpack my things, allowing myself a small surge of optimism as I do so, hoping that I’ve made the right call. That Martha will ever forgive me.
She is quiet and moody as we mooch around the grounds and the cottage, taking it all in with sad, dark eyes, as though all of it has nothing to do with her at all. But … well, she isn’t actively hostile, and I have to take that as a positive. There are no tears, no tantrums, no self-harm or Zoe-harm, all of which I possibly expected. I tell myself that it will be fine – but somehow a disconnected Martha feels almost worse than an explosive Martha.
After a night of watching crap telly and drinking most of the wine that was left for me, all alone on the sofa, I finally give in and go to bed. I’ve been putting it off for some reason. Maybe part of me was hoping that Martha would emerge, and we could talk. Or listen to music. Or anything at all. I suppose I’d forgotten, though, exactly how good teenagers can be at sulking – especially ones like Martha, who have plenty of reason to.
As I sip the wine, and watch the crap telly, and ponder everything that’s happened to us both, I feel like sulking myself. I miss Kate so much it feels like a throbbing pain in my chest.
Eventually, when I recognise the signs of a morbid drunk coming on, I make my way up the stairs, learning the new creaks and groans and noises that all older houses come with. I pause outside her room. The door is open, just a tiny crack, and I push it a little.
I see her, bundled up in the covers, black hair splayed across her forehead, a ghostly light cast over her face by the phone that sits next to her on the cabinet, plugged in to charge. She’s frowning even in her sleep, her legs occasionally jerking like a dog having a bad dream. I love her so much, and I’m so desperate to reach out, to help her. To get her through this.
I glance around the room, the moon shining in through the still-open floral curtains, and see her suitcase abandoned in a corner. Still zipped up and bulging, as though she hopes she won’t be staying.
Quietly, sadly, I tip-toe across the carpeted hallway to my own room. I fall onto the bed, fully clothed, and pray to a God I’m not sure I even believe in.
Martha’s first day at college rolls round quickly, and I cling to it like it’s a lifeboat all made of hope. Perhaps, I think, this will change everything. Perhaps she will be inspired by her new teachers; enthused by her A-levels; won over by new friends. Perhaps she will finally decide to give this place a chance, and stop acting as though she’s been sentenced to death by Dorset.
The first dent in those rather pathetic hopes comes when she gets on the bus in the village. I drive her there, park up, and offer to wait with her.
“Worried I’ll do a runner?” she says, staring at me from the passenger seat.
“It wouldn’t be the first time. You did a runner from Miss Clarke’s class that time because you didn’t want to sing in the assembly.”
“I was eight!” she replies, sounding exasperated. “And you and mum were the ones who always told me to follow my instinct, that if something felt wrong, it probably was …”
“Oh. So it’s our fault it is?”
“Yes,” she snaps back, staring out of the car window at the centre of Budbury, “everything is.”
I follow her gaze to the bus stop. It wasn’t hard to find – there is in fact only one. In high season, tourist buses run through as they trek up and down the Jurassic Coast, but from this time of year onwards, there’s only two buses a day in both directions. Plus this one – the bus that takes local kids a few miles down the road to the high school and its college.
There is a small gang of young people hanging round the bus stop, as of course is usually the case in small towns. I’ve never figured out why the bus stop becomes the hub of under-age social activity, but it always seems to.
The weather feels cooler, with a brisk breeze blowing up from the coast, and the kids are wearing a lot of check flannel and beanie hats and chunky jumpers. The younger ones – including Nate and Lizzie, who’s in her last year at school – are in a hideous purple uniform, the older ones in jeans and boots.
“It could be worse,” I say, looking from them to Martha, who is dressed head to toe in black, nose stud in, dyed hair back-combed in a tribute to Amy Winehouse kind of way.
“Yeah? How?” she asks, looking genuinely confused.
“You could be a year younger, and have to wear that purple uniform.”
She snorts, but doesn’t respond. She’s too busy watching the school bus roll along the one narrow road that threads through the village. Her eyes squint at it, and her fingers clench into a fist around the backpack on her lap. I realise how nervous she is, beneath the anger and the tough veneer, and reach out to give her hand a very quick pat.
“Go on. You’ll be fine, you know – just give it a chance.”
She
