Copyright

Published by Avon an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2016

This ebook edition 2016

Copyright © Fiona Gibson 2016

Cover design © Emma Rogers 2016

Fiona Gibson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9781847563675

Ebook Edition © Feburary 2016 ISBN: 9780007469406

Version 2018-10-02

Dedication

For Susan Walker, with love and a hug on a chair.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One: Fried Chicken

Chapter Two: Meat Feast Slice

Chapter Three: School Dinners

Chapter Four: Disappointing Soup

Chapter Five: Salami Coasters

Chapter Six: The Wrong Jelly Beans

Chapter Seven: Guilt Cakes

Chapter Eight: Motorway Muffins

Chapter Nine: Fungal Popcorn

Chapter Ten: The Right Way to Chop an Onion

Chapter Eleven: Boiled t-Shirt

Chapter Twelve: De-Bearding Mussels

Chapter Thirteen: Pub Grub

Chapter Fourteen: Kirsch Kiss

Chapter Fifteen: Droopy Soufflé

Chapter Sixteen: Champagne in Bed

Chapter Seventeen: Curdled Custard

Chapter Eighteen: A Dazzling Array of Canapés

Chapter Nineteen: Minibar Snacks

Chapter Twenty: Lacklustre Mousse

Chapter Twenty-One: Soothing Broth

Chapter Twenty-Two: A Bun in the Oven

Chapter Twenty-Three: A Touch of Salt

Chapter Twenty-Four: Breakfast at Natalie’s

Chapter Twenty-Five: Dinner for One

Chapter Twenty-Six: Emergency Booze

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Fish Bone

Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Hail of Falafel

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Tea and Sympathy

Chapter Thirty: Packed Lunch

Chapter Thirty-One: Sparkling Sundaes

Chapter Thirty-Two: Contraband Chocolate

Chapter Thirty-Three: Sunshine Crêpes

Chapter Thirty-Four: Mr Whippy Ice Cream

Chapter Thirty-Five: Classic French Cuisine

Eight Months Later

The Highlight Recipes

Ask Me Anything

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

Chapter One
Fried Chicken

Pants. There’s a lot of them about. Tomato-red boxers are strewn on the sofa, while another specimen – turquoise, emblazoned with cartoon palm trees and pineapples – has come to rest under the coffee table like a snoozing pet. A third pair – in a murky mustard hue – are parked in front of the TV as if waiting for their favourite programme to come on. I’m conducting an experiment to see how long they’ll all remain there if I refuse to round them all up. Perhaps, if left for long enough, they’ll fossilise and I can donate them to a museum.

Yet more are to be found upstairs, in the bathroom, slung close to – but crucially not in – the linen basket. The act of lifting the wicker lid, and dropping them into it, is clearly too arduous a task for a perfectly able-bodied boy of eighteen years old. It’s infuriating. I’ve mentioned it so many times, Morgan must have stopped hearing me – like the way you eventually become unaware of a ticking clock. Either that, or he simply doesn’t give a stuff. Not for the first time I figure that boys of this age and their mothers are just not designed to live together. But I won’t pick them up, not this time. We can live in filth – crucially, he’ll also run out of clean pants and have to start re-wearing dirty ones, turned inside out – and see if I care …

Beside the scattering of worn boxers lies a tiny scrap of pale lemon lace, which on closer inspection appears to be a thong. This would be Jenna’s. Morgan’s girlfriend is also prone to leaving a scattering of personal effects in her wake.

I stare down at the thong, trying to figure how such a minuscule item can possibly function as pants. I have never worn one myself, being unable to conquer the fear that they could work their way actually into your bottom, and require an embarrassing medical procedure to dig them back out. I know they’re meant to be sexy – my own sturdy knickers come in multipacks, like loo roll – but all I can think is: chafing risk. And what am I supposed to do with it?

Although Morgan has been seeing Jenna for nearly a year, I’m still unsure of the etiquette where her underwear is concerned. Should I pick it up delicately – with eyebrow tweezers, perhaps – and seal it in a clear plastic bag, like evidence from a crime scene? Tentatively, as if it might snap at my ankle, I nudge it into the corner of the bathroom with the toe of my shoe.

Stifled giggles filter through Morgan’s closed bedroom door as I march past. He locks it these days, i.e. with a proper bolt, which he nailed on without prior permission, irreparably damaging the original Victorian door in the process. We’ve just had a Chinese takeaway and now they’re … well, obviously they’re not playing Scrabble. Having known each other since primary school, they’ve been inseparable since a barbecue at Jenna’s last summer. Favouring our house to hang out in, they are forever draped all over each other in a languid heap, as if suffering from one of those olden-day illnesses: consumption or scarlet fever. They certainly look pretty flushed whenever I happen to walk into the room. ‘Yes, Mum?’ my son is prone to saying, as if I have no right to move from room to room in my own home.

‘Morgan, I’m off now, okay?’ I call out from the landing.

Silence.

‘I’m meeting Stevie tonight. Remember me saying? I’m staying over, I’ll be back around lunchtime tomorrow. Remember to lock the front door and shut all the windows and try not to leave 700 lights blazing …’

More giggles. How amusingly petty it must seem, wishing to protect our home from thieves and avoid a £2000 electricity bill …

‘And can you start putting milk back in the fridge after you’ve used it? When I came back last week it had actually turned into cottage cheese …’

Muffled snorts.

‘Morgan! Are you listening? It blobbed out into my cup!’

‘Ruh,’ comes the barely audible reply. With my teeth jammed together, I trot downstairs, pull on a black linen jacket over my red and black spotty dress, and pick up my overnight bag.

‘Bye, Mum,’ I call out, facetiously, adding, ‘Have a lovely time, won’t you?’ This is the stage I have reached: the point at which you start talking to yourself in the voice of your own child. Where you say things like, ‘Thanks for the takeaway, Mum, I really enjoyed it.’

The spectre of Jenna’s lemon thong shimmers in my mind as I climb into my scrappy old Kia and drive away.

*

My shabby, scrappy life. It’s not very ‘Audrey’, I reflect as I chug through our small, nondescript town en route to the motorway. Although I don’t obsess about her – the real Audrey, I mean – I can’t help having these thoughts occasionally.

You see, my name is Audrey too. It was Audrey Hepburn; let’s get that out of the way. It’ll come as no surprise that I am named after Mum’s favourite actress, which might sound sweet and romantic until I also explain that she and Dad had had an almighty row on the day she was going to register my birth. She’d threatened to go ahead with the Audrey thing. ‘Don’t you dare,’ he’d yelled (Mum filled me in on all of this as soon as I was old enough to understand). And she’d stormed off to the registrar’s and done it, just to get back at him over some silly slight. ‘What did Dad want to call me?’ I asked once.

‘Gail,’ she replied with a shudder, although it sounded perfectly acceptable to me. To be fair, though, I don’t imagine Doreen Hepburn anticipated the sniggery comments I’d endure throughout childhood and adolescence. You can imagine: ‘Ooh, you’re so alike! I thought I was in Breakfast at Tiffany’s for a minute!’ In fact our name is the only thing we have in common. I’d bet my life that the real Audrey never picked up a single pair of pants, not even her own exquisite little scanties, and certainly not someone else’s unsavoury boxers. Nor did she drive a crappy old car that whiffs of gravy (why is this? To my knowledge there has never been any gravy in it). The real Audrey was arguably the most gorgeous creature to ever walk on this earth. Me, I’m five-foot-two (if I stretch myself up a bit) with a well-padded bottom, boobs that require serious under-wired support and overzealously highlighted hair. I am a shoveller of peas, a disher-outer of sausages and mash. I am a 43-year-old dinner lady and my wedding ring didn’t come from Tiffany’s; it was on sale at Argos, £69.

While some women feel disgruntled about changing their name when they marry – or, quite reasonably, flatly refuse to do so – I was so eager to become Audrey Pepper that Vince, my ex, teased, ‘It’s the only reason you said yes.’ I kept it, too, even when I reverted to a ‘Miss’ after our divorce, when our son turned seven. I never tell boyfriends my maiden name – not that there’s been many. There was just the very occasional, casual date until I met Stevie nine months ago in a bustling pub in York.

I couldn’t believe this charming, rakishly handsome younger man was interested. So intent was he on bestowing me with drinks and flattery, I suspected I’d been unwittingly lured into some kind of social experiment and that a reality TV crew was secretly filming the whole thing. I imagined people sitting at home watching and nudging each other: ‘My God, she actually thinks he fancies her!’ I even glanced around the pub for a bloke with one of those huge zoom lenses. In fact, Stevie turned out not to be an actor tasked with seeing how many middle-aged women he could chat up in one night. He runs a training company, specialising in ‘mindful time management’. I don’t fully understand it, and it still strikes me as odd, considering he seems to have virtually no time to spare for normal things like going out for drinks or dinner with me. Hence the venue for tonight’s date being a two-hour drive from home.

Here’s another un-Audrey thing: meeting your boyfriend at a motorway service station on the M6 on a drizzly Wednesday night. Charnock Richard services, to be precise. We are not merely meeting there before heading off to somewhere more glamorous. I mean, that’s it. We are spending the night at a motorway hotel. We do this a lot, snatching the odd night together when he’s ‘on the road’, as he puts it, which happens to be most of the time. However, I suspect it’s not just for convenience, and that service station hotels are just his thing. His mission seems to be to make passionate love to me at every Welcome Break and Moto in the north of England.

It’s just gone 7.30 when I pull into the car park. I turn off the engine and take a moment to assess the situation I’ve found myself in. I’m parked next to a mud-splattered grey estate with a middle-aged couple inside it; they’re chomping on fried chicken and tossing the bones out of the side windows. I watch, amazed that anyone could possibly think it’s okay to do this.

A lanky young man with low-slung jeans and a small, wiry-haired dog ambles towards my car. Spotting the scattering of bones, the dog starts straining on its lead and yapping like crazy. Dragging him away, his owner fixes me with a furious glare. ‘You’re disgusting,’ he snaps.

Before I know what I’m doing I’m out of my car, shouting, ‘They’re not my bones, okay? Maybe you should check before accusing people!’

‘You’re mental,’ the man retorts, hurrying away. The chicken-munching couple laugh as they pull away, and it strikes me, as I stand in the fine rain in my skimpy dress – my jacket’s still on the back seat of my car – that I probably do look unhinged, and this is all a bit weird. This service station thing, I mean. This thing of Stevie expecting me to jump in my car to meet him with barely any notice.

Yet I do, nearly every time. I picture his teasing greeny-blue eyes – eyes that suggest he’s always up for fun – and sense myself weakening. I imagine his hot, urgent kisses and am already mentally packing a bag. Never mind that I have another job, as a carer for elderly Mrs B, on top of pea-shovelling duties. At the prospect of a night with my boyfriend I quickly arrange for someone to cover my shift. Julie usually obliges. She’s always keen for more hours.

So here I am, stepping through the flurry of pigeons pecking at the greasy chicken remains. Taking a deep breath, and inhaling a gust of exhaust from a carpet fitter’s van, I make my way towards the hotel to meet the most beautiful man I’ve ever had the pleasure of sleeping with.

Chapter Two
Meat Feast Slice

Stevie springs up from the sofa in the soulless hotel bar and greets me with a lingering kiss. ‘Hi, gorgeous! You look lovely, Aud. I love that dress. You smell great too, and – wow – those shoes …’

‘Thanks.’ My irritation over the chicken bones melts away instantly. Despite the drive, I opted for vertiginous black patent heels – stockings too, middle-aged cliché that I am (Stevie is a whippersnapper of 34. He was born in the 80s, for God’s sake – okay, only just. But still).

‘G&T, is it?’

‘Love one,’ I say, unable to tear away my gaze as he makes his way to the bar. With his mop of dishevelled muddy blond hair and swaggery walk, he really is ridiculously sexy. He turns and smiles. He has the kind of angelic features – wide, clear eyes, a fine nose and pouty lips – that remind me of the centrefold pin-ups I used to rip out of my teen magazines: the kind you’d collect week by week, desperate for the face bit (which always came last). Whenever we’re together, I see women glancing at him in appreciation. Not that there are any other women here now. Apart from us, the place is empty. The barman, who looks no older than Morgan, has already been smirking at us. I guess couples don’t often greet each other like this here. The clientele are usually solo travellers – bored salesmen, besuited business types – or couples too tired to drive the whole way home. They’re just breaking up the journey. They don’t meet here for dates.

He returns with my G&T and a large glass of red for himself. ‘Happy birthday, sweetheart,’ he says, planting another kiss on my cheek.

I smile. ‘Well, it’s still two days away …’

‘Yeah, I know. Wish I could see you then but I’m down in the West Country, can’t get out of it …’

‘It’s okay, I know how it is. I’m having lunch with the girls – everyone’s off on Friday – and I’m sure Morgan’ll pull something out of the hat.’

‘Yeah?’ Stevie laughs. ‘You reckon?’

‘Well, I’m not expecting a three-tier birthday cake but he might get it together to bring me a lukewarm coffee in bed.’ I chuckle as Stevie winds an arm around my shoulders.

‘I’d love to be with you.’ He pauses and sips his wine. ‘I’m actually thinking of selling the company. Sick of all this travelling, babe.’

‘Really?’ I am genuinely shocked. Stevie has built up his business from scratch and, from what I can gather, has done pretty well for himself. I can only assume he’s a workaholic, as he lives in an immaculate one-bedroomed flat above his office in York. Despite it only being a twenty-minute drive away, I’ve only had the pleasure of going there … once. He’s hardly ever home, he explained. It’s just a base, not somewhere he’s especially attached to.

‘I just want to see more of you,’ he adds.

‘Well, I’d like that too.’ I sense a flurry of desire as he rests a hand on my thigh.

‘The thing is,’ I add, ‘we could see each other more. I mean, we don’t have to stay in hotels so often, do we? Morgan doesn’t have a problem with you staying at our place, you know.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I realise that. He’s a good kid.’ Stevie crooks a brow as his fingers detect the bump of suspenders beneath the flimsy fabric of my dress. ‘But it’s nice to, you know … have privacy.’

The barman squirts a table with disinfectant and gives it a vigorous rub with a yellow cloth. I know what he’s thinking: They’re having an affair. I’ve already been blamed for the chicken bones and now I’m being labelled as the kind of woman who sleeps with other women’s husbands. And I’m not. Stevie has never been married, and has no children. Apart from living with a hairdresser in his early twenties – he refers to her as ‘the lunatic’ – he’s breezed through life pretty much doing his own thing. ‘Well,’ I continue, ‘there’s nothing to stop me coming over to your flat more often.’

‘That miserable little place?’ He shakes his head. ‘That’s another thing, darling. I need to get myself a proper place – a home – somewhere that’s not just a crash pad …’

‘I like your flat,’ I remark.

He looks amazed. ‘You like it? What on earth is there to like?’

I sip my G&T. ‘Well … it’s so pared down and uncluttered. You don’t have stuff strewn everywhere. It feels sparse and simple, like a holiday flat.’

Stevie smiles. ‘It’s not very homely, babe …’

‘I don’t mind, honestly. I have enough homeliness at home.’

He laughs and squeezes my hand. It is weird, though, this motorway fixation. I mean, I can understand the motel thing in the movies, in the States. They are tawdry and thrilling and slightly dangerous. Exciting things happen in those places. But this is an ordinary service station in Lancashire, with rain trickling steadily down the windows and a hoover droning away in the foyer. Stevie drains his glass. ‘Fancy another? Or shall we just head up to the room?’

‘It’s only just gone eight,’ I say, laughing.

‘Yeah, well …’ He leans closer and whispers, ‘Got chilled champagne in my case …’

I grin. ‘Very tempting.’

‘And proper champagne glasses …’

‘So you brought your special seduction kit,’ I tease him, brushing away the tiniest thought that this doesn’t feel quite right either – this kit thing – or the fact that we never bother with dinner on our overnighters. But, hell, he is an incredibly sexy man. So I knock back my G&T and grab his hand as he takes my small overnight bag. I’ve already brushed aside my doubts as we hurry upstairs – there’s no lift – and tumble into our room.

We kiss fervently, like teenagers who’ve just discovered this thrilling act. As we pull apart, I register Stevie’s small black leather wheeled case parked beside the bed. I glance around the room, which is pretty standard for a motorway hotel: decorative turquoise cushions arranged diagonally on the bed; coffee- and tea-making facilities crammed onto a small plastic tray on the flimsy desk; a hairdryer on a stand; a notice about fire evacuation procedures and a guide to Interesting Things to See and Do in Lancashire. And that’s about it. They’re all like this: the four we’ve stayed at on the M62, and the others we’ve ‘enjoyed’ – and yes, I have enjoyed them in a bizarre kind of way – on the M6 and M1.

From his case Stevie lifts out a small leather box, in which two cut-glass champagne flutes nestle in an inky blue velvet nest. Not that I need champagne. That sole G&T would have done nicely. Then he’s lifting a tissue-wrapped bottle of Krug from the case – it’s properly chilled, he must have only just bought it – and popping it expertly open and filling our glasses.

We kick off our shoes and recline side by side on the bed, holding hands, legs stretched out. The bubbles whoosh to my head, and only momentarily do I wonder if Morgan will remember to lock the back door as well as the front.

Stevie kisses me, softly and slowly, and it’s so lovely I’m barely aware of the distant hum of traffic outside. Another noise starts up – a fan, or an air conditioning unit – then fades from my consciousness as Stevie peels off my dress, followed by the only decent underwear I possess: a black push-up bra and matching lacy knickers. I can’t quite fathom why sex with this man is so thrilling; perhaps because we only see each other around once a week? Or is it his relative youth, his taut, toned body? Or that we mainly do it in hotels? If you add it all up – the weird hotel meet-ups, the fact that I can hardly ever reach him on his mobile – you’d probably say, run a mile, woman, are you a raving idiot? You might even say, would the real Audrey drop everything to rush off and meet her date at a Day’s Inn Motel on the M6?

No, of course she wouldn’t. But I should also add that, before I met Stevie, I had actually given up on being in any kind of relationship at all. I’d started to wonder if I was emitting distinct dinner lady vibes, even when I was all dressed up for a night out. Perhaps, I’d begun to think, the whiff of school canteen macaroni cheese was emanating from my pores, and that was putting men off. For a while, I took to giving my freshly washed outfit a thorough sniff before any night out. Still no luck, until I met Stevie. I know I’m sounding pathetically grateful, finding myself a boyfriend with such obvious lady-pleasing qualities. But we do have fun, and it’s thrilling to think that, instead of making cups of tea for Mrs B tonight and then coming home to channel-hop on my own, I have hours of pleasure ahead. Okay, I’ll have to be up at the crack of dawn to make it home in time for work – pity, as checkout isn’t until eleven (I’m familiar with such details) – but at least we’ll grab some buffet breakfast. While Stevie’s sniffy about the dinner menu, he does enjoy piling his plate high with hash browns and cumberland sausages. Then we’ll be off: me back to my small, sleepy town just outside York, and Stevie to his next appointment somewhere in the Manchester area.

‘That was amazing,’ he murmurs, pulling me close. I glance at my phone, which is sitting beside my empty champagne glass: 10.17 p.m.

‘It really was.’ My stomach growls as I kiss his delicious-smelling neck.

‘You hungry, babe?’

‘Yes, I am a bit.’

He smiles, and plants a tender kiss on my forehead before swivelling out of bed. ‘No problem, I’ll nip out and get us something …’ I glance at his lean, taut body as he pulls on his jeans and shirt, wondering – as I always do – how I managed to get so lucky.

In his absence I stretch out in bed, enjoying the coolness of the sheets against my skin. From a laminated card on the bedside cabinet, I learn that the all-you-can-eat breakfast is just £5. I doze a little, then check my phone, to reassure myself that my darling son hasn’t plunged his finger into an electrical socket or exploded the TV. No texts, which could signify that he’s lying in a fried heap, although I know I’m being ridiculous. No contact from Morgan is completely normal – he tends to message me only when he needs to know where he might find money for late-night chips. And I can’t bring myself to text Jenna to ask if he’s okay; he’d be mortified.

My worries fade as the door opens, signifying that my hunter-gatherer has returned from the service station shop – open 24 hours, another benefit of conducting our sex life on the motorway – with a carrier bag of treats. ‘Hey,’ he chuckles, undressing swiftly and clambering back into bed, ‘imagine finding you here.’ I laugh as he tips out our provisions, which, I happen to notice, contains one of those Fuzzy Brush toothbrushes that come in a little plastic ball from a dispenser in the loos. ‘Forgot my toothbrush,’ he says with a grin.

‘Another great thing about service stations,’ I snigger, which he chooses to ignore. We kiss, and we eat, and then, fuelled by a couple of Ginsters Meat Feast Slices and a tub of Pringles, we fall back into each other’s arms.

It’s lovely, as always. But I still can’t shake off the feeling that this isn’t quite right.

Chapter Three
School Dinners

Thursday, 10.35 a.m, and I’ve just arrived home. The kitchen is littered with empty tuna tins – Morgan is prone to forking canned fish straight into his mouth, but has yet to master the art of depositing the tins in the bin – and an array of crumb-strewn plates. There’s a spillage of pink juice (apple and raspberry?) on the table, plus a scattering of shattered Twiglets, like the components of some primitive game. I pick one up and bite it. It lacks freshness. I stare at the mess, dithering over whether or not to lose my rag, and deciding that I can’t face a confrontation the minute I’m home.

Anyway, there’s no one to be annoyed at as the rare nocturnal mating pair has yet to appear. Of course: it’s not yet 11 a.m. As my darling boy is currently neither in employment nor further education – unless you count a weekend course in beginner’s circus skills, foolishly paid for by me, as he fancied ‘a go at street theatre’ – he has no real reason to get up. While Jenna is reputedly studying beauty therapy, the course seems to have an awful lot of leisure time built in. I find it hard to comprehend how two people can do so little with their time.

‘I’m off to work now,’ I call up from the hallway. ‘You might think about hoovering the stairs, Morgan? And get some shopping in, would you? We need bread, cheese, fruit … remember fruit? Does that sound familiar? Apples, pears, stuff like that. They grow on trees, reportedly good for you …’

An unintelligible response. At least I know he’s alive.

‘Or oranges? How about some of those? Full of vitamin C, darling, handy if you want to avoid rickets or scurvy …’ His bedroom door creaks open and he appears on the landing in his oversized stripy dressing gown. He looks pale – light-starved and faintly sweaty – yet is still handsome in his rather malnourished, hair-untroubled-by-comb sort of way.

‘What d’you say?’

I muster a brisk smile. ‘Fruit, darling. Get some, please. There’s money in the jar. Oh, and clear up all that mess you left. I don’t know who’re you’re expecting to do it for you. A team of magic elves?’

He peers at me, as if trying to process my incomprehensible request, then shuffles off back to his room.

‘Even some canned pineapple would do,’ I trill, a little manically, as I step out into the street.

My daytime job is at the local primary school. The brisk ten-minute walk is just long enough for me to shake off domestic irritations and slip into the cheery persona required for working in the canteen. Our home town is definitely a proper town, although Morgan would term it a village as he reckons nothing of any interest ever happens here. ‘What am I s’posed to do exactly?’ he moaned recently, when I complained about his lack of activity. ‘I’m dying in this place. It’s crushing my soul. Why did we ever leave York?’ That’s where he spent his first seven years until Vince, his father, and I broke up. It made sense then to move to the house my friend Kim had just inherited from her mum and offered to let to me at a ridiculously low rent. Although Morgan welcomed the move – and made friends here immediately – he now views it as unforgivable on my part.

School is an imposing Victorian red-brick building, with part of the playground given over to wooden troughs crammed with pansies and marigolds planted by the children. Although being a dinner lady didn’t exactly feature on my plans, I had to find something – a stopgap – to fit around looking after Morgan when we first moved here. I try not to dwell upon the fact that it’s been a very long time since his school hours have been a factor in my life.

In the kitchen, Amanda, the cook, is stirring an enormous pot of fragrant chicken curry. It’s the last day of term, and there’s a lightness in the air, a palpable sense of anticipation. ‘So what are you and Morgan up to this summer?’ she asks, briefly looking round from the stove.

‘Me and Morgan?’ I laugh. ‘Nothing. God, can you imagine him wanting to come away with me?’ I pause, then add, ‘I think me and Stevie might book a last-minute thing …’ Why did I even say that? We have never discussed going away for more than a night together, and certainly nowhere other than a motorway hotel.

I pull on my blue school apron and set out plastic cups and water jugs on the tables. My proper job title is an MSA, a Midday Supervisory Assistant. I don’t exactly look like your classic dinner lady – the stern auntie type with a perm – but then nor do my colleagues. Whippet-thin Amanda has a diamond nose stud and a bleach-blonde crop, while Delyth is all raucous laughter and glossy red lips, possibly the vampiest woman to ever grace a school canteen. However, she can be rather formidable when crossed; she takes no nonsense from the children. Me, I’m a bit of a pushover where kids are concerned – languid teenagers also, obviously.

‘You mean you’d leave your poor boy home alone?’ teases Delyth, who finds it endlessly amusing that I fuss over Morgan so much.

‘I’m sure he’d survive,’ I say with a grin.

‘Have you taught him to cook yet?’

I shrug. ‘Well, he can just about fry an egg without setting his hair on fire.’

‘God, Aud,’ Amanda remarks with a smirk, ‘you’ve treated that boy far too well. He doesn’t need to figure out stuff for himself. He’s never had to.’

Although I shrug this off, something gnaws at me: because that’s what Vince says too. He reckons I’ve pampered our boy, and that it’s my fault Morgan seems to think it’s fine to undertake nothing more taxing than wobbling about on his unicycle and half-heartedly tossing a couple of beanbags about. Can I add that Vince is the one who started it, by buying our boy a juggling kit last Christmas ‘for a laugh’. He was a bright, sparky kid until the teenage hormones kicked in: excellent at maths, science and history, forever huddled over a book. We’d watch movies and play board games together; it felt as if we were a little gang of two. I can no longer remember the last time he read anything – apart from the Chinese takeaway menu – and these days he seems allergic to my company.

But never mind that because the children are surging in now, the younger years first, jostling into a straggly line at the counter while Delyth and I dish out their meals. It’s an Indian banquet today, to celebrate breaking up for summer. The queue has already disintegrated into an unruly gaggle. There are shrieks and giggles and much pushing in. ‘Calm down, everyone,’ I exclaim, stopping Joseph from grabbing a handful of mini naans.

‘Please, Miss Pepper!’

‘No, Joseph, only one naan each.’

‘Miss, please, they’re only tiny—’

I glance at Delyth, expecting her to lay down the law. But no, she’s smirking while doling out curry and rice from the stainless steel containers. ‘Go on, let him have two,’ she hisses.

‘It’s a special day, Miss Pepper!’ giggles Holly, clutching her tray.

I frown, deciding it must be the fierce July heat that’s making the children so giddy today. Fleetingly, I wonder whether Morgan has managed to draw his bedroom curtains yet, and picture him staggering back, half-blinded by the sudden exposure to sunlight. Delyth and I finish serving the younger ones, and I deal with a small altercation between a bunch of girls at a table – ‘I’m saving a place for Shannon!’

‘You’re not allowed to save places, Lily, you know that …’

‘Please, Miss Pepper …’ And off they go again, dissolving into splutters of laughter.

Delyth and I serve the older years, who are no less hyped up than the little ones, then it’s on to wiping tables as the children begin to congregate at one end of the hall. Normally they’d have surged out to the playground by now. Today though, they’re sort of loitering. I’ve never seen this happen before. ‘Off you go,’ I prompt them. ‘Your lunchtime’s ticking away. Don’t you want to be outside in the sunshine?’

‘Not yet, Miss Pepper!’ someone blurts out. There’s a ripple of sniggered asides. I frown at Delyth, then catch the eye of Moira, the head teacher, who’s glided into the canteen, as regal as the figurehead on a ship with her magnificent bosom and glossy black hair piled high.

‘Everyone!’ she calls out, waving a large white envelope above her head. ‘Boys and girls, gather round and remember what we said at assembly this morning …’ Another burst of laughter. ‘… Now, all quieten down while I make a very important announcement …’

‘What’s going on?’ I whisper to Delyth.

She shrugs. ‘No idea.’

‘Not leaving, is she?’

‘Maybe. I haven’t heard anything …’ She clears her throat and studies her fingernails. I glance around the crowded canteen. It feels as if the children, who are clearly having trouble containing their excitement, know exactly what’s going on. And it dawns on me, slowly, that everyone does – even Delyth, who’s clearly trying to suppress a grin – apart from me.

‘Shhhh!’ Moira hushes everyone as only a head teacher can. As the chatter fades, I realise the entire staff is here – teachers, secretaries and classroom assistants; even Greg, the janitor. Stranger still, everyone is staring at me. I sense my cheeks glowing hot and sweep my hands over my ponytailed hair.

Moira raps a table with a plastic teaspoon. The room has fallen silent. ‘Today,’ she starts, in her authoritative tone, ‘is a very special day. Yes, I know it’s the last day of term and you’re all desperate to get out of here and have fun. But before that, I have in my hand a very special letter …’

‘We know what it is!’ Joseph pipes up.

‘Joseph, you don’t know,’ Delyth reprimands him, waving a finger.

‘We do. We all guessed!’

Moira grins. ‘You might remember, a few months ago, I secretly asked you all to write a couple of sentences about one of our dinner ladies who’s been here for such a long time, and has seen so many of our children grow up through the school …’

Oh, my lord. Delyth only joined us last year, and Amanda’s only been here a couple of terms. She means me.

‘… Ten years, she’s been here,’ Moira goes on. ‘That’s even longer than me, which is saying something …’ Everyone laughs, and I think: yep, I arrived in the era of jam roly poly and now it’s all chopped mango and kiwi. And it hits me: I’m getting some kind of long service award, a carriage clock for the dusty old retainer of the school canteen. Which would be lovely, of course. I do need a properly working clock. But Christ, do I feel old …

‘… Always been so kind and wonderful,’ Moira goes on as my cheeks blaze. She turns to me. ‘I’d like to read out a few of the things the children said about you, Miss Pepper …’

I swallow hard as she pulls a sheet of A4 from the envelope. What the heck have they said? ‘“Miss Pepper is a lovely smiling lady …”’ It feels like something has caught in my throat. ‘“She’s my favourite dinner lady in the whole world,”’ Moira reads on. ‘“She’s always kind and she never gets cross, even when we spill water or drop food on the floor …”’

My vision fuzzes as I remember the bad thoughts I had yesterday, beaming hatred at Morgan’s boxers and kicking Jenna’s thong into the corner of the bathroom to fester with the dusty old bottles of floor cleaner and bleach. When did I become so intolerant? What happened to the fun, perky woman who blithely stepped over the odd dropped item of underwear, and who never seethed over a dressing gown dumped on the stairs, and who was certainly never seized by an urge to set it alight? They see only the good side of me here: the woman who runs off to find a plaster for a cut knee, and takes the time to chat to a little girl who’s crying because there was no room for her to sit with her friends.

Sure, I’m good with other people’s kids. I love their enthusiasm for life. If only they knew what a colossal grump I am at home, fizzling with irritation over scattered trainers and the forever elusive remote control … ‘“Miss Pepper is like a kind friend to me,”’ Moira continues, and there’s more, so much more: about the time I ‘helped’ Ailsa Cartwright (she means when I spotted a remarkably fat nit crawling in her hair and quietly whisked her to the office and called her mum without anyone else ever finding out). Now Moira is talking about some kind of prize I’ve been awarded, but I’m not paying full attention. Instead, I’m thinking, what would anyone have done, in that situation? Produced a loud hailer and boomed, ‘Back off, everyone, Ailsa’s crawling with lice?’

‘Our incredibly kind, hard-working, long-serving dinner lady,’ Moira booms across the hall. ‘So here’s to another ten years with the wonderful Miss Pepper, dinner lady of the year!’

‘What?’ I blurt out as the room fills with applause.

‘You’re dinner lady of the year!’ Delyth exclaims, throwing her arms around me. ‘What did you think this was about?’

I laugh, shaking my head in amazement. ‘I had no idea. I mean, I didn’t even know there was one …’

‘Well, there is,’ she laughs, ‘and you’re it.’

‘Bloody hell …’

‘Language, Miss Pepper,’ Joseph giggles.

I smile, tears forming as quickly as I can blink them away. ‘But what is it? What does it mean?’

‘It means,’ Moira says with exaggerated patience, ‘there’s a national competition to find a dinner lady who does far more than her usual duties …’

‘Like helping us build that massive snowman,’ Joseph pipes up.

‘And washing the netball team kit,’ Amanda adds with a grin.

‘And you let us throw wet sponges at you at the car boot sale!’ shrieks someone from the back, somewhat overzealously.

‘So we put you forward,’ Moira adds, ‘and, well, the judges agreed that you’re pretty amazing …’

‘Really? I don’t know what to—’

‘Speech!’ Delyth calls out, and the children’s chatter melts away into a respectful hush.

I give her a quick, alarmed glance and push back a strand of hair that’s dangling at my boiling cheek. ‘I, er, I mean … I can’t begin to …’ Oh no. Hot tears are spilling now as I try to scrabble together an intelligible sentence. I have never made a speech in my life; I’m not even keen on being the centre of attention. ‘I’m delighted,’ I start, blotting my face with my apron. ‘This means so much to me. I love my job here, you’re all such wonderful people …’ I tail off, fazed by the sea of expectant faces all turned towards me. ‘… And all I can really say is … this is totally unexpected and completely wonderful. Thank you so much …’ There’s a cheer as I am handed a huge bouquet – an explosion of red and orange blooms – then a cake appears, carried towards me on a silver board by a grinning Amanda. The outlandish creation is swirled with creamy icing, with Congratulations Miss Pepper Dinner Lady of the Year!!! in wobbly pink piping on top. Clearly, one of the kids has had a hand in the decorating. There’s more cheering, and paper plates appear, and the cake is cut up and distributed to the children who stuff it into their mouths before rushing outside, icing smeared, to play.

‘You really deserve this, Audrey,’ Moira says, hugging me.

‘Thank you, I’m still trying to take it in …’ I swipe the last remaining piece of cake. It’s tiny; no more than a mouthful.

‘So which prize are you going to choose?’

‘Oh, er …’ I lick a sticky smear from a finger. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t actually catch—’

‘You weren’t listening?’ Moira laughs with mock indignation. ‘You’re worse than the kids, Audrey. Mind always elsewhere.’

‘Well, er, I was quite overwhelmed …’

She chuckles. ‘Okay, there’s a prize of a French cookery course – classic cuisine and patisserie in a fancy hotel down south somewhere. Buckinghamshire, I think. I can’t quite remember. Come on, I have all the details in my office …’ We retreat to the tiny, cluttered room where she hands me a glossy brochure depicting the hotel. Wilton Grange is a grand, turreted affair with landscaped gardens and a lake, surrounded by rolling hills and woodland.

‘Wow,’ I murmur. ‘I’ve never stayed anywhere like that.’

Moira smiles.‘I know, it’s incredible …’ She has the decency to flick through a sheaf of paperwork as I pore over the brochure. The oval lake is flat as glass and edged with swathes of yolk-yellow flowers. There are four-poster beds in the traditional rooms, and sunlight streams in through enormous bay windows. Recently, I felt obliged to move out of my own bedroom, which is next to Morgan’s, due to being woken up to the toe-curling soundtrack of my son’s energetic sex life.

I just couldn’t bear it. I tried sleeping on my side and stuffing a pillow corner into the exposed ear, but the terrible noises still forced their way through. Ditto with many types of earplugs: foam, silicone, even wax. ‘Snoring husband?’ asked the woman in the chemist with a snigger, the third time I went in. Apart from the utter wrongness of hearing your own child at it – a child whose Action Man still resides in the house, along with his spy’s fedora hat and the code-cracker’s kit he was obsessed with – it also highlighted how dismal my own love life had become. This was before I’d met Stevie. At that point, I hadn’t been to bed with anyone for almost two years. While I vaguely remembered the various anatomical parts, I couldn’t actually picture a naked man in any kind of realistic way. If this went on any longer, I feared I’d have to study Action Man just to remind myself. But then, Action Man doesn’t have a penis – just an eerie plastic slope – so that wouldn’t have been any help. Anyway, I moved into the box room at the far end of the landing. It’s tiny. That’s fine. I’d rather sleep in a drawer than be subjected to the ecstatic gruntings of a boy who is still barely able to operate a toaster.

Moira is clutching the paperwork to her chest. ‘So there’s that,’ she remarks, ‘a five-day residential course with some fancy chef, what’s his name …’ She peers at the brochure. ‘Brad Miller. Never heard of him …’

‘Neither have I.’

‘But it does sound incredible …’

‘It really does.’ I nod.

She pauses. ‘… Or there’s a cash prize of £5000.’

I stare at her. ‘Really? So I could choose that instead?’

She nods. ‘I’m so proud of you, Audrey …’

‘Thank you,’ I say, folding the brochure and placing it on her desk. Five thousand pounds! Perhaps not an earth-shattering amount to some, but to me? Pretty life-changing. Seriously, I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t utterly broke. My Charnock Richard date shoes were from the PDSA charity shop and I’m forever stretching yesterday’s food to cobble together another meal today. I don’t blame Vince for no longer bankrolling our son, because I shouldn’t either; by rights, Morgan should be making his own way in the world. But the reality is that he’s not, and some months I struggle to make even our perfectly reasonable rent, although I’d never tell Kim this (she’d probably let me off, which would be mortifying).

‘The course is worth twice that,’ Moira adds.

‘Really? I can’t believe anyone would pay that kind of money to learn to cook …’

‘Me neither,’ she laughs. ‘Guess some people have more money than sense. So … have you decided which prize you’ll take? Or d’you need time to make up your mind?’

I muster a wide smile and give the brochure one last, lustful glance. ‘Oh, I’ll take the money of course,’ I say firmly. ‘I mean, I’d be crazy not to.’

Chapter Four
Disappointing Soup

I leave school with my outlandish bouquet propped over one shoulder, like a toddler, wondering what to spend my prize money on. Not because there’s nothing I need, but because there’s so much: a new car, perhaps – one that starts every time? I could upgrade our furniture – most of it is quite pitiful, and our kitchen table has a gouge out of it from when Morgan rammed into it on his unicycle. Or maybe I should stash away the cash to avoid further rent panics?

I call Kim to share my news. ‘You can’t spend it on something sensible,’ she declares. ‘For God’s sake, it’s prize money. It’s for something treaty and fun, not a bloody kitchen table or curtains or—’

‘Yes, but—’

‘That’s the law,’ she cuts in, forthright as usual. Kim is a make-up artist: renowned for her ability to beautify not only the bride, but battalions of bridesmaids in record time. ‘You should have fun with it,’ she adds. ‘You’re long overdue a shopping spree, Aud. Why don’t we have a day out?’

‘I’d love to,’ I fib, remembering our last trip to York together, which culminated in her virtually manhandling me into a spray tan salon. My milky-pale skin turned an alarming shade of terracotta, like a plant pot. ‘God, Mum,’ Morgan exclaimed on my return. ‘I hope that’s gonna scrub off.’

‘Sure you don’t want to take the hotel prize?’ Kim asks. ‘Do something for yourself for a change? Or take the cash and blow the lot on a holiday, surprise Stevie …’

I laugh, shaking off a twinge of regret that my boyfriend isn’t the type who’d allow himself to be whisked away. ‘He doesn’t do surprises, you know that. He operates on a strict schedule.’

‘Oh, of course,’ she says dryly. ‘I forgot.’

‘I’ll think about it, okay? And I’ll see you tomorrow …’

‘Can’t wait, birthday girl,’ she says warmly as we finish the call. I quicken my pace, deciding it’s not really about the money, although a spree would be fun; it’s the fact I won it at all. Dinner lady of the year! I still can’t figure out what I did to deserve it. This sets me thinking, as I stop off to pick up a few groceries for Mrs B’s: how much longer am I planning to work in a school canteen? Sounds churlish, I know, after the children wrote such lovely things about me. But something about Moira’s speech has lodged in my brain: ‘… Our incredibly kind, hard-working, long-serving dinner lady … here’s to another ten years!’ Bloody hell: I’m 44 tomorrow. Do I still want to be dishing out potato wedges at 54?

Laden now with shopping and flowers, I trudge along the cobbled driveway which cuts across Mrs B’s enormous lawn to her stark, gunmetal grey house. It has the air of an approved school, or a former mansion taken over for governmental purposes. Even the beautiful gardens, the herbaceous borders bursting with colour, fail to raise its spirits. Six of the seven bedrooms are never used – apart from when Mrs B’s daughter, Victoria, comes up from London to pay an occasional visit – and the entire upper floor remains chilly and damp, even on a bright summer’s day. ‘The only way I’m leaving here is in a coffin,’ Mrs B retorted, when I gently asked if she ever planned to downsize.

Spotting me, Paul, the gardener, sets down his wheelbarrow and strides across the lawn. ‘God, Aud,’ he exclaims, ‘they’re beautiful. You shouldn’t have.’ I laugh and fill him in on today’s events. ‘That’s amazing,’ he says, sounding genuinely impressed. ‘You should’ve taken the rest of today off, done something special to celebrate.’

‘I couldn’t really, not at such short notice …’

He smiles, rubbing his five o’clock shadow. When I started working here four years ago – my dinner lady earnings weren’t nearly enough, and being a home help and carer seemed preferable to bar work – Julie happened to mention the ‘sexy gardener’ who’d recently transformed Mrs B’s grounds. I had to admit that the dark eyes, the chestnut hair and general rugged, outdoorsiness of him all added up to one pretty appealing package. ‘Doesn’t say much, though,’ she added. It took a few months to learn that Paul’s apparent shyness was, in fact, just a desire to get on with his work. ‘I noticed you swapped with Julie yesterday,’ he adds. ‘I had a box of veg set aside for you, don’t forget to take them today …’

‘That’s so kind of you,’ I say, meaning it: I am eternally grateful for the virtually limitless supply of produce he supplies.

‘So?’ He grins, squinting in the bright sunshine. ‘Impromptu motorway date, was it?’

‘Yep, that’s right.’ I chuckle awkwardly. Hell, what possessed me to tell him about Stevie’s preferred venues for meet-ups? I’d only meant to ask him how long it would take me to get to Lancaster Services and then it had all poured out. And now, he won’t let it go.

‘Lucky lady,’ he teases. ‘So where was it this time?’

‘Charnock Richard.’

Paul barks with laughter. ‘Oh, Aud. He knows how to treat you special. The romantic drone of six lanes of traffic …’

‘You could hardly hear it actually,’ I say, a trace defensively.

‘… The whiff of fuel from the petrol station, the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet with those coiled-up sausages … how much was it this time?’

‘A fiver,’ I say with a snigger.

‘Bargain …’ He smirks. For some reason, he seems to derive enormous pleasure from hearing about my adventures. I’m not sure if he has the odd dalliance himself; there’s been no evidence of women around, as far as I’ve noticed, apart from his ex-wife, who drops off their daughters for weekends at the cottage behind the main house, which comes with the gardener’s job. I spot Jasmine and Rose from time to time, helping their father to harvest vegetables, or darting like shy woodland creatures between shrubs. At seven and eight, they clearly love their visits to their dad’s.

‘It was actually an early birthday treat,’ I add with a grin.

‘Oh, when’s the big day?’

‘Tomorrow.’ I smile.

‘Not the biggie, is it?’

‘You mean 50?’ I ask, aghast. ‘Thanks a bunch, Paul!’

He laughs. ‘I meant 40 …’

‘Flatterer. I’ll be 44,’ I say with a smirk.

‘Ah, nothing to get too het up about then. C’mon, give me that shopping and I’ll help you in with it …’

‘Thanks,’ I say, and we make for the house where I give the bell two brief rings – just a courtesy really – before stepping in and inhaling the stale, musty air. ‘Hello, Mrs B?’ I call out, propping my bouquet against the wall in the hallway and taking the shopping from Paul. ‘It’s me, Audrey …’ As he heads back out to the garden, I drop off the groceries in the kitchen and make my way to the rather faded, chintzy drawing room to greet her.

‘How are you feeling today?’

‘Just the same,’ she replies tartly, ‘sitting here all on my own.’

‘Oh, hasn’t Paul been in to make you a cup of tea?’

She peers up at me through wire-framed glasses. Like a tiny bird with plumage of fluffy white hair, she is perched in her usual spot: squished up at one end of the enormous brown Chesterfield. The rest of the sofa is heaped with unravelling balls of wool and half-finished embroidery projects. ‘Paul?’ she repeats with a frown.

‘Yes, Paul. I know he pops in every morning …’

‘He makes terrible tea,’ she says crossly. ‘Far too weak. I keep telling him but he won’t listen.’ On her lap, the newspaper is open at the cryptic crossword. Here we go …

‘Well, maybe Julie could stay longer in the mornings? I’m sure we could work out a rota, or perhaps find a new person to do extra—’

‘Never mind that,’ she cuts in, rapping at the paper with her pencil. ‘Help me with this. Seven across, eleven letters …’

‘Oh, you know I’m no good at these, Mrs B.’ As an avoidance tactic I start gathering up the cups and glasses that litter the numerous spindly side tables.

‘“Biblical character jumps ship, perhaps.” Four-five …’

‘Really, I have no idea …’

‘Don’t be so defeatist.’

I pick up a plate bearing the remains of one of those pastries with squashed currants inside. I have to say, Mrs B favours the more dismal end of bakery goods. She is still watching me, waiting for an answer. ‘I know,’ I blurt out. ‘I’ve got it. King somebody …’

‘Pardon?’

‘That king, the one who made the sea go back with his hands … King Canute!’ I smile, feeling pretty confident that I’ve got one right, therefore proving I’m not the halfwit she has me down for.

‘I don’t know how you came up with that,’ she mutters.

‘You know – the sea, jumping ship …’

‘King Canute is four-six … ’

‘Oh yes,’ I say, feeling chastised as I stack all the crockery onto a sticky wooden tea tray. She gnaws at her pencil and mutters an unintelligible answer before setting the newspaper aside with a sigh. I don’t even know why she keeps insisting on pinging incomprehensible clues at me. It’s like expecting a plumber to be capable of performing root canal work.

‘Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to do crosswords?’ she asks, as if I lack a vital skill: like tying shoelaces or telling the time.

‘No one did them in my house,’ I explain. ‘Dad didn’t really have time for that kind of thing, and remember I told you Mum left when I was nine? She went off with Brian Bazalgette who delivered our coal. Huge guy, strong as an ox from lugging those enormous sacks from his truck to—’

‘Oh yes, your mother married the coal man.’ Her pale eyes glint with interest.

‘Well, she’s never married him, but they still live together …’ As far as I know, I add silently. Mum’s communications have been pretty sporadic over the years. She doesn’t have a mobile, or even a landline at her cottage deep in the Welsh valleys. How can you keep in contact with someone who really doesn’t want to be contacted? While I have written to her, sporadically, over the years, Mum is never prompt with a reply, and she doesn’t own a computer. I can count on one hand the times she’s seen Morgan, her only grandchild.

The first time, a few weeks after he was born, she arrived a little dishevelled at our tiny terraced house in York; the journey from Wales had apparently involved numerous changes of bus. Brian didn’t come with her, and all she would say was that ‘it’s not his sort of thing’. What isn’t? I wanted to ask. Meeting your grandchild, getting to know your daughter or accompanying you on a trip? I barely knew Brian. With his coal-dusted face and gruff demeanour, I’d always stayed well out of his way when he delivered our coal, and couldn’t quite see his appeal.

On her visit, I noticed Mum had swapped the nondescript catalogue clothes she used to wear for a raggle-taggle ensemble of washed-out T-shirt, an unravelling cardi and batik-printed trousers that hung loosely on her skinny frame. She brought with her the potent scent of patchouli and woodsmoke, plus a charity shop sweater for Morgan with a penguin appliquéd on the front. When I asked whether Brian was still in the coal business, she replied vaguely, ‘Oh, he’s just doing this and that.’ She seemed terrified of holding Morgan, and even Vince, who’s pretty generous about most people he meets, jokingly remarked that Mum was ‘a bit of an oddball … I can see where you get it from, Aud.’

Subsequent visits have been brief and a little tense. Mum has always been armed with numerous excuses about why I can’t visit her in Wales – ‘We’re doing the place up, it’s good for me to get away’ – and four years have slipped by since I last saw her. I miss her, of course. I especially missed her when Morgan was young, and I wanted to pick up the phone and ask her, ‘Why is he screaming, d’you think? And how d’you wean a baby? I mean, what do they eat? He spits out everything I give him!’ Of course, I couldn’t do that and, over the years, as I found my feet as a mother and needed her less, I began to accept that this was how things were. At least, how she and I operated. I have never understood why she has never wanted to be a proper grandma to Morgan. When he has a child – years from now, obviously – I’ll be muscling right in.

Mrs B tuts. ‘Yes, you did tell me about that. Dreadful situation …’ She presses her thin, pale lips together and shakes the newspaper at me. ‘Anyway, this is an easy one. Even you’ll be able to get this. “Briefly dying caterpillar mocks snow”, nine letters …’

‘Really, it might as well be in Mandarin …’

She emits a withering laugh as I gather up scissors and pin cushions from the sofa. It strikes me that an unhealthy proportion of my life is spent putting things away. It’s not that Mrs B – or I – care about everything being neat and tidy. I just don’t want her impaling herself on an embroidery needle. ‘Did you have the rest of that lentil soup for lunch today?’ I ask.

‘No, I threw it away.’

I blink at her. ‘Really? Was there something wrong with it?’

‘It was very bland.’ She gnaws at the end of her pencil.

‘Oh.’ I clear my throat. ‘I could make carrot and coriander for tomorrow, if you’d prefer that, or maybe mushroom …’

‘Hmm, I’m not sure about that …’

‘Or leek and potato?’

‘Ugh, no.’ She shudders visibly and fills in a clue.

How about tomato and horse testicle? I pause, knowing I’m being played with.

‘Just ask whoever’s coming to bring me some tinned ones tomorrow,’ she mutters. ‘I find they have more taste.’

‘Fine,’ I say, fixing on a bright smile. ‘Look, it’s lovely and sunny outside. Would you like to sit in the garden?’

She nods, and her face softens; Mrs B adores her garden. So I help her outside, taking her arm to guide her – she is a little unsteady on her feet – where she sits on the bench in her favourite shady spot. The lupins are looking especially lovely today. Paul has a knack for planting which makes everything seem so casual and effortless, yet the colours merge together beautifully. Before I worked here, I had never realised that gardening is a real art.

While Mrs B browses the newspapers I make her favourite dinner: cod with mashed potatoes (she prefers her food to have no colour at all, maybe that’s what was wrong with the soup) and carry it out to her on a tray. She is happy to sit out until the evening starts to chill, and I persuade her to come back indoors. As I rattle through my evening tasks – a bit of light housework, helping Mrs B into her seated shower and shampooing her hair – a single thought keeps darting through my brain. I’ve won £5000!

‘Make sure you wash out all the shampoo,’ she remarks, folding her skinny arms over her naked body as I rinse her with the shower attachment.

‘Yes, Mrs B.’ Apart from a Noddy eggcup in a colouring in competition, it’s the first thing I’ve ever won!

‘And the conditioner.’

‘I will, Mrs B. I do always rinse you very thoroughly, you know.’

Can’t wait to tell Morgan! How shall we celebrate? The offy’ll be closed by the time I’m finished here …

‘Well, my head was itchy the other night. I couldn’t sleep because of it. Clawed myself half to death …’

‘Maybe your scalp’s a bit flaky?’ I suggest.

‘In all of my 84 years I’ve never had a flaky scalp!’ she barks, as if I’d mooted the possibility of syphilis. God, she is especially crotchety today. I could murder a drink. Surely there’s something at home, a bottle of Jacob’s Creek lurking in the cupboard or maybe some brandy left over from the Christmas cake …

Having dried off Mrs B, I help her into her peach cotton nightie and sheepskin slippers and lead her slowly from the downstairs shower room to her bedroom on the ground floor. It used to be a dining room; these days, Victoria, her carers and the occasional tradesman are the only people who ever venture upstairs.

Once she’s tucked up in bed, I bring her a cup of strong tea and two chocolate digestives, plus her toothbrush and a small bowl of water, for post-biscuit cleansing. I once suggested she snacked a little earlier so her teeth could be attended to in the bathroom, rather than in bed. You’d think I’d suggested she scrub them with the loo brush. ‘This is how I like to do it,’ she retorted. So I wait patiently as she waggles her toothbrush in the water and try not to reel backwards as she spits violently into the porcelain bowl.

I hand Mrs B a flannel so she can dab at her pursed mouth, then tuck in her sheet and satin-edged blankets – she regards duvets as ‘a silly modern invention’ – and click off her main bedroom light, leaving just the orangey glow of her bedside lamp. This room smells rather stale, despite my obsession with airing it as often as possible. The bowl of pot pourri sitting on the glass-topped dressing table probably stopped emitting scent in about 1972. Yet when I’ve suggested replacing it she has scowled and said, ‘It’s fine as it is.’ I pause and glance back at her. She seems even tinier now, like a Victorian doll – the ones that look fragile and a little a bit scary – in her queen-sized bed. Her face is pale, almost translucent, her hair a puffy white cloud on the hand-embroidered pillowcase. As I see her so often, perhaps I don’t notice all the changes in her. However, it has struck me recently that she is becoming more frail, and that the arm to steady her in the garden is no longer just a precaution, but entirely necessary. ‘Anything else you need before I go?’ I ask.

‘No, thank you.’ She fixes her gaze on me, as if there is something, but she’s thought better of asking for it.

‘Are you sure? It’s no trouble …’

‘I’m fine,’ she says brusquely.

Well, that’s me told … ‘Goodnight then, Mrs B.’ I turn and make my way out of her room and across the gloomy hallway towards the front door, where I take my jacket from the hook and pull it on.

As I pick up my bouquet, her voice rings shrilly from her room. ‘Could you come back here a minute?’

Christ, don’t say she’s fallen out of bed. No thud, though: she probably just needs the loo. Still clutching my flowers I stride back to her room and find her sitting bolt upright, eyes wide. ‘Are you okay? Has something happened?’

She gasps, then her face breaks into a smile, a genuine smile: a rare sighting indeed. Her eyes sparkle with delight. ‘Oh, flowers! What a kind girl you are …’

‘Oh, erm …’ My heart sinks as I glance down at the blooms.

‘They’re beautiful,’ she adds. ‘A little brash maybe, but I like that – can’t be doing with mimsy little posies. Could you fetch a vase?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I say, scuttling to the chilly kitchen and filling a hefty crystal vase with water, in which I arrange the flowers – my flowers! – before returning them to Mrs B.

‘Put them beside my bed,’ she commands, ‘so I can smell them as I’m going to sleep.’

‘Yes, of course …’ I catch their sweet perfume as I place the vase on her bedside table.

She fixes me with a stare. ‘I can’t remember the last time anyone bought me flowers …’

‘Victoria did,’ I remind her, ‘last time she visited.’

‘Probably out of guilt,’ she murmurs.

‘I’m sure it wasn’t like that.’ Guilt about what? I want to ask. About not coming here more often? Yes, as her only child – and with no family of her own – Victoria could certainly be more attentive. But then, Mrs B and her daughter have never given me the impression of being especially close.

I pause in the doorway. Tonight, I’m sensing a twinge of guilt of my own – at leaving her alone – even though she is always perfectly fine alone overnight, and Julie will be here first thing tomorrow. She glances at the flowers and inhales dreamily. ‘You called me,’ I add, ‘as I was leaving?’

‘Did I?’ Her gaze remains fixed on the bouquet.

‘Yes, was there something?’

‘Oh,’ she says, turning towards me, ‘I meant to say, next time you’re shopping, could you not buy plain chocolate digestives?’

‘Of course, Mrs B.’ I jam my back teeth together.

‘You know I only like milk,’ she adds.

‘I do remember that now.’ Mustering a stoical smile I turn to leave, reminding myself that this is my job – a job I need very much – and if it involves having my soup and grocery choices criticised, then I guess it’s all part of the service. I’m pretty sure she enjoys our cryptic crossword routine and changing her mind about biscuits. But I can’t bring myself to feel annoyed. Maybe when I’m 84, with Morgan still lying there scratching his bottom and leaving stinky tuna cans strewn about, I’ll be getting my kicks from spitting in a little bowl. Maybe I should save my prize money for my geriatric care?

Stepping outside, I spot a small cardboard box of broccoli, tomatoes and carrots left beside the stone doorstep. Ah, another gift from Paul. Well, they’re more useful than flowers. There’s something else, too: a bunch of cornflowers and – I think – freesias, tucked in amongst the veg. A brown parcel label has been tied around them. I squint at the careful, forward-sloping handwriting:

Cheeky sod! Very sweet of him, though. I pick up the box, my heart soaring into the clear summer’s night sky as I make my way home. I am dinner lady of the year and, actually, a bunch of garden flowers gathered together with garden string is more me than a flashy bouquet. Maybe, I reflect, this is the part where my life takes a turn for the better.

Chapter Five
Salami Coasters

In fact it does, next day, in the Hare and Hounds’ sun-dappled beer garden. I’ve been festooned with gifts from my three favourite friends and I’m feeling extremely treated. ‘So what did Morgan give you?’ Ellie wants to know.

‘Nothing yet,’ I say, ‘but he’s out shopping in York with Jenna so he’s probably choosing me something.’ I pause. ‘I mean, I don’t expect much. He’s not earning at the moment—’

‘At the moment,’ Kim adds with an eye roll.

‘I know, it’s ridiculous really. He needs to find something so he can think about getting his own place, especially now Jenna’s virtually living with us …’

‘Still picking up her pants?’ Cheryl asks with a wry smile.

‘Well, sort of subtly kicking them to one side.’

Kim grins, tucking her sharp auburn bob behind her ears. ‘You don’t actually want him to move out, do you? You’ll be clutching at his ankles, pleading with him to stay …’

‘No I won’t,’ I exclaim. ‘I’ll be back in my old room, playing the music he hates, guzzling champagne …’

‘Nah, you’ll never get rid of him,’ she sniggers. ‘The years’ll scoot by and before you know it, you’ll be like an old married couple …’

‘Jesus.’ I shudder and gulp my prosecco.

‘… going on day trips to Scarborough,’ she continues, clearly warming to her theme, ‘with little greaseproof-wrapped packets of cheese sandwiches and saying “we” all the time, like, “We might try Bridlington next summer …”’

‘Stop it!’ I’m aware of a niggle of unease as we all peal with laughter. While Cheryl and Ellie are friends from the school gate years, Kim and I go way back to secondary school. We were united in being shunned by the bright, shiny netball team pickers who excelled at everything. I’ve seen her slogging away at dead-end jobs until she kick-started her make-up artistry business and bought a natty little mint green Fiat 500 and had Bridal Make-up by Kim painted on the side. She now leads a whizzy single, child-free life with a gorgeous flat (two roof terraces) and more holidays than I can keep tabs on.

Cheryl sips her drink. ‘For God’s sake, Kim. He’s only eighteen. Still a kid really. There’s so much pressure these days to have your whole future sorted, some grand career plan all mapped out …’

‘Like you, Aud,’ Ellie points out. ‘I mean, being a dinner lady wasn’t what you planned to do, but look at you now! You’re the best one in Britain …’

‘… by some kind of fluke …’ I cut in.

‘So what did Morgan think of you winning?’ Cheryl asks.

‘Um, he seemed pleased. I mean, he glanced up from his phone for about a second, although that might’ve just been a tic.’ I shrug. In fact, I had expected a slightly more enthusiastic response and sloped off, dejected, like a scolded puppy. How pathetic, I mused, to expect rapturous applause – or even a ‘well done, Mum’ – from a teenage boy. ‘It’s no big deal,’ I add. ‘All it means is that I’m good at being pleasant to five-year-olds …’

‘Stop putting yourself down,’ Kim scolds me. ‘You always do this, you’ve got to stop—’

‘Oh, imagine the kids writing those lovely things about you,’ Ellie exclaims. ‘You were made to work with children, it’s obvious …’

‘Maybe,’ I say, heading into the pub to buy a round, despite their protests that I mustn’t, and that today’s their treat. In fact, I did have a plan, as a little girl. At nine years old, just after Mum had left us, I got the chance to borrow a clarinet from school. By some mistake or mix-up – or, I suspect now, an act of kindness on the part of Mrs Sherridan, the music teacher – no one ever asked for it back. I took to it easily and played in my bedroom with the door firmly shut, so I wouldn’t be distracted by Dad bashing around in the kitchen.

At first, playing those rudimentary pieces was just an avoidance tactic, in the way that I start busily tidying when Mrs B waggles the crossword at me. Back then, it was maths I was keen to avoid, as Dad – appalled by my shoddy numerical skills – had appointed himself as my unofficial tutor. ‘We’re doing some long division,’ he’d announce. We’d sit together at the kitchen table, with the numbers making no sense and Dad’s irritation rising because anyone can do this, what’s wrong with you, Audrey? What are you going to do with your life if you can’t even manage a simple sum? I’d be trapped there for an hour at least. It felt like months, as if the seasons were changing, the trees shedding their leaves and sprouting new ones as Dad scribbled angry numbers in a raggedy exercise book. While Mum had never been terribly involved with me, her presence had softened the atmosphere somewhat. She’d been kind enough in her own way, when she was still with us, showing a vague interest in my homework assignments and occasionally plaiting my hair. But after she left there was no softening. In fact, Dad’s moods grew darker, my very presence seeming to irritate him, as if the Brian Bazalgette thing had been all my fault. ‘I need to do some music practice now,’ I’d announce, once the whisky bottle had joined the jotter and angrily crumpled A4 paper on the kitchen table. ‘School concert’s coming up and we’re doing a full rehearsal tomorrow …’ As I lost myself in the music I’d stop wondering what Mum was doing, and whether Dad had poured another whisky, and whether I’d ever be a normal girl who could invite friends round after school, as everyone else seemed to do.

I started secondary school and was pinged straight into remedial maths. By now, Dad had given up on me, and himself, or so it seemed: while he’d once worked as a carpenter he rarely left the house these days. Mum’s letters had dwindled to one every few months, and in my replies I was careful to stress that everything was fine at home, that I was happy and doing well at school. I’d passed grade 6 with distinction on my clarinet – Mum sent a rather wonkily drawn congratulations card which I treasured for years – and spent every spare moment playing. See, Dad, I can concentrate. Give me a piece of sheet music that’s so crammed with notes it looks like a swarm of ants dancing all over it and I’m fine.

Better than fine, in fact. While practising really hard pieces I’d stop hearing him stomping about downstairs. I’d be utterly lost in a world of my own, where I didn’t need Mum, Dad or anyone. It was only hours later, when I ventured downstairs in the night, that I’d see the smashed cereal bowl (Dad and I consumed a lot of cereal), the soggy cornflakes scattered, the milk having already seeped into our matted brown rug. Sometimes I’d wake to hear our rusting old van revving furiously in front of our terraced house. Dad would drive off, fuelled by whisky and despair, and I’d creep down to deal with the mess, because one thing I knew was that milk smells disgusting – like sick – if no one mops it up.

So yes, Ellie was right when she said that being a dinner lady wasn’t part of the plan. The dream had been to work my way through the remaining grades and apply for music college, and maybe one day stand on a stage, playing Debussy’s Rapsodie, which I loved – it sounded like running water – in a chic little black dress. But by the evening of my fifteenth birthday I no longer had a clarinet, and by seventeenth I no longer had a father either as he died in a car accident whilst under the influence.

I had to leave school then, and Mum rushed up to see me: to ‘look after you’, she said, rather belatedly, even suggesting I move down to Wales with her as I wasn’t in a position to pay rent and cook my own dinners and take care of myself. I told her tersely that I’d been cooking my own dinners for years. Convincing her I’d be okay, I packed her off home and managed to nab a job as a live-in cleaner at Sunshine Valley holiday park near Morecambe Bay. And that’s when my glittering career began …

Whoa, daytime boozing! It’s sent my thoughts racing as I loiter at the bar while Janice gets our drinks. I need to slow down, drink some water, like everyone says. But then, it is my birthday, and I’ve arranged a day off from Mrs B. So why not? The next few hours pass extremely enjoyably, and by the time I return home at just gone five, I’m so buoyed up that I barely even register the scattering of Hula Hoop packets littering the kitchen.

Morgan and Jenna have returned from their trip and are watching something very shouty on TV. Like Hitler invading Poland, my son seems to have annexed our living room as his private snogging quarters while I beaver away in the kitchen. No mention of my birthday yet, but never mind. I poke my head round the living room door. ‘I’ll do pizzas later,’ I announce, at which the lovers spring apart.

‘Mum! D’you have to just barge in?’

‘I didn’t barge, Morgan. I’m just trying to cater to your needs. Anyway, what am I supposed to do? Wear a little bell around my neck, like a cow, to warn you that I’m approaching?’

‘No need to be like that …’

‘It’s just, it is my house too. I actually live here. I’m not just the maid …’

Jenna giggles and smooths her rumpled fair hair. Oh God, there’s what looks distinctly like a love bite planted on her slender neck. I thought they went out of fashion around 1979, like Clackers. What the heck will her mum say?

The landline trills in the hall beside me and I snatch it from the shelf. It’s Vince, my ex. ‘Happy birthday, Aud,’ he says jovially.

‘Thanks, Vince.’ It’s lovely to hear from him, actually. Once we’d recovered from the break-up, we’ve functioned pretty well as friends; better, in fact, than as partners. ‘All the fours, eh?’ he adds. ‘How does that feel?’

‘Ancient,’ I reply with a grimace.

‘Doing anything nice tonight?’

‘No plans, I’ve just been out for lunch with the girls, that was lovely—’

‘Yeah, you sound inebriated,’ he teases. Since embarking on self-sufficient bliss in the wilds of Northumberland with his girlfriend Laura – a wispy, jam-making sort – my ex has become rather smug.

‘I’ve only had three glasses of wine,’ I fib, wandering through to the kitchen to top up Paul’s flowers with water.

‘Sure you have. Anyway, how’s our useless layabout of a son? Any signs of him shifting his arse off that sofa yet?’

‘Not so I’ve noticed …’

Vince grunts. ‘Can I have a word?’

‘Of course,’ I say, striding back to the living room and holding out the phone. Morgan disentangles himself from his lady love and squints at it, as if not entirely sure what it is. To be fair, cold callers and Vince are the only ones who ever ring.

‘Happy birthday, Audrey,’ Jenna says, somewhat belatedly, as Morgan falls into a muttered conversation with his father.

‘Thanks, Jenna.’

‘Yuh,’ Morgan murmurs, ‘I’m lookin’, Dad. Can’t just magic up a job, y’know? It’s tough out there …’

‘So great about your prize,’ she adds. ‘Decided what you’re going to do with the money yet?’

I hesitate, wishing the focus were more on the accolade and less on the cash. She’s a sweet girl, and clearly loves Morgan to bits, but she hasn’t shaken him out of his reverie as I’d hoped she might.

Morgan finishes the call – it lasted barely two minutes – and flips open his laptop.

Jenna nudges my son. ‘Five grand, Morgan! Imagine having all that to spend …’

‘Uh, yeah …’ He stares hard at the screen.

‘I’d hit Top Shop,’ she announces. ‘Oh my God, can you imagine? I’d have a St Tropez tan and get HD brows and individual lash extensions …’ This is how different we are as females. At the prospect of sudden riches, she thinks: beautification. I think: new kitchen table.

‘Yup,’ he grunts while I glance around the room for a beautifully wrapped present with my name on it. Heck, any old thing in a Superdrug carrier bag would do. But all I spot are Morgan’s juggling sticks dumped on the rug and the aforementioned pants still strewn around. A packet of salami is lying open on the coffee table; several slices have escaped and are wilting on the glass surface, like coasters made from fatty pork. I glower at them, willing Morgan to shut his laptop and at least acknowledge the occasion. ‘Oh, man,’ he blurts out, ‘that’s so cool!’

‘What is?’ I ask.

‘This thing here.’ He jabs at his laptop. I go behind him and peer over his shoulder at the screen.

‘What is this?’

‘Just a thing, a tutorial thing …’

I watch a few seconds of the YouTube clip in which an earnest-looking child is balancing a beach ball on his head while juggling multi-coloured blocks. ‘But he’s just a little kid, Morgan. He looks about eight.’

‘Yeah.’ He nods.

‘And it doesn’t look that difficult,’ I add.

He rounds on me. ‘It is! You’ve no idea …’

‘Oh, come on,’ I say, laughing. ‘It’s not as if he’s, I don’t know, juggling while dancing on burning hot coals or eating fire—’

‘You want that poor kid to burn himself?’

‘Of course I don’t …’

He turns to Jenna. ‘She’ll only be happy when he’s admitted to hospital for skin grafts.’

‘Jesus!’

The two of them snigger conspiratorially and, not for the first time, I feel like the intruder here, who’s blundered into a world of love bites and YouTube tutorials and meals consisting of salami and crisps, which I have no hope of ever understanding.

‘S’good, this,’ he mutters huffily, having turned his attention back to the screen. ‘S’giving me ideas …’

‘Ideas for what specifically?’ I ask.

He exhales through his nose as the clip switches to the child balancing a stack of bricks on his chin. ‘My act,’ Morgan murmurs.

What act? I want to ask, but can’t bring myself to be so cutting, especially in front of Jenna. However, Morgan’s childhood yearnings to be an international spy seem entirely achievable, compared to expecting a career to materialise through no effort whatsoever on his part. I miss his youthful drive, his boundless energy, and his fondness for leaving coded notes for me on the toilet cistern: MUM UOY EVOL I. With no interest in college or uni – ‘I mean, what would I do?’ – he scraped through his exams, gaining pretty unsensational grades, and in the past year has dabbled with a couple of short-lived part-time jobs. My once-vibrant son has been a packer in the pie factory and a washer-upper at a nearby hotel. Then for the past six months, nothing. I can hardly strap him to his desk chair and force him to write his CV. ‘Morgan,’ I say carefully, ‘if you’re not interested in college, you’re going to have to find something to occupy yourself.’

He nods. ‘Yeah, I know. I’m gonna do some street theatre.’

My heart drops. ‘As a hobby, yes. I meant something as a real job.’

‘No, that’s what I mean. As my job …’

I stare at him, lost for words for a moment. ‘But that’s not … it’s not a career. However long you stood out there, doing your thing, you’d never earn enough to—’

‘Nah, nah, I don’t mean doing it around here. I’d go to York or maybe, I dunno, even Leeds …’ He says this as if it’s Los Angeles. ‘You need big crowds to make decent money,’ he adds.

‘He’s really good,’ Jenna says loyally. ‘You should see him.’ Sweetheart, enormous chunks of my life have been spent watching Morgan clonking into the vegetable rack on that unicycle … ‘I know he is,’ I say quickly, turning back to my son, ‘but Morgan, you tried that, didn’t you? I mean, you set off for the day with your sandwiches and flask and you were back about two hours later …’

He shrugs. ‘It was raining.’

‘Yes, but this is the north of England. It’s cold a lot of the time. It’s an occupational hazard, I’d have thought …’

‘It was freezing! And I only had my thin jacket …’

‘The thin jacket you chose,’ I shoot back, ‘when I’d given you money to specifically buy a proper, insulating winter coat …’

He turns to Jenna and chuckles. ‘Mum wants me to have proper insulation, like a boiler.’ I clamp my back teeth together as they both giggle away.

‘I meant a coat that was a bit thicker than a doily, Morgan …’

‘What’s a doily?’

I glower at him. ‘You’ve got to eighteen years old and don’t know what a doily is?’

He makes a little snorty noise, like a horse. ‘See what I have to put up with, Jen? It never stops!’

I glare down at him, deeply irritated now. I need a proper talk with my son – with capitals, a Proper Talk – but how is that possible when Jenna’s always here, nuzzling his ear? It’s not fair to discuss big, serious issues – like his future, and whether he’s been remembering to put ointment on his athlete’s foot – with his girlfriend listening in. Anyway, he’s hardly likely to give me his full attention while he’s absent-mindedly massaging her delicate bare tootsies.

‘Ooh, that’s nice,’ she breathes, closing her eyes ecstatically, apparently having forgotten I’m here. Where am I supposed to go while this foot fondling is happening? I can’t bear to spend any more time holed up in my bedroom or the kitchen. Maybe I should sit outside in our unlovely back yard, by the wheelie bins? I can’t help glancing down at her pretty little feet, the nails painted baby blue, the toes perfectly straight and not curled weirdly towards the big one due to wearing foot-cramming courts in the 80s. What kind of person have I become, to feel bitter that a beautiful eighteen-year-old girl – whom my son loves to distraction – doesn’t have any corns or calluses? Christ, it’s a small step from wishing a verruca on her.

‘Mum?’ Morgan’s voice cuts into my thoughts.

‘Yes, love?’

‘Are you … okay?’

Hell, I’ve been staring at his girlfriend’s feet. I hurry off like a discreet maid and busy myself with the washing up they’ve left for me, all the while thinking: my only child has forgotten my birthday. The child whose bottom I was once forced to wipe with my original 1960s silk scarf in the park.

I go about my business all evening, dishing up pizza then keeping out of their way, trying not to feel envious when I hear them laughing raucously, and wishing I didn’t mind so much that I’m not allowed to join in. When did I become so needy? It’s only my birthday, after all, and my friends made it fun. And Vince remembered, as did Mum: Happy birthday Audrey, the card said in her quivery scrawl. Stevie didn’t bother, but then he doesn’t strike me as the card-sending sort.

At 11.20 p.m., by which time I have given up on any acknowledgement of the date, I pop my head round the living room door. Jenna is audibly kissing my son’s neck: kiss-kiss-kiss. I hope she isn’t planning to mark him. Can’t imagine a freshly sucked neck will do him any favours in the job interviews I plan to set up for him and frogmarch him to, if necessary … no, no, I must stop this. ‘Goodnight, then,’ I say.

Jenna peels herself off him. ‘Night, Audrey.’

‘Oh, Mum, hang on a minute …’ Morgan delves into his jeans pocket. ‘Here,’ he says, handing me a bent pink envelope.

‘Thank you, darling,’ I say, unable to erase the trace of surprise from my voice. There’s an oily stain on it and MUM has been scribbled lightly in pencil on the front.

He grins and winds an arm around his girlfriend’s shoulders. ‘See what she thinks of me, Jen?’ he chuckles. ‘She actually thought I’d forgot.’

Chapter Six
The Wrong Jelly Beans

My heart swells as I take it from him. It’ll be a voucher, probably, which doesn’t score terribly highly on the effort front – but at least he’s thought about the kind of shops I like. At least, I hope it’s for John Lewis and not Asda. I rip it open. It’s a birthday card depicting a plump tortoiseshell cat sitting on a windowsill. A bit grannyish, but never mind. No voucher either. But then, he’s always broke and I wouldn’t feel great about him spending what little he has on me. And it’s my money anyway, so it would be like giving cash to myself, and not as if I need anything …

‘Thanks, Morgan,’ I say, placing the card on the mantelpiece and dropping the envelope into the waste paper bin.

‘Don’t throw that away!’ he yelps.

I blink at him. ‘It was just the envelope, love.’

‘No, no, there’s something in it …’

‘Sorry, I didn’t realise …’ I snatch it back out and find a piece of paper inside, folded over and over into a tiny square. ‘What’s this?’ I murmur, opening it out.

‘Just a list.’

‘A list?’ I squint at his barely-legible scrawl:

I’m aware of both Morgan and Jenna watching me intently from the sofa as I grip the note. Maybe it’s a joke. It goes on:

‘Guitar?’ I blurt out. ‘Are you having a laugh? What d’you want one of those for?’

‘’Cause it’d be cool,’ he says airily.

‘But you don’t even play!’

‘I could learn, couldn’t I? You’re always saying I should expand my skill set, whatever that means …’

‘But it’s July,’ I add. ‘Your birthday’s not till next month. Why are you giving me your present list now … in my birthday card?’

‘Oh, it’s not my birthday list,’ he says with a shrug. ‘It says at the top. It’s just stuff I need.’

I stare at him. ‘Have you gone completely crazy? I don’t have the cash for all this—’

‘You’ve got that prize money coming, Mum. It’s just a few things, not that much …’

I’m conscious of breathing slowly, trying not to lose my rag. I keep staring at the note in the hope that I’m just experiencing a mental blip, perhaps triggered by all the prosecco I guzzled earlier, and that the messy scrawl will rearrange itself to read: Sorry I couldn’t afford to get you a present, Mum, just wanted to say how much I love you. But it doesn’t.

‘You mean,’ I say carefully, ‘I’ve sometimes bought you the wrong kind of jelly beans?’

He nods. ‘Occasionally, yeah. Some of the flavours are really weird. The cinnamon ones are horrible.’

I glare at him, then back at the note. If I had a lighter to hand, which I don’t, having given up smoking twenty years ago – although now might be the time to re-start – I’d show him what I think of it. Is it normal, this urge to burn things? I never used to be like this. I’m becoming increasingly less keen on the person I’ve become. ‘So,’ I venture, ‘you’re seriously expecting me to buy you all this? Not for your birthday but just … for no real reason at all?’

He nods. ’Yeah, but please don’t choose my clothes, Mum. Not after that shirt you got me last Christmas …’

‘Don’t be so ungrateful,’ Jenna splutters, nudging him.

‘That perfectly nice one from River Island?’ I remark, arching a brow.

‘Er, yeah.’ At last, he has the decency to look nervous.

‘What was wrong with it?’ I ask, genuinely bewildered.

‘C’mon, Mum,’ he says, blushing now, ‘it was kinda like an old man’s shirt …’

Something shrivels inside me as I stare down at them: two beautiful people with their futures ahead of them – if they can muster the energy to do something. And I know how they view me: as a sour, middle-aged woman, who doesn’t understand that a guitar would be ‘cool’, and who seems to believe that careers should be planned and worked towards, rather than just expected to land in their laps. Even Jenna seems unwilling to grab opportunities presented to her. As she’s studying beauty therapy, I’d assumed she might enjoy assisting Kim on a job. ‘I’ve checked with her,’ I explained, ‘and she really could do with the help. It’ll be great experience for you.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ Jenna winced, as if I’d arranged work experience at the local abattoir, rather than patting powder onto bridesmaids’ faces.

In my bedroom now, I perch on the edge of my bed and try to figure out whether I’ve been perfectly reasonable or overreacted terribly. Maybe Vince was right, and I’m drunker than I realise; after all, Morgan’s not that bad as teenagers go. He has never written off my car or – to my knowledge – inflicted pain upon a small animal. No, it’s the slow drip-drip of barely significant things that’s making me feel as if I am beginning to ever-so-slightly lose the plot: the mocking of a perfectly acceptable shirt. The perpetual canoodling that makes me feel as if I’m trapped in a sex education film and that any moment, a voiceover will warn, ‘Remember to always use a condom.’ Is it any wonder I find it so hard to relax? Right now, in my tiny, gloomy room, I’d give anything to be in that swanky hotel where the cookery course is happening. Not to cook especially – I mean, I wouldn’t dream of foisting my bland soup on anyone – but just to be.

To take my mind off the note, I unpack my presents from Kim, Ellie and Cheryl from my voluminous shoulder bag. Gorgeous perfume, a posh palette of lip colours and tiny bottles of bath oil with soothing properties. And here, still in its torn-open envelope, is the letter about my competition win, including a contact number for the organiser: Shirley Michaels, whom I’ve already spoken to about the cash prize.

I lie back on my bed. My room really is tiny: suitable only for a small child, or possibly just coats. There’s space only for a three-quarter bed – no wonder Stevie rarely stays over, he’s six-foot-two – plus a small, rickety bedside table and a chrome rail for clothes. God, that lovely hotel. I can’t get it out of my mind. Lifting my laptop from my bedside table, I Google Wilton Grange. Judging by the pictures on its website, it’s extremely fancy. Without wanting to sound as if I struggle to use cutlery politely, it is far posher than anywhere I’ve ever stayed. We’re talking old-style glamour; all plump sofas, twinkling chandeliers and enormous stone fireplaces decked with the kind of fragile-looking vases you’re scared to walk past in case you create a gust and blow them off. There are oil paintings of glowering old men and galloping horses, and in the restaurant the food comes with little blobs and swirls of sauce. Imagine having your food decorated.

There’s a spa, in which guests are lounging around in white dressing gowns, giving the impression that their lives are totally sorted. While they might stop off at Charnock Richard for petrol or a coffee, it would never occur to them to stay overnight. Their pulses wouldn’t quicken at the prospect of a £5 all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. They have never endured obsessive voucher collecting to buy their child a perfectly acceptable checked shirt which, it turns out, he hates. A son who, rather than buying his mother a small birthday gift – just a token, a pack of sodding Hello Kitty hair clips would have sufficed – presents her with an extensive list of stuff he wants.

I should have chosen the cookery course prize, I decide, undressing and pulling on my pyjamas. But it’s too late now.

*

Or is it? That’s the thought that spears through my brain when I wake, dry-mouthed from the prosecco, just after nine. I scramble out of bed and grab the letter from my bag and stare at the contact numbers. There’s an office number, and a mobile. I shouldn’t call on a Sunday but what the hell? I tap out the number on my mobile, my heart rattling away as it rings.

‘Hello?’

I clear my throat. ‘Hello Shirley, it’s Audrey Pepper. I’m so sorry to call you at the weekend …’

‘Audrey Pepper? I’m sorry, I don’t think I know—’

‘We, um, spoke a few days ago about the Dinner Lady of the Year award …’

‘Oh, yes, of course. If you’re calling about the transfer, I have all your bank details and was planning to put through payment first thing on Monday …’

‘Um, actually, I just wondered,’ I cut in, ‘could I change my mind? I mean, if it’s at all possible?’

Small pause. ‘You mean you’d like to do the cookery course instead?’

‘Er … yes. Yes, I would.’ Another pause as she clears her throat.

‘Umm … I think it’s pretty booked up, and I’m not sure if I can get hold of anyone today … could you hold for a moment please?’

‘Sure,’ I say, licking my parched lips.

I wait and wait and wait. I glance up at the mottled ceiling; it needs a coat of emulsion, the whole place does. I’ve suggested to Morgan that he might paint it for me, thus acquiring some decorating skills – there’s a line of work that’s always in demand – but he flatly refused to do it without pay. How would he react, I wonder, if I presented him with an invoice for meals cooked, laundry serviced and cleaning undertaken?

‘Audrey? Sorry to keep you waiting.’

‘That’s okay, that’s fine …’

‘Now, I’m afraid the week where we had a place reserved for you is all fully booked …’

‘Oh, I see.’ My heart seems to slump.

‘… But,’ she goes on, ‘the course starting tomorrow has one place free. There are no single or twin rooms free, I’m afraid …’

It’s okay, I’ll camp in the ruddy garden …

‘But there is the honeymoon suite, and seeing as you’ve won your place they’re happy for you to have that.’

‘Oh!’ I gasp. Honeymoon suite? Vince and I didn’t have one of those. We stayed in his aunt’s guesthouse in Whitby.

‘It starts at midday with a welcome reception,’ she goes on. ‘I know you’re in Yorkshire, and it’s an awfully long way to travel down to Buckinghamshire, but do you possibly think …’

Yes, I do. I do possibly think. ‘Er, can I check something and get straight back to you?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she says.

I finish the call and phone Julie who, as ever, is delighted to take on my shifts.

‘So did Stevie come up with something after all?’ she asks.

‘Sorry?’

Julie laughs. ‘For your birthday. I assume he’s taking you away?’

‘No,’ I say, with a dry chuckle, ‘but I am going away – by myself. I’ll explain when I see you, okay?’ Then I call Shirley again, trying to sound level and calm, as if visiting luxury hotels to learn to make tarte au citron is a pretty regular occurrence for me. ‘I can start the course tomorrow,’ I say firmly.

‘Really? Well, that’s great!’ She sounds genuinely happy for me. ‘I know the cash prize was tempting but this is an unforgettable experience, isn’t it? Possibly even life-changing.’

Chapter Seven
Guilt Cakes

Of course I plan to tell Morgan. I’ll do it when I’ve calmed down and feel more kindly disposed towards him. In the meantime, I pull out my wheeled suitcase from beneath my bed, wondering how it’ll feel to be there, on my own – with no Morgan or Stevie or Mrs B making any demands upon me whatsoever. Freedom! That’s what Wilton Grange represents. I’m not even that fussed about the cookery aspect. What is classic French cookery anyway? Steak and frites? Or things slathered in rich sauces? I have no idea. I have never even been to France. We weren’t the going-abroad kind of family but then, hardly anyone was in 1970s Yorkshire.

Plus, I’m not the fancy cooking type. Before having Morgan I pretty much survived on things on toast, and as a mother I’ve been a distinctly workaday cook, intent on providing the kind of meals my ever-ravenous child would approve of. This has tended to involve an awful lot of crumb-coated things to shove in the oven.

I glance at the hotel’s website again. My mild panic about grappling with unfamiliar ingredients is offset by visions of me lying in a huge, claw-footed bath. As for Morgan, it’ll be good for him to fend for himself for a week: a sort of intensive training week in preparation for independent adult life. So in some ways, I’m doing him a favour.

I haven’t told Stevie yet either. As I try to play down the dinner lady aspect of my life, he doesn’t even know about my award; anyway, we haven’t spoken since we said goodbye in the Charnock Richard car park. ‘Crazy busy the next few days,’ was his parting shot. Perhaps, I muse, a little break will do us good. Absence, heart fonder and all that.

As per their custom, Morgan and Jenna spend all morning in his room and, when lunchtime rolls around, they amble downstairs and head out without giving any clue as to where they might be going. I’ll tell him as soon as they come back. I wonder how best to put it? I know you had high hopes for that money, darling, but I’m going to learn to do clever things with mussels instead. Christ, better just get it over with, as soon as he comes home.

I fetch my suitcase and carry it through to my former bedroom, where most of my clothes are stored. So, what to pack for Wilton Grange? Shirley has sent me an email:

Casual, comfy clothes are required in the kitchen (aprons provided)

Flat shoes only

No jewellery please

Long hair must be tied back

Mine needs a cut urgently but unless I hack at it myself there’s no time for that. I dig out trousers and tops, plus a couple of dresses, all found in the PDSA shop: so much more satisfying than shopping in a regular high street chain and just selecting your size off the rail. I mean, where’s the challenge in that?

Not bad, I decide, dropping in my utilitarian navy swimsuit for the spa and surveying my neatly folded clothes. I add underwear and pyjamas and gather together my toiletries. Silly, I know, as the hotel will provide them, but just in case …

And that’s me, all ready and raring to go. It’s been eerily simple, and unhurried, compared to the last-minute packing I tend to do when Stevie calls. I plan to leave at 6.30 tomorrow morning at the latest, allowing extra time so I’m not the one rushing late into the welcome reception, whatever that is. Now I just want Morgan to come home so I can break the news.

Feeling more kindly disposed now, I drive to our nearest, rather uninspiring supermarket and stock up on enough provisions to nourish my son for an entire month, including Rolos and Fondant Fancies and fruit, which I’m bound to find withered on my return, plus industrial quantities of minced beef. Back home, I make an enormous pot of chilli (Morgan complained that my last batch was ‘too oniony’, perhaps food critic could be another career option?) and another of bolognaise, all to keep him going throughout the week. It feels as if I am preparing for impending war. I know it’s ridiculous but it’s making me feel marginally better about abandoning my child. In the same vein I also shape four burgers, wrapping them individually in greaseproof paper, writing ‘1 burger! Enjoy! xx’ in felt tip across the top. I realise my catering has involved an awful lot of minced beef but at least he’s unlikely to become anaemic.

By teatime – still no reappearance of Morgan – the chilli and bolognaise have cooled sufficiently to be ladled into individual cartons and labelled MON/TUE/WED/THUR/FRI: saves him having to make any tricky decisions over what to eat. We also have chicken nuggets which he’s perfectly capable of putting in the oven … and then forgetting they’re there. Plus there’s the Chinese and chippy if he gets really desperate.

Vince would say I’ve lost my mind. He’d point out that my extensive preparations are a small step from cutting up his fish fingers and tucking in his bib. However, as I plan to make the very most of every moment at Wilton Grange, I don’t want to worry for one second that Morgan is suffering from malnutrition. And now – perhaps I really am losing it – I make a batch of fairy cakes, scooping out their centres when they’re done and making them into little wings as if Morgan were seven years old. Sorry for buggering off like this, my butterfly cakes say. Sorry for not getting you the unicycle tyre and for being a mad middle-aged woman who’s probably having some kind of hormonal collapse.

I while away the evening rechecking my suitcase and willing Morgan to show up so I can tell him. I ping him a message: when u coming home? No reply, unsurprisingly. We’ve passed the stage where he felt obliged to keep me informed of his movements.

I text Vince: I’ve won a prize! A week at a cook school in Buckinghamshire. Leaving tomorrow. M will be home alone all week.

Wow amazing! Very proud of you, comes his swift reply.

Thanks, I type, but M will be ALL ALONE. Am I wrong to be terrified?

His reply takes longer this time: He’s a fully grown man, remember?

Easy for him to say, being spared the daily discussions – ‘naggings’, Morgan calls them – about what our son might do next with his life. Rifling through my purse, I dump a bundle of notes on the table, weighted down with the pepper grinder, for emergencies. Guilt money. The one thing I don’t do is gather up all the stray pants. In fact, and perhaps I really am losing it now, I drag out the plastic box of Morgan’s old toys from the cupboard under the stairs. It’s full of ratty old teddies, plus the Action Man I got for a quid on eBay, which he made into a spy – demanding that I made him a tiny Fedora hat, like the dented one here that was pretty much welded to his head during his entire spy phase, and which I found him sleeping in once. There are dog-eared books on codes and cyphers that I’ve been keeping for … what exactly? And here it is, precisely what I’m looking for: the tub of jumbo chalks he’d used to draw mysterious symbols on the pavement outside our house (only other spies would understand their significance).

Selecting the white one, I creep around the living room and carefully draw an outline around each pair of dropped pants. It’s just a joke, I tell myself. He’ll notice when I’m gone and he and Jenna will have a good laugh about his nutty mum. Only … I’m not quite sure it is funny. In fact, I fear that I am overly obsessing about pants, and that simply picking them up and depositing them into the wash might be an altogether more sensible solution.

I put the chalks back into the box and shove it back under the stairs, and get on with the task of clearing up the kitchen. That’s when I spot it, dumped in the bin: the Christmas present from me, carefully chosen as I thought he liked checked shirts, seeing as he wears one slung over a T-shirt nearly every day of his life. It’s red, blue and white, in soft brushed cotton, and is lying there with a couple of wet teabags sitting on it. He has thrown it away. I blink down at it, wondering why it didn’t occur to him that this might be hurtful to me. I mean, okay, get rid of it – discreetly. Stuff it in a litter bin in the park, hand it to a homeless person or drop it off at the charity shop. But don’t dump it on top of the tuna cans and takeaway cartons and – I notice now – the application form for part-time work at the leisure centre that I picked up for him.

The front door flies open, and I hear Morgan and Jenna tottering in. ‘Hi, Mum,’ he calls out tipsily from the hallway. ‘You there?’

‘Yes, I’m here,’ I mutter, fury bubbling inside me.

‘Been at the pub. Just gonna go up to bed, okay?’

I glance at my cakes sitting all smugly under their glass dome. ‘Fine,’ I growl, scrunching up the empty flour packet and dropping it on top of the shirt.

‘Don’t know what’s up with her,’ Morgan remarks as, giggling, he and Jenna make their way up to his room.

I don’t follow them up, and nor do I inform him of my plans when my alarm goes off with a ping at 5.50 a.m., because a hungover teenager – any teenager in fact – is incapable of conversation at this kind of hour. Anyway, what does he care whether I’m here or not? Instead, I shower quickly and slip into a favourite floral print dress, plus a pair of ballet flats. Then, as quietly as possible, I creep downstairs with my suitcase.

Morgan’s wish list is still lying on the kitchen table. The damn cheek of it, and on my birthday as well. On its blank side I write:

Chapter Eight
Motorway Muffins

I should feel euphoric as I drive south. After all, I deserve this. I should be zipping along, music blaring and a huge smile on my face, like a woman in a movie about to embark on a life-changing adventure. The fact that I’m not is due to one horrible dark thought, currently flooding my senses: I didn’t leave defrosting/reheating instructions. Yes, I’m still angry – but more at myself now for being unable to switch off my maternal concern. Surely Morgan is savvy enough to cope with a Tupperware carton of frozen bolognaise? He’s a bright boy, when he chooses to engage his brain. He’s hardly going to hack away at it with an ice pick. Even so, I keep picturing his crestfallen face as he reads my note, and another alarming thought engulfs me: what the hell am I playing at?

I pull off at a service station – one we haven’t stayed at, I must alert Stevie to this – and buy an Americano and three muffins, one for now and two for later, in case the hotel restaurant’s portions really are as tiddly as they looked on the website. From a small, greasy table by the window I fish out my phone and try Morgan’s mobile. It’s only 9 a.m., of course he’ll still be asleep, I remind myself as it goes to voicemail. ‘Could you call me?’ I say, aware that there’s little chance of him even playing the message. ‘I need to talk to you,’ I add before ringing off.

Next I try Stevie, who doesn’t answer either. ‘It’s me, love,’ I inform his voicemail. ‘Look, er, I’m …’ I tail off. It’s not the kind of thing I want to explain via a message, especially with my voice sounding terribly loud in the almost deserted café. ‘I’m going away for a few days,’ I explain quickly. ‘I’ll tell you all about it when we speak.’

Feeling marginally better, I pick at one of the muffins and call Kim. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this!’ she exclaims.

‘I know, I really should have told him last night …’

‘No, not that part.’ She chuckles. ‘I mean being spontaneous like this. It’s so unlike you!’

‘Thanks,’ I say with a dry laugh, although she’s right.

‘Well, good for you, Aud. It sounds amazing. It’ll be good for Morgan too, force him to stand on his own two feet …’

I bite my lip. ‘Um … if you’re passing the house, would you mind popping in to check he’s okay?’

Small pause. ‘What on earth for?’

‘Oh, you know, just to make sure everything’s all right. I mean, it’s your place, I don’t want it burnt to the ground …’ I am only half-joking.

She laughs loudly. ‘Aud, he’s not a baby. Just go away and enjoy yourself, for Christ’s sake.’

‘Okay, okay,’ I say, dabbing at the muffin crumbs on the plate with a wet finger. ‘I will, promise.’

‘Good. So repeat after me: “Nothing’s going to happen. Everything is going to be fine.”’

She’s right: my boy is old enough to get married, to fight for his country or be sent to a proper adult jail. ‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ I repeat, crossing my fingers firmly under the table, ‘and everything is going to be fine.’

*

It’s terribly picturesque, this part of the world. I see no litter or graffiti as I pass through pretty villages, the kind that still have a proper village store, with a tray of penny sweets, I’d imagine, and a kindly lady serving behind the counter. Then the villages fall behind and it’s just winding country lanes for miles until, finally, I round a bend and spot the elegant sign on a high, moss-covered wall:

Wilton Grange Hotel

Luxury accommodation * Michelin-starred restaurant * World-renowned cookery school

My heartbeat quickens as I turn in through the gate. The gravelled drive curves between gnarled ancient trees, and a few moments later the hotel comes into view. Peaceful is the word that springs to mind. Sunlight quivers on the lake. The hotel is swathed in some kind of dense, climbing shrub and the undulating grounds are dotted with summerhouses and those dinky little shelter things, where a refined lady might enjoy some shade while sipping her gin.

I pull up in the car park, nosing my way in between a Bentley and a Merc. A terribly chic woman in a grey trouser suit gives my car a surprised look before climbing into the Merc and driving away. I wipe my sweaty hands on the front of my crumpled dress. Another car arrives to take the Merc’s place: a Saab I think, possibly vintage, although its cream paintwork is so gleamingly perfect it could have purred out of the factory just moments ago. I slide my gaze towards the driver. He is flicking through some papers, making no move to get out.

My phone bleeps in my bag, and I snatch it from the passenger seat. A text from Morgan: when u back?? I glance at the man again and he smiles briefly. He has a kind face, I decide. He’s not looking at me as if thinking, What’s she doing here? Maybe he thinks I’m staff. I smile back, hoping to convey the message that, despite the state of my vehicle, I actually come to places like this all the time. I belong here, I hope my smile says, just like you do. Message transmitted, I reply to Morgan’s text: Saturday.

His reply pings back instantly: WHAT?? Oh, so he misses me after all. In fact, this is the longest period we’ll have ever spent apart. While Morgan’s had numerous long weekends with his dad, in recent times the livestock aspect of Vince’s smallholding has put him off (‘There’s so much crap everywhere, Mum! It bloody stinks!’) and he always seems pretty relieved to come home. I’ve never managed to fund school trips to France or Austria, and his main summer holidays were usually camping trips to Cornwall with me, then with a friend and me, because the idea of being trapped alone in a tent with his mother was clearly appalling.

Another text: Need grey T shirt washing wanna wear tonight!!

Ahh … right. So it’s the interruption in laundry services he’s concerned about. No, ‘Where are you, Mum? Is everything okay?’ I mean, if I were him – and I frequently do try to see things from his point of view – I’d be thinking, ‘It’s not like her to just bugger off. Maybe I should be concerned about her mental health?’ But then, Morgan isn’t the type to worry about anything. I could be lying dead on the kitchen floor and he’d step over my corpse to fetch a can of Coke from the fridge.

I stab out my reply – use washing machine – and climb out of my car, trying to quell the anxiety that’s rising inside me. The man from the Saab gets out too. He is tall, well-groomed and handsome; dapper, you’d call him, with his neatly clipped short dark hair and a light tan. His navy blue linen jacket and casual dark grey trousers look expensive. ‘Hi,’ he says with a smile.

‘Hi,’ I reply.

‘Lovely day.’

‘Yes, it is …’

He stands for a moment, taking in the surroundings: the sweeping lawns, the well-tended borders filled with pale pink roses, the beautiful building itself. Then he checks his watch and, with a breezy confidence that suggests he is unintimidated by poshness – because to people like him this place isn’t posh, it’s just normal – he opens the boot of his car and lifts out a brown leather bag.

I start making my way towards the hotel, dragging my wheeled case along the gravel and trying not to churn it up too much. When I glance back, the man is strolling a few metres behind. He flashes another broad smile. I smile back, briefly, and snatch my phone from my shoulder bag as it rings. ‘Hi, Morgan,’ I say distractedly.

‘What d’you mean, you’re back next Saturday? What’re you doing?’

I clear my throat, aware of the crunch of the man’s footsteps behind me. ‘I explained in my note, I’ve gone away for a bit.’

‘A bit? That’s not a bit. It’s a week! For fuck’s sake, Mum!’

‘Don’t swear at me, Morgan.’

‘All right, sorry, it’s just … I thought you’d just gone to the Spar or something …’

‘I go there,’ I correct him. ‘I don’t go away there, Morgan. It’s not a holiday destination …’

‘You’ve gone on holiday without telling me?’ he gasps. ‘Like, where?’

‘Well, it’s a sort of holiday. I’m in Buckinghamshire …’ A peacock struts haughtily across the path, its breast shimmering sapphire blue in the sunshine.

‘Where’s that?’

‘It’s in the south of England.’

‘I mean, what’s there? Why’re you there?’

‘I’m doing the cookery course,’ I explain, keeping my voice low.

Morgan makes a choking noise. ‘You mean that dinner lady thing?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘But I thought you were taking the money! The cash prize. That’s what you said …’

‘Well, I changed my mind.’ I’ve slowed my pace in the hope that the man will understand that I want him to march ahead so I can conduct this conversation in private.

‘You chose a baking course,’ Morgan laments, ‘over five thousand quid? What use is that gonna be?’

‘Probably none,’ I reply tersely, ‘and it’s not a baking course. It’s classic French cookery—’

‘You’ve gone mad,’ he mutters.

‘Yes, I probably have.’

He pauses. ‘So anyway, what about my T-shirt?’

‘Sorry, but I can’t operate the washing machine from here. It’s not remote controlled. Much as I’d love to keep on top of all our domestic concerns from 200 miles away, it’s not actually possible to …’ I break off as the man catches up with me and we fall into step.

‘Mum?’

‘Just a minute,’ I hiss.

‘But I don’t know how …’

‘For God’s sake, Morgan. There’s a door at the front. You know the round bit you can see through? Open it and put your T-shirt in. Then open the little drawer at the top and put in some powder …’

‘Why are you whispering? I can hardly hear—’

‘I’m not whispering …’

‘Speak up!’

‘Put-powder-in-the-little-drawer,’ I bark, at which the man raises a brow in amusement.

‘Where is it?’

‘For goodness’ sake! It’s the big white appliance, the one that’s not the freezer, the one that doesn’t have peas in it …’

‘I mean the powder—’

‘Cupboard under the sink,’ I growl. There’s some urgent rummaging, then the machine door is slammed shut. Hope he hasn’t broken it.

‘Now what?’ Morgan huffs.

‘Select the programme,’ I instruct him as, mercifully, the man seems to understand that I require privacy and strides ahead. ‘That’s the round dial with numbers on at the top,’ I add. ‘30 degrees is probably best. Nothing bad ever happens at that temperature. Okay now?’

I hear clicking noises. ‘Nothing’s happening.’

‘Have you turned it on?’

‘God, Mum, why does it have to be so complicated …’

‘There’s an on button,’ I snap. ‘It’s not complicated. Just press the damn thing …’

‘How am I s’posed to know …’

‘You should know,’ I retort, far too loudly for the tranquil surroundings, ‘because I gave you that washing machine tutorial, remember? I showed you the dial and the little drawer but you wouldn’t pay attention. You wandered off to get ice cream …’

‘It really wasn’t that interesting,’ Morgan mutters.

‘No, I suppose it wasn’t, but what if I’d been teaching you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and you’d wandered off then, more interested in stuffing your face full of Ben & Jerry’s than saving a life?’

He splutters. ‘All right, all right! No need to go off on one. I was only asking …’ Now he sounds genuinely upset. I stop on the path, breathing slowly, and watch a squirrel scampering up a tree.

‘I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean to sound so snappy.’

‘Yeah, well, I was only asking for a bit of help.’

Guilt niggles in my stomach. ‘Yes, I know. Look, I suppose I’m just a bit nervous about this whole hotel thing, okay? And I know I shouldn’t have just left like that, without saying goodbye …’ I trot up the wide stone steps and enter the hotel’s revolving doors. In the enormous foyer, the posh car man is waiting to be attended to at reception.

‘S’all right,’ Morgan mumbles.

‘I love you, darling.’

‘Love you too,’ he says grudgingly.

‘Did you enjoy the cakes?’

‘Haven’t tried them yet, had other stuff on my mind …’

I smile. ‘Like your T-shirt.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Have you managed to start the washing machine yet?’

‘Nah. Think something’s wrong with it …’

I inhale deeply and murmur, ‘Just hand-wash it, darling,’ and finish the call.

An elderly couple drift away from the desk, and the receptionist beams expectantly. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Erm, I think this man was first …’ I indicate the stranger, noting his soft grey eyes and the dark lashes around them. He has that bone structure thing going on: strong nose, defined jawline and chin. Bet he’s the sort who knows about wine and whirls it around and sniffs it instead of tipping it straight down his neck.

‘No, no, after you,’ he says graciously.

‘Oh, thank you.’ I pull my case towards the desk.

‘Do you have a reservation?’ The receptionist’s glossy black hair is tucked behind her dainty ears, and she has the kind of bright, white teeth that make ordinary un-veneered ones – the kind everyone used to have, perfectly serviceable teeth – look like trowels in comparison.

‘I’m Audrey Pepper,’ I say. ‘I’m here for the cookery course …’

She blinks at me. ‘The residential?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

There’s an almost imperceptible frown as she starts tapping away at her keyboard, still seeming unsure and perhaps suspecting that I’m trying to sneak my way in. ‘Ah, yes.’ Her pencilled brows shoot up. ‘Here you are. Oh, you’re in the honeymoon suite! It’s beautiful. I do hope you like it …’

‘I’m sure I will.’

‘If you could just complete this form …’

‘Yes, of course …’ I fill in my details and hand it back to her.

‘And if I could just take an imprint of a credit or debit card please …’ A wave of panic rushes over me as I rummage through my purse.

‘It is paid for, the room? The suite, I mean?’ I haven’t made some awful mistake and it’s not free after all? Sweat springs from my forehead.

‘Oh yes, madam,’ she says brightly, taking my card and swiping it before handing it back. ‘Great, all done. I’ll ask Jasper to show you to your room …’ She waves to a uniformed porter across the foyer. I hover, hoping Jasper’s too busy to help me because I’d rather find my room myself and avoid some sweat-making tipping scenario (not a problem at a Day’s Inn motel).

‘I’m on the cookery course too,’ the posh car man offers.

‘Oh, are you?’

His eyes crinkle appealingly. ‘You sound surprised.’

‘No, not really – I mean, I have no idea who goes on these kind of things. I won my place in a competition …’

‘Really?’ the receptionist asks. ‘Which one?’

I sense my cheeks flushing. ‘Dinner lady of the year.’

‘Wow!’ She bares her perfect teeth. ‘That’s, er, fantastic!’

‘Dinner lady of the year?’ the man exclaims in one of those rich, rounded voices that carries across a room. ‘Gosh, you’ll be showing the rest of us a thing or two …’

‘Oh, I don’t actually cook at school—’

‘Sorry, I just assumed …’

‘Don’t worry, everyone does.’ I smile.

‘So you’re not vastly experienced in the world of classic French cuisine?’

‘Not remotely,’ I reply, laughing. ‘To be honest, I don’t exactly know what it is.’

He chuckles. ‘Can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that. We can sit in the dunce corner together …’

I laugh, sensing myself relaxing. ‘Sounds good to me.’

He reaches to shake my hand. ‘I’m Hugo. Hugo Fairchurch …’

‘I’m Audrey, Audrey Pepper.’

‘What a lovely, unusual name.’

I smile, taken aback by his enthusiasm. ‘Thank you. I must admit, no one’s ever said that before.’

‘It’s charming. Very memorable. See you at the welcome reception then,’ he says as the ridiculously buff young porter takes my suitcase and escorts me towards the lift. We wait in stilted silence. No one takes you to your room in the kind of places I usually stay at. But then, I have every right to be here, brassy highlights and charity shop dress and all. I can’t cook anything fancy but then neither can Hugo, who’s bantering away in jovial tones with the glossy receptionist. The lift arrives, and his voice rings out as I step in: ‘A dinner lady on a classic French cookery course. Isn’t that just so sweet?’

Chapter Nine
Fungal Popcorn

He didn’t mean to be patronising, I tell myself as I gaze around my suite. It’s just funny, to someone like him. He probably thinks we still dish up Spam fritters and disgusting mince with a tidemark of orangey grease floating around the edge. Anyway, never mind Hugo; I’m far too excited to feel annoyed about an offhand remark. I managed the tipping scenario by pressing a fiver into the porter’s hand (he looked faintly surprised; was it too little? Too much?) and, more importantly, this place is gorgeous. Floor-to-ceiling brocade curtains are held back with tasselled golden ropes, and the enormous four-poster bed is strewn with sumptuous furry cushions and throws. It is, I decide, unable to suppress a ridiculous grin, very Audrey.

Oh, she probably wouldn’t fling herself onto the bed with a whoop of delight – and with her shoes still on – like I do. But who’s watching? I stretch out like a giant starfish, relishing the bed’s vastness with the baby-soft covers billowing all around me. It feels like a continent compared to my bed at home. Thank God Stevie’s not here. It’s not that I don’t appreciate champagne, great sex and a Ginsters pasty. But if he were here he’d be pawing at me already and right now, I just want to be.

Scrambling up into a cross-legged position, I scan the room for a laminated card advertising the £5 all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet. Of course there isn’t one. No hum of motorway traffic either, or a crappy chipped desk. There’s a polished oval table and two plump armchairs upholstered in pink brocade which look as if no human bottom has ever parked itself on them. There’s a huge, velvety sofa – how much furniture does one person need? – and from here I can see there’s another sofa in my other room (two rooms, just for me!) perfectly positioned for gazing down at the walled garden below. The bathroom is dazzlingly bright, with white mosaic tiles, a vast oval bath and a shower that’s easily roomy enough for four. The elaborate chrome knobs and dials have settings to replicate various weather conditions: fine drizzle, summer rain, downpour. I’ll try them all, first chance I get. I’ll experience multiple climatic conditions.

Feeling peckish now, I bound off the bed and burrow in my bag for the remaining motorway muffins. They’re squashed flat in their cellophane wrappers. While I’d normally scoff them anyway, it doesn’t feel right in such beautiful surroundings. Instead, I select a plump nectarine from the fruit bowl which has been thoughtfully put out for me, and feel as if I am almost sullying the room by dropping the stone into the waste paper bin.

Further explorations reveal that a gleaming dark wooden cupboard is in fact a fridge filled with booze, plus a multitude of snacks: three types of nuts, including pecans! Packets of thyme and shallot-flavoured crisps! A crinkly bag of truffle popcorn, several biscuit varieties including stem ginger, and a box of red foil-wrapped Kirsch Kisses, whatever they might be! There’s even a glass dish with a lid, filled with tiny slices of lemon. At Charnock Richard you don’t even get a bourbon biscuit.

I check the time – still half an hour until the welcome reception – and remove all the edibles from the cupboard and set them out carefully on the table. Grabbing my phone, I take pictures of the pleasing arrangement from all angles to show everyone back home. I also take a selfie, my grinning face poking in from the side in front of the swanky snacks. Kim, Cheryl and Ellie won’t believe what you get here. Neither will Paul. He eats like a horse; I often spot him marching about Mrs B’s garden clutching an enormous doorstep of a sandwich. He never seems to stop to eat lunch. So I stash all three packets of crisps into my case for him – handy to eat while he works – plus the pecans for Morgan as, to my knowledge, he’s never tried them. That boy needs to be educated in the world of posh nuts. The Kirsch Kisses will do nicely for Mrs B – nuts get jammed in her dentures – and the ginger cookies will be handy for home. It occurs to me that there’s not an awful lot left to last me the rest of the week, but I want to take a few presents home.

To quell my pre-reception nerves – and make use of the lemon slices – I pour myself a gin and tonic, discovering that the fridge has a tiny freezer section at the top, with ice cubes. Can life get any better than this? I prowl around my suite, clinking my glass and taking pictures of the pink chairs, the bed and the sweeping view of the manicured gardens below. In the bathroom I photograph the basket of Molton Brown toiletries and the scented candle in its glass and chrome jar. I try on the fluffy white bathrobe over my dress, then carefully hang it back in the wardrobe. I pop open the bag of truffle popcorn and recoil at the earthy whiff. I’d expected chocolate. It smells like soil and the popcorns are flecked with black bits as if they’ve been swept up off the pavement. I try a single piece, crunching tentatively; it’s sort of fungal, bringing to mind Morgan’s athlete’s foot. I spit it into a wad of super-soft loo roll and drop it into the bathroom bin.

Ping! I snatch my phone from my bag: three missed texts from Morgan. They read Mum?, then MUM?!, then, Hand wash T shirt how???? I sip my gin and reply: Fill sink with warm sudsy water, squish about with your hands and rinse clean. As I picture my boy, dutifully laundering away at the kitchen sink, my heart swells with love for him. Okay, he’s an idiot, but we don’t do too badly, I reflect, just the two of us. Well, the three of us now Jenna’s virtually a permanent fixture at our place.

Feeling all warm and, admittedly, a little tipsy now, I inhale my room’s sweet scent. As there’s no obvious source of the smell – no dusty old pot pourri – I can only assume it’s being piped in from some secret source. However, while it’s lovely here, inhaling vanilla and gin, I’d better get downstairs for the welcome reception. I redo my make-up – or rather, apply another layer on top – and clean my teeth extra thoroughly so no one knows I hurled myself at the booze.

Just before leaving, I check my reflection in the full-length mirror. The vivid orange floral print of my dress seems to have faded to a doleful peach. Never mind, people will probably assume it’s properly vintage – and vintage is meant to be faded – rather than merely second-hand. Remembering that long hair should be tied back, I rummage in vain through my toilet bag for a hair band or scrunchie. Damn, must’ve forgotten. I’ve got to find something. I plunder my case and find the sole pair of tights I brought with me. Using my nail scissors I hack off a leg and use it to secure a sort of casual topknot. Then, giving my room one last lustful glance, I glide towards the lift.

Wilton Grange Cookery School is housed in a stable block behind the main hotel. I cross the gravelled courtyard, conscious of a fungally gin taste lurking at the back of my throat. The huge barn-style doors are wide open, and the sound of chatter and laughter drifts out. Sounds like a party’s going on. A party where everyone – at least, everyone except Hugo – is capable of creating beautiful French lemon tarts as casually as if they were sticking fish fingers under the grill.

A young woman with flushed pink cheeks and a demure blonde plait spots me from the doorway. ‘Hi, are you on the course?’ she asks brightly.

‘Yes, I’m Audrey …’ I make my way towards her.

‘Hello, Audrey. Do come in.’ She flashes a warm smile. More perfect teeth. ‘I’m Chloe and I’m here to help with any queries you have. Let me get you your apron and badge …’ The stable block is already milling with what I assume are my fellow guests, or students, or whatever we’re called. I fix on what I hope is a confident smile as Chloe hands me my apron: dazzling white and emblazoned with Wilton Grange Cookery school in swirly blue letters on the bib. As Chloe swishes off, I pin on my circular ‘Audrey’ badge and glance around at the gaggle of women – and one man – who are all chatting animatedly. The women exude breezy confidence. They remind me of the popular set at school; the sporty girls, whom the boys would buzz around like wasps. Not one of them appears to be wearing a scrap of make-up. My lipstick feels claggy in the heat, and I discreetly wipe it off onto the back of my hand.

Whilst the women are definitely younger than I am, the sole male student present is ridiculously youthful: he has the carefree air of a gap year boy, complete with a mop of long dark hair, messily ponytailed, and an extravagant sleeve tattoo. How on earth am I going to fit in here? I mean, what will we talk about? I sense that flurry of apprehension starting up again.

The room is split into several cooking areas, each with its own worktop, oven and sink. The walls are whitewashed brickwork and shelves bear numerous stainless steel containers and bottles of various oils. Clumps of fresh herbs and garlic bulbs dangle from silver hooks, and several women in white overalls are buzzing around efficiently. Heck, I’ll just throw myself into the cooking. It’s always appealed to me, the idea of being able to rustle up proper, grown-up meals rather than the teen-friendly fare I consume daily. I could start inviting friends round more: maybe even Stevie. Yep, I sense my oven chip days are over …

Chloe reappears with a tray of shimmering glasses. ‘Would you like a drink, Audrey?’

‘Oh, thank you.’

She smiles briskly. ‘Wine, sparkling water or elderflower cordial?’

‘Cordial please,’ I say, hoping it’ll mask any lingering scent of Tanqueray.

A burst of deep, barking laughter rattles down the room. ‘That’s Brad,’ Chloe adds with a wry smile, indicating the huge bear of a man who’s just strolled in. ‘He’s your teacher. He’s an amazingly talented chef, but then, you’ll know all about him already …’

‘Yes, of course,’ I say quickly, assessing his broad, ruddy face topped off with a mop of cherubic pale blond curls. Several women have gathered around and are gazing at him reverentially while he holds court.

‘The plan is to have a bite to eat and get to know each other,’ Chloe continues cheerfully, ‘then you’ll start cooking …’

‘Really? We’re cooking today?’

She nods. ‘Didn’t you receive your itinerary when you booked?’

‘Um … no. It was a sort of last-minute thing.’

‘Well,’ she says kindly, ‘don’t worry. Just go with the flow and I’m sure you’ll have a wonderful time.’ With that, she scampers away to greet another new arrival.

It’s Hugo, thank goodness. He’s all jovial smiles as he pulls on his apron, pins on his badge and takes a glass from Chloe’s tray. ‘Do help yourselves to the buffet, everyone,’ she calls out, and we all drift towards the enormous table which is now entirely covered with platters of beautifully-presented miniature delicacies. There are tiny speckled eggs and prawns blanketed in what looks like fluffy foliage. There are dainty rolls of some kind of ham wrapped around dates, and tiny pancakes with blobs of creamy stuff, topped with little black beads. It’s quite dizzying.

‘Well, this is quite a spread, isn’t it?’ Hugo grabs a plate and starts loading it up with enthusiasm.

‘It all looks delicious,’ I agree. ‘Mmm, I like these pancakes.’

‘Blinis,’ he corrects me, adding quickly, ‘At least, I think that’s what they’re called. You know, the little Russian things …’

‘Oh yes,’ I say as he expertly shells one of the tiny eggs. I want to ask him what kind of bird might have laid it – a pigeon perhaps? – as he seems approachable and I’m warming to him already. At least he’s around my age.

‘Hang on a sec,’ he says, putting down his plate and reaching for my badge. ‘It’s the wrong way up,’ he adds with a grin.

‘Oh!’ I laugh as he repositions it. ‘So, um, how are you feeling about the course?’

‘A bit apprehensive, I suppose, but who cares if we mess up? I’m just regarding it as a bit of fun.’

‘Me too. I didn’t think we’d be thrown into cooking today, though. I thought, you know, we’d be broken in gently …’

‘You’ll be fine,’ he insists. ‘You seem like a very capable person, Audrey.’

‘Really?’ I ask with a smile.

‘Yes, um … I’m sorry …’ He flushes endearingly. ‘Look, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop when we were arriving but I couldn’t help overhearing …’

I sip my cordial, genuinely uncomprehending.

‘… It’s just,’ Hugo goes on, ‘I gather things don’t go too well at home in your absence. And I thought, ah, she’s one of those women who runs everything brilliantly, like a well-oiled machine, and whenever she’s not on hand it all falls apart …’

I peer at him, fascinated by his observation. ‘Like a well-oiled machine? Whatever makes you think that?’

‘Well,’ he explains, ‘you’re certainly very tolerant, telling your other half how to use the washing machine.’

I watch as he pops the egg into his mouth. ‘You thought I was on the phone to my husband?’

‘Well, er, I just assumed …’

I laugh loudly. ‘That wasn’t my husband. I don’t actually have one. It was my son.’

‘Oh! Oh, I see …’ He chuckles awkwardly. ‘Sorry, Audrey. It’s just the way it sounded …’

‘That’s okay,’ I say, grinning at the thought of my non-existent, appliance-phobic husband. ‘It’s ridiculous anyway. I mean, Morgan’s not a baby. He’s eighteen and he should be able to cope on his own.’

‘I’m sure he can,’ Hugo says firmly.

‘You’re right. In fact, I suspect he could be perfectly capable. He just botches things up – I mean, if I ask him to hoover I can guarantee he’ll choke the tube with a sock …’

‘… Smart move,’ Hugo remarks.

‘Exactly. It’s his way of getting out of doing stuff …’

‘Phoney ineptitude,’ he adds with a smirk.

‘Phoney ineptitude?’ repeats the slender blonde woman who’s arrived at our side.

‘It means pretending you can’t do something when you’re perfectly capable,’ I explain, checking her name badge: Lottie.

‘Oh, I don’t need to pretend,’ she exclaims, widening her blue eyes. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before …’

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