I’m only joking. But she’s been pretty cool about stuff since Dad died. Her friend, Rosie, was there when I was getting ready to meet you, huffing and shrugging and letting me know by her body language she didn’t think I should go, but Mum’s a right pushover at the moment. Doesn’t want me to be hurt any more, you know. Anyway …’
Mae let her words fade away. Some date this was turning out to be; her anger over her dad’s death and now her mum wanting to turn Cove End into a B&B was threatening to bubble over. Josh was going to get pretty fed up of her in a minute.
‘But you came anyway,’ he said, giving her hand a squeeze. ‘Like I said just now, I know your dad died, and how. My dad’s version of it anyway. You can tell me if you want. I think you’ve got anger over your dad just under the surface the same as I have over mine. Yes?’
‘Probably,’ Mae agreed. ‘But since you ask, just for the record, Dad made me angry a long ago before he went and got himself killed. He sold the dinghy without telling me and I loved going out in that with him. I don’t know why he did that. And then he sold Mum’s car and she couldn’t drive me into Totnes for my Saturday dance class any more. Like he didn’t care about me, you know. And there’s not been much cash for Mum and me since, which is why she’s got this stupid idea about turning the house into a B&B.’ Mae sniffed back tears.
‘If this was an old black and white movie, I’d whip out a pristine white handkerchief and offer it to you to mop up your tears.’ Josh dangled an imaginary handkerchief in front of Mae’s face.
‘Idiot!’ she laughed, pretending to take it. She felt a bit better having told Josh about her dad, although she doubted she would have if he hadn’t slagged his off a bit. It felt good that she could do that – that they both could.
‘I’m glad that’s off your pretty little chest,’ Josh said.
‘Yeah, sorry. Didn’t mean to be a drain.’
‘You’re not. But it must have been awful for your mum, too.’
Had Josh said that a few minutes ago, she might have snapped that he would say that, what with his dad being a vicar and everything – that he’d been brought up to say stuff like that whether he believed it or not. But now … well now she knew a little bit more about Josh, she could see the big house he lived in, the private education he’d had and the foreign holidays they went on meant nothing if he and his dad were at loggerheads all the time.
‘Did you mean it?’ Mae said. ‘About me telling you about my dad?’
Mae hadn’t had anyone to talk about it to really – what went before; before he’d died. There had been a couple of teachers who’d kept her back after a lesson when she’d been thinking about stuff and unable to concentrate who’d said if she needed someone to talk to, then she only had to ask. But what could they do?
‘Sure,’ Josh said. ‘Shall we sit for a bit?’
They were nearing a bench that was in the sunshine, a willow opposite dipping its frondy new growth almost to the grass.
‘Yeah. Okay.’ She took a deep breath and sat down, her hand still in Josh’s. ‘I don’t know if your mum and dad row …’
‘Big time!’ Josh interrupted. ‘Language too. Some of it very Anglo-Saxon!’
‘Really?’ Mae said, stunned.
‘The image of the benign reverend can be a myth!’
‘Right. Okay. Well, mine rowed but not big time. No bad language as far as I could hear. Most of it was sort of theatrical whispering, in the dead of night. It went on and on sometimes although I couldn’t hear what they were saying exactly. And sometimes I’d hear raised voices when I came in from school or something and they’d stop abruptly when they heard me shut the door, and it would be all false smiles and ‘Hello, darling, good day?’ and all that.’
‘Same in our house,’ Josh said. ‘They’d be arguing for England about something, then there’d be a knock on the door and I’d answer it and shout through that it was old Mrs Ellis or someone come to talk about her husband’s funeral and they’d appear in the hall, arms around one another, all smiles. I don’t know if there’s ever been a couple who hasn’t had a row or ten.’
‘No,’ Mae said. She and Josh hadn’t had one. Yet. She’d tackle that hurdle when she came to it. But right now, Mae thought that they’d exhausted the subject of rowing parents and how it affected their children. ‘But I don’t want to talk about it any more. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ Josh said.
He stood up, pulling Mae with him. He let go of her hand and put an arm around her shoulders instead. Mae snuggled into him, feeling loved. Feeling safe. They began to walk more quickly towards the park gates.
‘What time have you got to be in?’ Josh asked, which only served to make her feel less like Josh’s girlfriend and more like a small child he was looking after. It knocked the wind right out of her sails for a moment.
‘Eight,’ she said.
‘Right.’
They were navigating the car park now.
‘Can we get a drink on the way?’ Mae asked. She quite fancied a glass of chilled Pinot Grigio – Rosie always brought a bottle or two when she came to visit and her mum always let her have a glass with dinner when she did.
‘Ah, Andy Povey won’t serve me wine for you. But we can pick up a bottle of something and take it down to Fairy Cove.’
‘Just the one bottle?’ Mae giggled – already she could taste the Pinot Grigio she knew Josh would buy on her tongue. Rosie didn’t like her mum letting her have a glass of wine and read her mum the riot act when she found out. Then Rosie gave Mae a lecture on the dangers of alcohol and how it altered your thinking, your rationale. Rosie used a lot of fancy words like that … rationale.
‘Yes. For now. You’re underage.’
‘Oh God, not you as well!’ Mae said, making a mock-cross face. ‘You should have heard the lecture Rosie gave me when Mum went out of the room. “Having sex with a minor is a major offence, Mae, so best remind your boyfriend of that in case he gets ideas. And so is buying alcohol for the same minor. Which means you in this instance, Mae. Don’t forget that will you, Mae? I know you’re fifteen going on fifty-one, but I don’t want you bringing any more worry on your mum’s shoulders, okay? End of lecture, Mae.”, Mae repeated, in a posh sing-song voice. ‘And she said “Mae” that many times it was like I’d forgotten my own name or something. Just because she’s my godmother doesn’t mean she can rule my life!’
‘She sounds like quite a woman, this Rosie,’ Josh laughed. ‘She’s got you fired up anyway!’
‘A force to be reckoned with,’ Mae said, doing her best not to sound angry and bitter. She was failing miserably because all the hurt and anger had bubbled up again.
God, but this growing up lark was hard. No one in her class at school had a father who had died. No one had a mother who was going ahead with turning their home into a B&B against their wishes. No one knew just how horrid it was to go to sleep at night and dream about their dad and then wake up in the morning to realise he wasn’t there any more. No one knew how it felt to have a sort of house brick sat permanently on their chest. It all singled Mae out as being different, although she was anyway through the clothes she wore. She smoothed down the skirt of her frock and bent to finger out the netting petticoat that peeped out from the hem of it. It had a sweetheart neckline and a band of black crepe around the waist. Like she’d told Josh just now, it was the last frock her dad had bought her before he died. She knew she was wearing it to death because the seams were beginning to look strained, but wearing it somehow made her feel closer to him. Anyway, anyone could wear ripped jeans and a T-shirt two sizes too small and most of the girls in her class did at the weekends, like they were in a team or something. Mae didn’t know she wanted to be part of any sort