Susan Lewis - Home Truths

Since this was where the donations started Angie decided to take more notice of the generous woman, and came to the conclusion that not only was she a caring citizen, but she was really quite beautiful in a very classy way. Her hair was a mass of thick dark curls styled in a loose bob, her skin was creamy and shone with health, and the effortless elegance of her movements made Angie wonder if she was a dancer.

‘Look at all that,’ the older lady chuntered on admiringly. ‘You’re a very kind person is all I can say. Makes me wonder what this bloody country’s coming to that we have to do things like this. Shame on them is what I say. Bloody shame on them.’

The dark-haired woman’s eyes sparkled with humour but Angie couldn’t hear what she said, could only tell that she wasn’t trying to brush the old lady off.

‘There ain’t many would do what you just did,’ the old lady declared, picking up a large box of Kellogg’s cornflakes and looking as though she’d like to make off with it.

‘Well,’ the dark-haired woman replied, ‘if the day comes when I need this sort of help, perhaps someone will fill up the box for me.’

As Angie watched her walk away, upright and slender, the very epitome of someone who’d never need a food bank, she felt an odd sort of longing stirring inside her. She’d love to be that woman, or like her; or maybe she just wanted to know her. It was people like that who made the world feel like a good place to be, which was a very weird assessment of someone she’d only seen for a few minutes and would probably never see again.

Nevertheless, as though the woman had sprinkled some sort of hope over her, Angie turned her trolley to the door and headed out into the car park. She’d take this lot home, have her little celebration – or drown her sorrows – then she’d work things out.

As she approached her van a Mercedes saloon reversed out of the space next to it, and she didn’t feel surprised to see the dark-haired woman at the wheel. Their eyes didn’t meet, Angie was certain the woman hadn’t clocked her at all, nevertheless she continued to feel affected by her as she watched the car drive away. She wondered what life was like for her, and where she lived. What kind of job did she have, if she even had one? Her husband was probably loaded, judging by the car, and her kids, if she had any, were no doubt at private schools and completely brilliant at everything they did.

With a small, wry smile to herself Angie finished stacking her groceries into the van and got into the driver’s seat. If her work with people who’d hit hard times had taught her anything at all, it was never to assume something about a person based on the way things looked. Even rich people had bad experiences; they bled, they hurt, they lost their money and they even lost their homes. Some of them had sons who went off the rails, and husbands who died when their children were still small and before they’d taken out any life insurance.

No one was immune to the vagaries of fate, any more than they were incapable of making mistakes. Everyone, no matter who they were, or how dire their straits, had to find a way of dealing with the worst-case scenarios life threw at them. She wasn’t alone in that, plenty of people were struggling and many were in even worse situations than her. True, she couldn’t think of anyone right now, but she knew they existed, and she knew too that somehow she’d get herself and her children through these dark times. She was someone who coped, who rose to challenges and overcame them, and one way or another she was going to keep them together as a family with a roof over their heads and hope in their hearts.

Just when Angie thought she didn’t have a single laugh left in her, that even if she did it’d never make it past all the stress and anxiety corked up in her soul, it erupted in a great choking guffaw. It wasn’t supposed to be funny, it really wasn’t. In fact, it was the biggest disaster to come out of Angie’s oven since the day Steve had set fire to his mother’s boots while trying to dry them.

Grace’s unicorn cake was … Well, it was different, that was for sure, unique even, and so explicitly something it wasn’t supposed to be that even she gave a snort of laughter when she realized why her mother and aunt were beside themselves.

Zac had been boasting to his mates for days that he was going to have the biggest, most amazing unicorn cake ever, and that was certainly true.

‘It’s definitely got the biggest, most amazing …’ Emma gestured to the horn as she gasped and dabbed her eyes with a party napkin. ‘I’ve never seen one like it. Were those cake balls part of the recipe, or did you … was it …?’

Falling against her mother as they all exploded again, Grace managed to say, ‘There were supposed to be three of them – there were three, I swear it, I just don’t know how it’s come out as two.’

‘Well, I’m sorry, my darling,’ Emma said, putting an arm around her niece. ‘It might be the best cake we’ve ever tasted, but no way can we serve it like that. It’s … It’s …’

‘Obscene, I know,’ Grace declared, and transporting it to the table she waited for her mother and aunt to pull themselves together, saying, ‘Stop. He’ll be in any minute.’

Angie glanced down the hall towards the front door. Since it was closed it wasn’t possible to see beyond it, but they could hear the shouts of Zac and his friends playing footie over on the green. They’d already stuffed themselves with jelly and egg sandwiches since coming in from school, and now they were working up an appetite for the cake while Grace iced it.

This wasn’t going well.

‘We’ve got to do something,’ Grace hissed, searching for ideas. ‘I know! Shall I drop it?’

Emma burst into more hilarity, while Angie, still choking with mirth, decided that before they did anything at all they needed a photograph.

In the end, after crushing the two cake balls into one spongy mess that they then coated in lashings of crimson buttermilk icing, and remoulding the horn into a suitably slimmer and less excited version of its former self, Grace added a pair of spidery eyes in a place that seemed to work and carried the unique creation to the bomb site of a dining table.

Angie could only look on as Zac and his cousins came tumbling back through the front door, with four equally muddy friends on their heels, kicking off their boots first and then descending on the ‘most awesome cake ever’.

‘That’s what I love about boys,’ Emma murmured in her ear, ‘so easy to please.’

This was certainly true of Zac. Most other boys his age had birthday parties at Pizza Express or a Game Wagon Video event or even a ride in a hot-air balloon, all so way beyond her means that she hadn’t even bothered Googling for ideas. One day, though, when she was back on her feet, he was going to have the best birthday party money could buy.

‘No, I’m not going to make one for you,’ Grace told Harry, Emma’s youngest, who was soon due to be seven himself. ‘No, not for you either,’ she said to several other boys who were waving grubby hands in the air, because their mouths were too full to shout. ‘This is a one-off, I mean, like real art, so make the most of it.’

‘Mum, did you see what Freddie gave me for my birthday?’ Zac shouted, ‘It’s only a Liverpool training shirt. Liverpool’s my favourite team,’ he informed his friend Freddie, as if Freddie had pulled off a mega mind-reading trick.

‘When Zac comes to our house,’ Jack piped up, ‘we watch football in our room so we don’t get on Mum’s nerves with all our shouting. We get on Mum’s nerves quite a lot, but she doesn’t mind really.’