Vivien Brown - Lily Alone - A gripping and emotional drama

Somehow, even that small piece of luck didn’t make her feel any better.

Geraldine Payne stood among the crowds in the arrivals hall at Gatwick, watching the passengers as they trundled through the doors, sporting new suntans, pushing over-laden trolleys, carrying white plastic bags stuffed with cigarettes and booze, their clothes all crumpled from their flights.

Michael had called her before he boarded, told her that he and Patsy had something important to tell her just as soon as they got home, and would she mind coming to Gatwick to pick them up? Well, it could only be one of two things, couldn’t it? Either an engagement, or the girl was pregnant. Given the choice, and remembering what had happened the last time, she wasn’t at all sure which she should hope for. But Michael was a grown man and he wouldn’t thank her for voicing her opinions. She couldn’t tell him what to do any more. She’d tried that before, and look where it had got her.

She checked her watch again and compared it with the time on the arrivals board. This was the right flight, wasn’t it? Lisbon. Two forty-five. It had to be. Where were they? Too busy canoodling to get themselves out here on time, she shouldn’t wonder. Unless they’d been stopped by Customs, of course. The amount of bling that girl carted about on her wrists, and even round her ankles on occasion, they’d probably mistaken her for a jewel smuggler. Not the sort of girl he might have met had he stayed at the bank. A good, steady job he’d had there. None of this big contract, sweeping-himself-off-to-far-flung-corners-of-Europe stuff he’d got himself mixed up with these days. Too much risk, too much change, too much she didn’t understand. It wasn’t what Geraldine was used to at all. She knew she was a creature of habit, the sort of woman who liked to stick with what she knew. There was safety, and an element of comfort, in the familiar, wasn’t there? The everyday normality of life ticking along the way it always had. Ironing his work shirts, choosing the chops for his tea, the sound of his key turning in the lock at half past five …

But all of that was gone. Long gone. Things were different now, and likely to stay that way.

Where on earth were they? At these exorbitant airport prices, she had been hoping to get away with just an hour’s car parking, and more than half of that had gone already. She was a busy woman, with things to do. She had a shop to run, and it was Saturday, the busiest shopping day of the week. She never liked to leave Kerry in charge for any longer than necessary, and a whole afternoon felt like way too long. The girl meant well, and she was as honest as the day was long, but she didn’t have a lot going on between the ears. It would only take one wrong delivery or a dispute over change and she’d go to pieces.

Geraldine opened her bag and took out two of her migraine pills, the pink ones. The last two in the packet. She could feel one of her heads coming on, and there was still the drive back home to have to cope with. She didn’t have the time to be ill. At sixty-two, if her life had turned out differently and she didn’t have to constantly battle on with everything alone, she’d have been seriously thinking about retiring by now. But there was the house to manage, and a garden just a little too big for her to tackle with any real success, and the business to keep afloat. And now Michael was coming back after four months away and with heaven knows what bombshell about to be dropped at her feet. Sometimes all she wanted to do was bury herself under a duvet and sleep for a week. The trouble was, she knew it would all still be there waiting for her when she woke up again.

She thought about seeking out a cup of tea. There was nothing quite like a spot of tea and sympathy, even if all the sympathy she could muster was for herself, but they’d be here any minute now and she didn’t want to miss them. Airport tea would probably be horribly expensive anyhow, or just plain horrible. She tipped the pills to the back of her throat without the benefit of any liquid to help them on their way, and swallowed, still feeling the little dry lump in her throat after they’d fought their way down. Bloody Ken. Why did he have to go and die, just when life was finally looking like it might turn out okay after all? And why did she still feel so angry with him? It’s not as if he’d done it on purpose.

She shook the thoughts away and rummaged about for her phone. Better check that Kerry was all right. She dialled the familiar number and heard it ring and ring, but the girl didn’t answer. Eventually the answer phone kicked in, sending her own voice hurtling back at her, telling her the shop was closed for now, and inviting her to leave a message. It wasn’t closed, of course. Well, she bloody well hoped not! No, either the shop was so busy that Kerry couldn’t get to the phone in time or – God forbid – something dreadful had happened. Geraldine bit down on her lower lip and wondered when she had become such a worrier.

With jumbled images flooding into her brain – of armed robbery, heart attacks, fire engines or worse – she finally saw her son walking across the terminal towards her, and felt the tears welling up quite unexpectedly from somewhere deep inside her as she rushed forward and threw herself into his open arms.

*

William Munro took off his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes. He was worried about his mother. Since his divorce had come through – a quickie, his wife had called it, not unlike their rare forays into a sex life – and Susan, with hardly a backward glance, had driven away to pastures new, he’d suddenly found he had more time on his hands, and a lot more space in his head.

Susan had been the main breadwinner and had borne the brunt of the costs, but not without a lot of spitting and hissing along the way. If this was a quickie, he hated to think what a long and protracted divorce would have been like. But it was over now. After all the bitter rows and sleepless nights, the letters bargaining and counter-bargaining, and a pile of solicitors’ bills that added up to more than the cost of his latest car, at last the house was his again. Originally quite rundown and shabby, it had been William’s long before Susan’s arrival, but it had become their marital home, added to and preened over the last few years to within an inch of its life, until it met her exacting executive requirements. And now she’d gone, and both he and the house seemed to be on the decline again.

Quite apart from the salary she brought home from the publishing house where she worked, a staggering figure which seemed to rise by leaps and bounds as she clawed her way by her long shiny fingernails towards the top of the corporate tree, she’d been sitting on a sizeable nest egg since the death of her parents and had been persuaded to use a small percentage of it to reluctantly pay off what was left of the mortgage, so at least he wasn’t weighed down by a debt he had no way of repaying. She had even been ordered, by a surprisingly understanding judge, to settle a small additional lump sum in William’s favour at the time of the divorce, which she had done grudgingly and with predictably bad grace. He hadn’t felt too sure about that. It wasn’t quite right, was it? A husband being seen as dependent on his wife, not able to provide for himself. But now the money nestled expectantly in his bank account until he made up his mind what to do with it, and finally he had the time to stop and take stock of his life. And what a mess he had made of it.

Agnes, his mother, had never particularly liked Susan. She had never actually said it aloud, but he had always known it, and had decided, probably wisely, to ignore it. Susan had been his choice and his mother had respected that, although the thin pursing of her lips and the uncharacteristic silence that surrounded her during their irregular visits had rather given the game away.