All the Little Things Sarah Lawton (red white royal blue TXT) 📖

There was the old deli on the corner. The Queen’s Arms had been renovated, gastro-pubbed. People were seated outside the tapas restaurant enjoying the evening sun with large glasses of wine and bottles of beer. I watched a couple sitting together: she was tracing pictures on the condensation that misted her glass, and he was looking at her with a vague expression of amazement that someone as pretty as her was sitting there, with him. They both looked so happy. I wondered how their story would play out, where they were in it: the beginning? The middle? I didn’t know where I was in my story; if it was even my own any more, or if I was just a bit part in my daughter’s. I wanted a drink, badly, but I was too afraid to stop anywhere. I couldn’t risk being recognised. I couldn’t bear the looks I might get. I put on a pair of oversized sunglasses that I had bought for Vivian and then adopted because she refused to wear them. They suited me well enough. The glasses and wild curls, I hoped they would make an adequate disguise.

I made my way down Beulah Road looking at all the little cottages as I always had, so cosy and safe looking; imagining the happy, normal families inside the old brick and whitewash walls. Most of the houses on Maynard Road were bigger, except the one we had lived in, squeezed in like an afterthought between two existing ones. I stopped outside, on the opposite side of the road. I didn’t want to get any closer. The roses in the front garden were blooming as well as they had ever done, the lavender spraying out through the fence. My mum had loved those flowers and I was glad they were still being cared for. My heart ached for her, as always. You don’t realise the enormity of someone’s presence in your life until they are gone, and all you are left with is a hole. And my mother’s death had been such a shock – she’d been young, really, still fit and healthy. I miss her every day. I miss her love, the scent of her embrace.

A tatty red car had pulled up a few spaces away from me. I was vaguely aware of a dark-haired man in the driver seat, but it was the slim blonde woman whose appearance punched me, stole the air out of my lungs. It was Lucy. Her face had aged, it was hollow and worn. She looked awful – why did she still look so awful, after all this time? Surely things would be better by now? What had happened?

I didn’t stay. I turned and I ran. I always run.

Vivian

‘Why has your mum gone to London?’

Molly is lying on my bed, kicking her legs off the side, making a mess. She makes a mess everywhere she goes. They follow her around, messes.

‘She’s got a meeting with an author. She’s doing the pictures for their book.’

‘A kid’s book?’

‘No, it’s for our age.’

‘Oh. Aren’t we a bit old for pictures in books? I thought she just did the covers?’

‘That’s what I said. I think they are trying to make it a thing again for older books, too. I wish I could draw like she does.’

Molly looks at me, pinning me with her eyes. I don’t like it when she looks at me like that. I can never figure out what she is thinking.

‘You’ve got other talents, though.’

I think this is where you are supposed to be self-deprecating. I know I have talents.

‘Hardly.’

Molly spins on the bed and hangs her head over the side, looking up at me upside down. Her hair spools onto the floor and I can’t help thinking it will get everywhere. I’m always finding long, golden hairs all over me, like she’s marking me with them. Little golden chains.

‘You have plenty of talents. You’re an amazing actress, aren’t you, Vivvy?’

‘You’re the one doing drama, Molly. I hate drama.’

‘No, you hate dramas, not drama. But you’re acting every day, aren’t you? Pretending you’re like us.’

‘What?’

‘Pretending. You pretend to like the boys we like, the clothes, the shows, and try and fit in, but you’re not like us at all, are you?’

‘I am like you! I’m completely normal, stop being a dick, Molly!’ Worry is bubbling inside me, where has this come from?

‘Don’t worry, I still like you, Vivian. I don’t think you’re dangerous. You make me laugh. And you’d never hurt me, would you?’

‘Dangerous? What? What the fuck are you on about today? You’re being really weird. Why would I hurt you?’ Panic beats its drum in my throat. What does she know? Has she been speaking to my mother about me? I remember how cosy they had looked out there in the studio, together, without me. But she wouldn’t say anything, I’m sure of it.

Molly just hangs upside down like a bat, looking at me. Why would she think I was dangerous? Deep down I can feel a secret part of myself coming apart, trying to escape, and I have to breathe in very slowly to keep it together. I pretend to write something in my book. We were just reading passages from Macbeth to each other before she started on this. I stare at the page, watch the words swim.

Fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty.

I’m gripping my pen so tightly it’s hurting my fingers. It would be so easy. It would be so easy. But then I would be right back where I started, before we left London. I don’t ever want to go back there.

‘Do you like Alex? He’s up to something, you know. He was talking to me about you.’

Mercurial as always, Molly switches topics as quickly as changing a TV channel. She always does this to me, tries to shake me up. I’m much too clever for that trick. This is what she really wants to talk about.