probably feel the same.
‘Well, no, not quite scarlet. Not even when I was young and free – it was before the pill, you know,’ Naomi said. ‘I was only about that shade, maybe a bit paler.’ She pointed a beautifully painted silver nail at a little oblong in stick-of-rock pink labelled Cupid.
‘You must have missed Dad, though.’ Viola took the shade card and put it on the pile with the others she didn’t want. She didn’t much fancy the wall behind the dresser being the colour gauge of her mother’s past love life. If she chose Cupid there’d be weird and unsuitable images in her head every time she reached for a plate.
Naomi thought for a moment. ‘I missed him as the man who was your father, but by then I didn’t miss him as a husband. He drank – which is what made him ill in the end; he’d get nasty. He’d make bitter comments that put me down, especially in front of other people. But he’d been good with Miles and Kate when they were small. Less when they hit their early teens. He were so very old-fashioned, thought they should be out of school and working from sixteen, like he’d been. Especially Kate – he didn’t see the point of staying on at school for a girl. He said she’d only get married and it’d be a waste, and that she’d do better getting a little job that had a skill, like being a florist or a hairdresser – something she could easily come back to when any babies were grown. I wasn’t having that. He called me a silly women’s libber. But anyway, as it turned out he were gone by the time she was doing her A levels. Funny though, she did end up working at something that was a practical skill. It wasn’t her BA in Geography that set her up in soft furnishings.’
‘I know it’s awful, but I can remember Uncle Olly better than Dad.’ Viola had a sudden vivid memory of the day they’d moved into this house. She’d been about four, and very confused with everything being in boxes and then not in boxes, furniture everywhere, a kitchen’s worth of kit to be sorted. Books in heaps in the hallway waiting to be arranged on shelves, clothes in folded piles on unmade beds. The man she’d known as Uncle Oliver had taken charge, telling the removal men where to put boxes, bossing Kate and Miles around and making them be helpful rather than slumping about sulkily. He smelled nice – sometimes even now in the garden when she caught the scent of lemon verbena she could remember him that day, his big warm hand taking her small one and quietly leading her away from the removal chaos to give her a tour of the rooms. He showed her the one that would be hers, with its high, curved-top window overlooking the big back garden, and the little flat at the side which Naomi later rented out to actors who were on tour at the local theatre.
She could recall hardly anything from before they moved in here, some months after her father had died. Oliver Stonebridge’s paintings started turning up as they all settled into the house. Miles hadn’t liked them and thought they were too big and overwhelming, so Naomi had hung them in the hallway and up the stairs where he only had to pass them, not gaze at them. She remembered Oliver had rehung two of them in the sitting room very soon after Miles left for university. Bits of plaster had fallen from the walls as he bashed the picture hooks in with a hammer, and she’d combed the white dust out of her hair in her room that night.
‘That’s not so awful. It can’t be helped. Oliver was around when you were coming to that age when you start to collect the things in your head that you’ll remember for life.’
The sun through the window caught Naomi’s eyes. They were glittery with tears.
‘Mum? Are you …?’
‘A little glass of something, I think,’ Naomi interrupted briskly, avoiding the hand that Viola reached out to her. ‘And yes, I know it’s a bit early.’ She got swiftly out of her chair and opened the fridge. ‘White wine? Or a G
‘Well, no, not quite scarlet. Not even when I was young and free – it was before the pill, you know,’ Naomi said. ‘I was only about that shade, maybe a bit paler.’ She pointed a beautifully painted silver nail at a little oblong in stick-of-rock pink labelled Cupid.
‘You must have missed Dad, though.’ Viola took the shade card and put it on the pile with the others she didn’t want. She didn’t much fancy the wall behind the dresser being the colour gauge of her mother’s past love life. If she chose Cupid there’d be weird and unsuitable images in her head every time she reached for a plate.
Naomi thought for a moment. ‘I missed him as the man who was your father, but by then I didn’t miss him as a husband. He drank – which is what made him ill in the end; he’d get nasty. He’d make bitter comments that put me down, especially in front of other people. But he’d been good with Miles and Kate when they were small. Less when they hit their early teens. He were so very old-fashioned, thought they should be out of school and working from sixteen, like he’d been. Especially Kate – he didn’t see the point of staying on at school for a girl. He said she’d only get married and it’d be a waste, and that she’d do better getting a little job that had a skill, like being a florist or a hairdresser – something she could easily come back to when any babies were grown. I wasn’t having that. He called me a silly women’s libber. But anyway, as it turned out he were gone by the time she was doing her A levels. Funny though, she did end up working at something that was a practical skill. It wasn’t her BA in Geography that set her up in soft furnishings.’
‘I know it’s awful, but I can remember Uncle Olly better than Dad.’ Viola had a sudden vivid memory of the day they’d moved into this house. She’d been about four, and very confused with everything being in boxes and then not in boxes, furniture everywhere, a kitchen’s worth of kit to be sorted. Books in heaps in the hallway waiting to be arranged on shelves, clothes in folded piles on unmade beds. The man she’d known as Uncle Oliver had taken charge, telling the removal men where to put boxes, bossing Kate and Miles around and making them be helpful rather than slumping about sulkily. He smelled nice – sometimes even now in the garden when she caught the scent of lemon verbena she could remember him that day, his big warm hand taking her small one and quietly leading her away from the removal chaos to give her a tour of the rooms. He showed her the one that would be hers, with its high, curved-top window overlooking the big back garden, and the little flat at the side which Naomi later rented out to actors who were on tour at the local theatre.
She could recall hardly anything from before they moved in here, some months after her father had died. Oliver Stonebridge’s paintings started turning up as they all settled into the house. Miles hadn’t liked them and thought they were too big and overwhelming, so Naomi had hung them in the hallway and up the stairs where he only had to pass them, not gaze at them. She remembered Oliver had rehung two of them in the sitting room very soon after Miles left for university. Bits of plaster had fallen from the walls as he bashed the picture hooks in with a hammer, and she’d combed the white dust out of her hair in her room that night.
‘That’s not so awful. It can’t be helped. Oliver was around when you were coming to that age when you start to collect the things in your head that you’ll remember for life.’
The sun through the window caught Naomi’s eyes. They were glittery with tears.
‘Mum? Are you …?’
‘A little glass of something, I think,’ Naomi interrupted briskly, avoiding the hand that Viola reached out to her. ‘And yes, I know it’s a bit early.’ She got swiftly out of her chair and opened the fridge. ‘White wine? Or a G
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