Homecoming

6 Mushrooms

Never underestimate the power of a simple mushroom. When I was young, Agnes and my mother would head off at dawn on summer’s mornings to search for mushrooms. Nobody thought of growing them in the vegetable garden along with the potatoes and cabbage. Mushrooms were the fairies’ gift to us, my mother would say: like soft pincushions scattered on the grass as the sun rose.

You had to be quick, mind, or else the cattle would trample them and they’d be gone.

Home with their pot of mushrooms, we’d put the fattest on top of the range and sprinkle a little salt on them. Roasted like that, with the heat rising up into the mushrooms and the pink pleated underbelly turning brown, they were the most delicious thing you’d ever eat.

They made a great feast with a bit of scrambled egg: a plate of earth brown mushrooms with the juices running out of them and the eggs like yellow clouds beside them.

Even now – and it’s a long time since I walked a green field to pick a wild mushroom – I can still taste the freshness of one roasted on my mam’s range.

It was the simplicity we loved. Agnes had told us of the grand feasts in the big house, with sauces you had to stir for hours.

Hollandaise for asparagus was the fashion at the time in the grand houses. I’ve since tried asparagus and all I can say is, give me a roasted mushroom any day.

But the humble mushroom is proof that sometimes the best things in life are found growing wild and free right under your nose. Don’t rush so fast, Eleanor, that you can’t see the wild mushrooms around you.

Two weeks into January and the rains came. Rae wasn’t sure which was the lesser of two evils: the fact that the rain raised the temperature from an icy minus three in the early morning or the fact that at least when it was freezing, it didn’t rain.

Will was awake and reading when Rae woke up one mid-January morning with the sound of torrential rain bouncing off the windows. She peered at him sleepily, then looked at the clock. Only six thirty, still dark.

She wriggled over in the bed and snuggled up against him, loving the solid heat of his body beside hers. He was always warm. She wore bedsocks and fleecy pyjamas, which she’d learned to like when she was menopausal and prone to night sweats.

She’d hated the sweats. Waking up to a cool film of perspiration and with her hair stuck to her head as if she’d been swimming.

But she’d found the loss of fertility even harder. Menopause was one of those words she winced at. The end of fertility. There was something horribly final about it.

Even if she was too old to have a child now, the ability to have one was something precious.

And yet the ability to have children had brought her pain along with joy. Rae could never look at a baby in a pram without feeling a surge of an old pain rise up in her.

‘Hello, love,’ said Will.

‘You’re awake early,’ she murmured.

‘Couldn’t sleep. Did you sleep well?’

‘Really well. Sorry you didn’t.’

Rae lay for a moment more, doing what she’d done for so many years: gently nudging the past back into its box in her mind.

That done, she stretched luxuriously. She didn’t have to get up for another hour. Bliss.

She loved lying in, half-sleep. When Anton had been little, this had been the thing she’d missed the most: the dreaming time at weekends before she got up to face the day. Anton had been a particularly early riser. He was born when she was twenty-nine. He was now the same age she was when she’d given birth to him. She tried to imagine her beloved son as a parent – not that there was any sign of him settling down yet.

He’d be a gentle and thoughtful dad, she thought. He’d been the tallest of his class for years, built like a rugby player but totally lacking the rugby player’s ferocious sporting instinct. She’d always thought he’d work with animals in some way. She remembered the gentleness of him when he was sitting in the dog’s basket, stroking her silky ears. Instead, he’d turned that sensitive, thoughtful side into political analysis.

And he was happy. That was all she wanted, really.

She was lucky, despite everything that had happened. She must remember that.

Rae’s mind roved about, flitting into Titania’s and the morning ahead. Patsy from the hair salon wanted a table for ten at lunchtime and a cake for a birthday.

‘Candles?’ Rae had asked on the phone.

‘Definitely no candles,’ Patsy had answered in her raspy, smoker’s voice. ‘She’s gone beyond candles. But something with shoes would be nice. She loves shoes. They love you back, too.’

Rae laughed. She liked Patsy and her sharp, dry humour. Patsy was another person who hadn’t been brought up in happy-familyville, Rae was sure of it. There was a sense of kinship between them, even though neither had ever said a word about their past to the other. But sometimes, you knew.

Patsy never looked at Rae as if she were a comfortable married woman who helped out with Community Cares to fill her spare time. She understood that Rae was helping herself by helping other people, in the same way that Patsy helped the women who turned up at Patsy’s Salon sporting red eyes, black eyes and faces full of pain. Patsy welcomed them in, put the kettle on and made them beautiful. Beauty, like cups of tea in Titania’s, was sometimes more than skin deep.

‘I was thinking…’ Will put down his book.

Rae struggled out of her half-dream and sat up against the pillows. ‘You don’t want to hurt yourself, love,’ she teased.

In retaliation, Will stretched his long fingers under her armpit and found the tickliest place.

‘You win,’ she said, laughing.

‘I was going to suggest a fabulous holiday to cheer us up after the winter,’ Will said, ‘but seeing as you think I’m Mr Thicko…’

Rae leaned up and nibbled his ear. ‘Go on, Mr Thicko,’ she said, ‘you know I love you.’

‘Well, I was thinking – before I was rudely interrupted, that we haven’t had a holiday for two years. What about a cruise?’

Rae gave a little gasp of shock. She’d always wanted to go on a cruise, but cruising holidays always seemed too expensive whenever she’d idled away time looking at the prices on the internet.

‘Do you think we could afford it?’ she said. Inside, she was thinking that they must be able to afford it. Will was the finance person in their marriage. Even though she managed Titania’s, the café belonged to Timothy. He gave her budgets and sorted out cashflow. Rae herself had never been that comfortable about money.

Left to her, she and Will would never spend anything in case some catastrophe occurred and they ended up penniless. Her parents had been permanently broke. Her work with Community Cares showed her nothing but people who lived on the edge of the abyss.

‘I was looking at the bank statements on the internet last night,’ Will said. ‘We could do it this year, for sure.’

‘Yes, but would it be wise?’ she asked. ‘Who knows how long the economic downturn’s going to last. You’re not that busy, Timothy might turn round and close Titania’s…’ Rae felt the familiar twinge of money worries overcoming all thoughts of the holiday she’d always wanted.

‘Listen, we are doing fine financially, love,’ Will said. ‘We don’t spend money, Rae, we’re so careful. The downturn is here and, yes, I’m doing half the work I was a year ago.’ Will worked as an architectural technician for a local business and, as building work was at a standstill, he was working only on the company’s projects in the Far East. ‘But we’re fine. We have no mortgage, we could survive on half the money we’re earning now.’

Rae thanked God silently for the bequest from Will’s father that had allowed them to pay off their mortgage fifteen years previously. They’d bought the house long before the property boom, so they’d paid buttons for it compared to what it was now worth.

‘Rae, how long have we been talking about a cruise?’

She allowed herself to relax. ‘Since Anton was small and we knew there was no way in heck that he’d cope with being closeted on a boat,’ she said fondly. ‘Think of all those seaside holidays.’

‘Crazy golf,’ Will said.

They both groaned.

Anton had taken a mad passion for crazy golf when he was ten and no holiday was complete without a trip to a course. Will and Rae had spent many hours trying to whack golf balls into clown’s mouths and windmills.

‘Disney in Florida?’ It had taken them three years to save up for that holiday.

‘That was amazing,’ Will said with a sigh. ‘I don’t think I could do any of those rollercoaster things again.’

‘You were brilliant for going on them all,’ Rae said. She was terrified of heights and just looking at some of Orlando’s rides was enough to make her central nervous system go into shock.

‘I’d love a cruise,’ Rae said, and suddenly she wanted it so much she felt as if she might burst out crying with the sheer joy of it all. She was so lucky. She had her wonderful son, her wonderful husband, and now this unexpected treat. When she thought of how sad her life had looked all those years ago, she’d never dreamed she could have this happiness.

‘I love you, Will,’ she said, winding her arms round him.

‘Mr Thicko loves you back,’ he replied, kissing her. ‘That’s a very sexy outfit you’re wearing,’ he murmured, moving the neckline of her definitely unsexy fleecy pyjamas so he could nuzzle her neck.

‘It’s designed to drive men wild with lust,’ Rae agreed. ‘If it’s disturbing you, I could take it off.’

‘There’s a thought,’ he murmured, and then they didn’t talk for a while.

Forty minutes later, they were up, dressed and getting breakfast. They moved easily around each other in the kitchen. Rae turned the coffee machine on, Will laid out cups and plates. She toasted some wholegrain bread; he found the marmalade she liked and put out plum jelly just in case they were in the mood for that.

It was the precise opposite to the way Rae had grown up; mornings then had been taut as a violin string, the air trembling with arguments that might erupt at any moment. One wrong word was all it took for Glory Hennessey to start throwing plates and insults at Paudge, with him throwing them right back. Rae had hated it, and had learned how to blend into the furniture so she didn’t get involved.

As a child, she perfected the adult ability to take the emotional temperature of a room within two minutes of entering. If the room was happy, she’d do happy, but she wouldn’t really be happy. Her happiness was surface only. Play along with them, but don’t really relax because in two minutes happy could be over and major screaming fit could be the order of the day.

When she was at school, the teachers thought her a strangely silent child. It was habit. Talking turned into saying the wrong thing so easily at home. Silence was the wisest option.

Even now, Rae could still feel her stomach clench when she heard people rowing.

It was no accident that she’d married a man who was gentle, thoughtful and rarely spoke without first considering the likely effect of his words on the other person.

By eight twenty it had stopped raining. Rae kissed Will on the cheek and they both headed off to work: she to Titania’s down the street, and he to his office in the long back garden of their house.

She took the long route to Titania’s, walking all around the garden itself, where the heady earthy smell of wet soil obliterated all other smells. Despite the wet, a couple of dogs were rolling in the grass, seemingly trying to wriggle themselves into the ground in pure pleasure.

Rae recognised Nora Flynn’s little greyhound and her fluffy pompom of a dog that loved to bounce along self-importantly.

But Nora wasn’t with them. Instead, a slender dark-haired girl with an elfin face and big haunted eyes sat on the bench watching. She’d been in Titania’s a few days before and Rae had recognised her as Nora’s niece, the actress. Rae hadn’t been able to recall her name, but was sure that when she’d last seen the girl, she’d been a pretty blonde slip of a thing, not a dark, sad waif.

Rae was aware that there had been some scandal. Someone at the counter in Titania’s had talked about it recently, but she’d listened with only half an ear. Rae was wary of gossip. Often, she found it to be wildly inaccurate and she hated the casual cruelty of the celebrity magazines.

She’d wanted to welcome the girl – Megan, that was her name – to Golden Square the other day in the tearooms but she’d looked on the verge of tears, so Rae had decided to say nothing. There were times, she knew, when kindness tipped you over the edge.

Today, Megan looked less sad.

‘Hello,’ Rae said. ‘I’m Rae Kerrigan, from the tearooms. You’re Nora’s niece, aren’t you? Welcome back.’ She inhaled the earthy scent of the park. Lots of people didn’t appreciate nature in winter: she loved it, the sense of hibernation before the earth slowly unfurled herself into beauty again. ‘It’s beautiful here, isn’t it? You could be in the middle of the countryside.’

The girl said nothing, just watched from under lowered lashes.

She was wary, Rae realised instantly. Speaking non-judgementally and idly was required.

‘Aren’t dogs funny? I love the way they enjoy the simple things.’ On the grass in front of her, the fluffy dog was wriggling in an orgy of pleasure, making little contented snorts.

Rae bent to rub the dog’s pink belly, murmuring ‘Hello, pooch,’ and she could sense the girl softening beside her. Animals were the true arbitrators of decency: it was hard to be the sort of person who’d convincingly stroke a dog and then lash out at the human being beside them.

‘She loves that,’ the girl said in a slightly husky voice.

‘They all do,’ Rae said, getting back to her feet. ‘My son loves animals and when he was a kid, he was always coming home with things he’d rescued. Apparently, when a dog lets you pet its belly, it’s at peace.’

‘In Cici’s case, she’s at peace and she also thinks she’s an Egyptian princess lying there waiting for the grapes to be peeled for her,’ the girl said drily.

Rae laughed.

Sensing she was being talked about, Cici sat up, shook herself to get rid of all the debris from the grass, and went to have a proper sniff of Rae.

‘She’s adorable,’ Rae said, reaching down for one more pet. ‘See you around,’ she added, with a smile at the girl.

‘Yeah, sure.’

For the first time, the girl looked at Rae straight on and Rae caught her breath. She hadn’t really seen her face in Titania’s, not properly, because she’d kept her head down. But now, Rae could see she was lovely, like a silent movie star in an old photograph, with more angles and high points than a normal person’s face.

And yet there was huge sadness there. Rae wished she’d paid more attention to whatever Megan’s story was. Not for gossip’s sake, but so she could understand. The gist, according to the people at the counter, was that she’d romanced a very married movie star. But this wary girl didn’t look like a femme fatale to Rae. No, there was something more to it than that.

She left the square by the vine-covered black-and-gold iron gate opposite Titania’s and said thanks for the blessings in her life.

It was one of her tenets: saying thanks every single day. Some people wrote gratitude journals, and Rae liked the idea, but she preferred a more living gratitude method. Every day, she said thanks for what had happened.

Thank you for Will, thank you for allowing us to have a good life and be able to plan a holiday when so many other people are barely surviving. Thank you that my life is calm, not like that poor girl in the square.

And always she added, Let Jasmine be happy too, please. Wherever she is, let her be happy.

When the older woman from Titania’s Palace had said hello to her, Megan had frozen. Not another fake friendly person. Some awful cow with sly eyes had sidled up to her in The Nook the previous day, and said: ‘You look different with that hair, missy. Not so starry now.’

Megan had put down her basket and fled the shop.

But this woman – Rae, did she say her name was? – had been different. Nice. Welcoming.

Over the past two weeks, the routine of Golden Square had settled around Megan like a soft blanket. Each morning, after Nora had gone downstairs to the clinic, the dogs would gradually wake Megan. Animals were so much more comforting than people. There was never any censure in their eyes, except when they felt walking duties were being neglected.

Then Megan would make coffee for herself and stand outside the back door, often shivering in her dressing gown against the coolness, while she smoked a cigarette. It had been a long time since she’d lived in a house with a garden. It felt both strange and familiar. Nora wasn’t much of a woman for gardening, so the long hundred-foot garden was a tangle of briars and old trees. Although Megan didn’t know much about nature, she knew the biggest tree in the middle was a horse chestnut, but only because she could remember finding conkers under it when she was a kid.

Leonardo and Cici would head off into the undergrowth, noses glued to the ground as they followed scents. Then they’d return, wet from the morning dew and covered with bits of twig and grass, to sit beside her.

‘I shouldn’t be smoking beside you,’ she found herself saying on many occasions. Which was strange, as she’d never worried about anyone else being affected by passive smoking before. Smoking had been part of who she was, like wearing mini dresses and little pixie boots. But here in Nora’s house in Golden Square, smoking, a bit like her normal clothes, didn’t quite work. It was, Megan felt, as if she’d sloughed off the old skin of Megan Bouchier and was returning to Megan Flynn.

A few weeks was all it had taken. Carole had phoned her mobile a few times with updates on the disaster area that was her career.

An earthquake in the Far East and another wave of terrorist threats, coupled with a pop star’s illness and a reality TV star’s live breast-reduction operation had now claimed the headlines from Megan the Mantrapper.

‘You’re so lucky,’ Carole said. ‘That earthquake’s taken the heat off you. And thank God for Destiny’s boob op.’

Megan had actually watched a few minutes of the breast-reduction programme, until Nora had come into the sitting room and caught her at it.

‘Merciful hour, they’re like space hoppers under her chest. How did any surgeon do that to the poor woman?’ Nora stared at the television in horror.

‘He’s taking them out now,’ Megan said, searching for the remote control.

‘Not a moment too soon. They look like they might burst. I’d say she hasn’t seen her toes for a few years. Imagine the state of her feet.’

A rare bubble of real giggles erupted inside Megan.

‘The press haven’t given up, you know. Don’t get complacent,’ Carole warned.

‘I’m not,’ said Megan testily. ‘I’m just fed up. I want to go back to work.’

At least if she was working, she wouldn’t have time to think about what had happened with Rob.

‘Until you get offered a few decent roles again – and not slasher movies from people who know you’ll do anything now in desperation – you have to stay low. All decent offers have dried up. You hadn’t signed the contract for the costume drama, so they don’t want you any more. Thank fuck they’d finished with you in Romania. You’ll have to fly over to London for post-production work, but that’s not for another couple of months. You should do something charitable. Raise your profile in a more positive way. Do you want us to sort something out for you?’

‘No,’ said Megan, filled with misery at the cynicism of it all. Find a charity and pretend to care about something: that was the best advice from her old world.

There was no news of Rob Hartnell, other than the usual media speculation about his whereabouts. He was on a billionaire’s yacht in the Pacific or on a private island in the Caribbean or the Indian Ocean, depending which magazine you read.

‘He was supposed to be shooting a movie in Stockholm now. One of those crime thrillers,’ said Carole. ‘It’s been postponed, which means the production company is mad, which means the studio is mad, which means they all hate you. Rob Hartnell is box office magic, so there’s no way anyone’s going to hate him. One of the Hollywood gossip blogs says that you dreamed this up to garner publicity.’

Megan felt nauseated. ‘Aren’t you going to refute that?’

There was a pause. ‘Let’s just see how it plays out, right?’ said Carole.

Just thinking about it made Megan depressed.

Sitting on the bench in Golden Square, watching Rae walk away, she lit another cigarette. She wasn’t surprised the woman didn’t seem to recognise her: nobody would these days – which was one plus. The last thing she needed was for the media to find her here.