‘You’ve got yourself a date.’

‘How nice.’

Putting my phone back in my pocket, I sigh. It looks like I’m not going to bed just yet. At least Rose has chosen her location well, since I’m only down the road. Almost as if she planned it that way. Grumbling to myself, I set off briskly in the direction of the suspension bridge, answering another phone call en route. This time it is my husband.

‘How’s Hazel?’

‘The Keynsham One is fine, we’re on our way home. Just a slap on the wrist, thanks to her lawyer, who also gave her a slap on the wrist.’ That’s the thing about Robbie, he’s like the Kipling poem about keeping your head when all about you are losing theirs. What’s it called? I can’t remember now. But he’s that Man, treating triumph and disaster just the same. Such an even keel.

‘Thank God.’

‘How was your party?’

‘Um . . . It was . . . useful. Professionally, and personally.’ I’ve never lied to Robbie, but I don’t want to tell him all this over the phone, particularly when I’m ostensibly on my way to stop my mother chucking herself into the Avon Gorge.

‘Good. Are you coming back?’

‘Not yet. Bit of a job to do first.’ Again, I don’t want to alarm anyone, when I’m still convinced Rose is just staging an elaborate ‘look at me’ moment.

‘OK, I’ll see you later, midons.’

Midons. He hasn’t called me that in years. Early on, at the beginning of our ‘courtship’, he used to say it, explaining it was an old poetic version of ‘my lady’. I liked it; it suited my preference for indirectness. I wonder why he’s thought of it now, when we’re both middle-aged exhausted parents struggling to balance chaotic home life with demanding careers, wondering if the joint account will stretch to fixing the roof. Once, I was his midons, slim and unlined, ready to be wooed and won. Maybe I will let him book that holiday in Greece, after all, to trawl the ruins. Like a second honeymoon, albeit one with two moaning kids. I smile to myself. It could be fun, the Hendrys hitting Athens, doing our respective things. Robbie can look at his relics, Ethan can find somewhere to hole up, Hazel can visit the Greek salons and I can . . . what can Clover do? Just rest, and think, and be. Stop, for a while.

But first, I’ve got to stop my mother.

44

I find Rose standing at the base of the Clifton tower, leaning against the abutment wall, smoking a cigarette, of all things. The bridge behind her is all lit up, the illumination dazzling against the inky night sky; a fittingly climactic backdrop for her continuing emotional meltdown. When she sees me, she lets the cigarette fall to the ground and stamps on it with the toe of her kitten heel.

‘Nice of you to drop by.’

‘I just happened to be passing. Since when did you take up smoking?’

‘Since my daughters publicly disowned me.’ She wipes a hand across her face, and I see that she has mascara tracks on her cheeks. The elegant chignon is long gone, her hair straggly around her shoulders.

‘Bit of a dramatic way of putting it.’

‘Well, how would you put it?’

I go to stand beside her, dumping my bag and Bigwig on the ground, grasping the rough sandstone of the wall and staring out over the dark chasm of the gorge. ‘I’d probably say that you finally got your comeuppance after years of being a total bitch.’

There’s a gasp of shock and outrage. ‘How can you say that? When I . . . When I . . .’

‘See? You can’t even defend yourself against it. When you . . . when you . . . what? What have you done for us? Comforted us when we cried? Praised us, supported us, paid for us, loved us? You can’t claim you did any of those things, because you didn’t. What did you actually do?’

‘I stayed.’ It bursts out of her as a snarl. ‘When your father buggered off.’

Biting my lip, my fingers scrape against the wall, eyes probing the darkness, ignoring the light from the bridge. ‘But don’t you understand why he left?’

Rose takes a shuddering breath. ‘You don’t know what went on between us, not really. He was always gone. Not ever there, fully. I knew it, and I didn’t know what to do. I thought . . . if I kept the house nice, and myself looking nice, and made sure you girls didn’t bother him, then . . .’ She trails off, turning to face the same way as me, out into the abyss. ‘It didn’t work, but I tried.’

All that cleaning, and what a mess she made of it. I think about my father, who I never really consider at all – Cousin Jack, a vague presence in my life, on the periphery. For the first time, I realize he really wasn’t that great – like Rose, he didn’t do any of the things you might expect of a parent but, rather than blame him, I just switched him off, focusing all my attention and ire on my mother, who stayed.

‘Can I have one of those?’ I gesture to the packet she’s clutching. She opens it and offers me one, getting a lighter out of her bag for both of us. We light up, inhale, and exhale into the sweet summer night air. I cough, because the last time I smoked was at university, and I never really enjoyed it, just thought it looked sophisticated when I was in the pub. But now I want to blacken my lungs as a penance, because I’m feeling guilty and wretched and wrong and I’m not quite sure why. Rose slaps me on the back and I think it’s one of the most motherly things she’s ever done, and my eyes water as I hack and splutter.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say finally, taking another drag. ‘It was probably a bit much, back there in the restaurant, but I’ve had a difficult day.’

‘You’ve had a difficult day? What about me? I’m homeless!’

Now I’m coughing and laughing, flicking ash over the wall, watching it float down. ‘Again, that’s a bit of a dramatic way of putting it. Can’t you just stop the sale?’

Her mouth twists into a grimace. ‘I’ve sold the house to Alice Barber’s daughter and her new husband. There’ll be a terrible to-do if I back out. Is Jack really moving in with you?’

I shake my head, flicking more ash, the particles idly drifting and gliding. ‘Of course not. Like he’d give up the cushy expat life.’

‘Then why . . .?’

Turning to meet her gaze, I frown in disbelief.

‘Are you really asking me why I don’t want you to move in? When you’ve barely ever visited, never bothered with your grandchildren, shown no interest in my family whatsoever? A better question would be: why on earth do you want to live with us? To play the dutiful granny?’

She gives me a bitter smile. ‘You know that’s never been my style. I like my own life. But . . .’

‘But what?’

Rose takes a deep drag, leaning her elbows on the wall and gazing out into the gloom. ‘I’m lonely,’ she whispers it into the darkness, like the dirtiest confession. ‘I’ve got no one.’

For a second, I’m winded by the admission. ‘But . . . you’re always so busy, you never have any time . . .’

She nods. ‘I fill my time, to avoid thinking about it. But then I sit in that house, on my own, with no one to talk to, and I just . . .’

I picture Dorothy Fletcher, the previous owner of our house. ‘What about . . . um . . . one of those retirement village thingies?’

Rose shudders. ‘Ghastly.’

I remember I read about the foundations of the bridge we’re standing on, how everyone thought they were solid, but then they found immense vaulted chambers beneath, a huge lost space just sitting there, waiting to be discovered. Taking another long pull, this time I don’t cough. I’m a smoker now.

‘Listen, I’m sorry that you’re feeling lonely, but I don’t think moving in with us is the answer. We’d just annoy you, the house would annoy you, and, putting it mildly, you would annoy us.’ I stub out the fag and chuck it in the nearby bin. ‘But . . .’ I can’t believe I’m about to say this. ‘Why don’t you come visit a bit more? I mean, really visit? Stay with us, hang out with us, take the kids out? You might find your empty silent house is actually quite nice and peaceful when you get back.’

Rose laughs, wiping her cheeks again. ‘Maybe.’ She stares at the smouldering tip of her cigarette. ‘I . . . Your grandfather – my father . . . He was very strict. I wasn’t . . . I didn’t . . .’ She clutches her neck with her free hand, remembering.

‘Grandpa Bill?’ He died when I was little. Thinking hard, I can’t recall much about him except he had a beard and a Volvo he cleaned every Saturday morning.

‘Yes.’ Rose lets out a breath. ‘He’s why Harry is such a mess.’ Uncle Harold, always crying at weddings. ‘He was such a soft child. I was made of sterner stuff. But . . .’ She turns to me, smiling a twisted smile. ‘Father liked things neat, quiet. Girls were girls, boys were boys. It stuck.’

‘I see.’ Poor Rose. Poor Harry.

‘Anyway, no point getting all introspective.’ Rose stubs out her cigarette. ‘But maybe your messy, noisy house would be nice, once in a while.’