It was strange for Peg to be standing in her daughter’s room after so many years. A bed shoved up in the corner, an easel and a drawing desk the only furniture. Disused tomato cans full of pencils, empty wine bottle with a candle in the top, and a paint-splattered terracotta floor that looked more terrazzo in style now. The photo of Eddie was stuck to the wall with tape. Still that yearning between Peg’s legs, oh where the fuck did the time go? Peg old enough to be his mother now, sort of twists the story of their love to something odd. Twenty years of loving and hoping had broken her and allowed Ted to slip in through the cracks and there was no turning back. I sold my soul, Eddie, and I feel that vacancy every single day. And now our kid, all grown up. At art school! All your talent, you’d be so proud, and she looks like you too, Eddie. Got my smile, they say, but I only see you. And sometimes it hurts to look at her, at her smooth skin and the years she has ahead, and I want to slap her, Eddie, and that’s why I have to keep her at arm’s length, because sometimes she makes me bitter and I don’t want to be bitter because it unseats the love and I just don’t know what to do. So that’s me, Eddie. Who I’ve become. My mother, after all.
She moved away. Stood in front of a portrait of Alys, a proper drawing, white pencil capturing the light in her eyes, so fierce and intense, and Peg suddenly realised how little the kid was when she’d let her go. She felt an ache in her guts, but she hadn’t eaten so maybe that was it? She lowered her face to the few clothes hanging on a rail. She didn’t know her daughter’s smell, but it was the closest she’d ever felt to her.
Peg sat on the bed and looked out through the doorway. Some kind of commotion. Col was trying to stem the blood from his nose, Pete holding Claude protectively, Cress telling Col, Well what d’you expect? Making a parrot feel diminished like that?
Old Cressy. How she’d missed him. How he knew her, how he could soothe her. Coming here had been her idea. She let Col take the credit, but it was her because she knew what happened when the waves hit – that lurching shift when the ballast slides into empty space and you tilt so far over you think you’re gonna capsize, think you’re gonna drown.
Temps has come into her room. That smile of his, same as when he was a boy. Bit awkward, bit sweet. He sits on the bed next to her. He holds her hand and she doesn’t pull away. She could say anything to him, and he’d forgive her and never judge her. But what do you want to say, Peg? Eh, Peg? That you’re tired of life and out of your depth? But you won’t say a thing. Still swagger on with a belly full of bluster and a blah di blah who’s up for another?
I know this was your idea, he says.
Col’s the hero.
I know it was you.
What’s going on out there?
Col was rude to Claude, so Claude flew into his face.
How is he?
Col or Cress?
Cress.
Better now you’re here. How long you staying, Peg?
Till we take the stabilisers off.
Thanks.
You look good. （She runs her hand over his cheek and chin.） Grown into you, haven’t you? What? You looking at me like you wanna know something.
How’d you get away from him?
Let’s not, Temps.
I worry for you.
And I worry for you. It’s what we do, right?
He hit you?
Wash your mouth out. This is supposed to be a happy day. Now change the bloody record.
Here, and he reaches into his pocket and puts on his glasses self-consciously.
I have to wear them now, he says. When I work or read.
They suit you.
You reckon?
You wear ’em in bed?
He blushes and takes them off. Her hand on his leg.
Not here, Peg. This is—
I know, I know.
That evening, Peg joined Ulysses in the kitchen and helped prepare dinner for the guests. Col, Pete and Cress went on ahead to Michele’s, and Peg could hear them in the stairwell. Col saying something about running over Lesley and Cress said, Not Lesley Greenaway? And Col said, No, Lesley the pug. Ingrid’s pug. What pug? said Cress. Jesus Christ, said Col. Just when I’d started to feel sorry for you.
Peg was laughing now. What? said Ulysses. Just them, she said.
As if they’d all never been apart.
Peg took instruction easily. Her first time using a pestle and mortar, first time making pesto, too, and she said she found it soothing. Afterwards, she became a waitress for the night, turned a few heads when she interrupted a conversation about Carrara marble. She’d even end up as a comment in the visitors’ book, although the page would have to be torn out. What’s wrong with people? Cress would say. Writing something like that for all the world to see.