It’s a big garden, bigger than normal for London, the railway tracks at its end having saved it from being carved up for development. Vesta has kept the front third tidied and cultivated all her life. It was her contribution to the family when she was a child, bringing flavour and colour to her mother’s sepia household, and the green-finger bug has stayed with her ever since. Narrow beds of bright annuals, fetched back, one by one, from the greengrocer’s discount shelf, surround a tablecloth of manicured lawn on which two old-fashioned deckchairs recline in the dazzle. Beyond the beds, a tangle of foot-long grass, run to seed so often it’s almost a hayfield, a blind rhododendron that contrives to look dank even in this weather, a couple of aged plum trees, stunted by some bug that’s way beyond Vesta’s knowledge, a mess of rubble and bonfire ash and goosegrass surrounding a tumbledown shed.
‘Looks lovely out here,’ says Cher.
‘Thanks,’ says Vesta, and they sit in the deckchairs with their back to the chaos. Each takes their first sip of tea and lets out the great British ‘ahhhh’ as they settle back. The generations may look completely different, thinks Vesta, but some things never change. The cat finds a patch of sun and rolls on to his back to show the handkerchief of white on his belly. She smiles.
‘You look more cheerful,’ says Cher. ‘You almost done in there?’
‘Not completely. But at least I can sit down, now.’
‘Christ. They really made a mess, didn’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ooh, that reminds me.’ Cher leans over her backpack and rummages inside. ‘I got you a present.’ She finds what she’s looking for, and holds it out, a small hard object wrapped in a T-shirt. She looks pleased with herself. ‘I hope you like it.’
‘Oh, Cher, you shouldn’t waste your money on buying me…’ begins Vesta, then stops dead when she sees what’s inside the bundle. It’s a dancing lady, bone china, imperial purple ball dress swirling around impossibly thin ankles, a blaze of carmine hair improbably stiff on a single shoulder. Round azure eyes and a snub nose, tiny mouth hand-painted in shiny crimson. It’s the spit of one of her mother’s that lies in pieces with the rest of the collection, wrapped in newspaper in her kitchen bin. ‘Oh, Cher,’ she says. ‘You shouldn’t have. What on earth did you think you were doing? You can’t afford this.’
Cher shrugs. ‘Didn’t cost much. Hardly anything.’
‘No, but…’ Vesta knows exactly how much they cost. She and Cher looked at them together only a few weeks ago, in the window of Bentalls in Kingston, and she was shocked to see that they cost very nearly a week’s old-age pension. All these years, she had had no idea. Her burglar has taken out very nearly a thousand pounds she never knew she had with a single swing of the poker from the fireplace. ‘… I can’t believe you’ve done this.’
Cher’s face clouds over. ‘Don’t you like it?’
‘It’s not that. It’s… Cher, you shouldn’t have done this. You should save your money. You shouldn’t be spending it on things like this. What about your rent?’
She looks up and sees that Cher has visibly shrunk. She swings her legs from the knees like a little kid, wide-eyed with disappointment. ‘I thought you’d like it,’ she says. ‘I can get you something else, if you want.’
‘No, love,’ says Vesta. ‘I love it. I love, love, love it. C’m’ere.’
She holds her arms out and enfolds Cher in a hug. They’re both so thin it’s not a very comfortable hug; more a clashing of bones. Cher smells of salt and hair conditioner, and some floral chemical they all spray over themselves these days. She hugs like someone who’s not used to hugging: comes into it gingerly, as though she’s nervous that something will break, and then clings on far too long, as though she’s afraid to let go. They stay there, awkwardly, in the sunshine, for longer than either of them is easy with. Poor little love, thinks Vesta. Whoever dragged her up, they didn’t make her expect people to like her.
Slowly, slowly, she disentangles herself, and lays the figurine gently down on the grass. ‘It’ll look lovely on the mantelpiece,’ she assures her. ‘I shall treasure it for ever.’
But where the hell is Cher affording this sort of thing? she wonders. It’s not off the dole, that’s for sure. And how do you ask someone if they’ve stolen your present, without offending them? Cher is always popping in with stuff: usually biscuits, or a cake or something. But always premium quality, branded stuff. No Every Little Helps about young Cheryl’s presents. But oh, I would feel terrible if she got caught nicking nonsense to lay at my feet the way that cat brings her mice.
‘What’s the new tenant like?’ she asks, changing the subject because she knows that if she stays on it she’ll have to ask. ‘Have you met her yet?’
Cher plops back down into her deckchair. ‘Ooh, yeah,’ she says. ‘I dropped in, the other night.’
‘Oh, you,’ says Vesta. ‘You’ve got no shame, have you?’
Cher shrugs. ‘It’s not Buckingham Palace. You don’t need a tiara and a fanfare. Anyway, I took a bottle of Baileys.’
There she goes again, thinks Vesta. She’s partial to a drop of the creamy stuff herself, but she doesn’t even buy Baileys at Christmas.
‘She’s all right,’ says Cher. ‘Posh. Talks like someone off Made in Chelsea. God knows what she’s doing here.’
‘Divorce?’
Cher shakes her head. ‘She’s been travelling, that’s what she said. Lucky for some. I haven’t even got a passport.’
Vesta laughs. ‘I have. Every ten years, I renew it. Always think I might, you know, go somewhere some day.’
‘Anyway, her mum’s in a maximum security Twilight Home. I think she’s on her way out and she said something about wanting to be near her, in case.’
‘In case. I’ve always liked that phrase. You can cover a lot of ground with an “in case”. Shall I ask her down, you think? Would that be nice?’
Cher shrugs. ‘Could do.’
Vesta closes her eyes and listens for a moment to the neighbourhood noise: the laughter of the kids from what they call the Posh Family on the other side of the fence playing in their paddling pool, the tannoy playing a recorded announcement on the unmanned station platform, a jet changing speed as it cruises in towards Heathrow. You would only have heard one of those sounds when I was Cher’s age, she thinks. ‘I wonder,’ she says. ‘Maybe I ought to throw a party?’
‘A party?’
‘Not a huge party. Just us. Well, it’s silly, isn’t it? All of us living on top of each other, and we’ve never all been in the same place at the same time. And it would be nice. A thank you because you’ve all been so nice, about the burglary. You and Hossein. Even Thomas. And it would be a good way to kill two birds with one stone. Welcome her to the house; thank everyone. And get him in Flat One to leave his lair. He’s been here ages and we’ve barely said a word. And besides. It’s been ages since I had a party.’
‘How long?’
‘God, it must be…’ Her mind flashes back to Erroll Grey and the Khans, sitting on her mother’s old settee. Really? She’s not had a party since that went on a skip? ‘Good Lord. Seven years, at least. I can’t believe it. I used to have people down all the time. And I’ve still got Mum’s old teaset. I spend my life washing the damn thing up, and it never gets used. Might as well celebrate the fact that at least he didn’t smash that, eh?’
‘Tea,’ says Cher.
Vesta laughs. ‘Oh, sorry. Were you expecting cocktails?’
Cher pouts, just a little bit. Of course she was. She’s a teenager. She wants to be out carousing, not eating finger sandwiches with a crew of middle-aged strangers. We must all seem ancient to her, Vesta thinks. Practically mummified. Same way she looks like a baby to me.
‘We could have some cider, at least,’ says Cher.