Lucy in the Sky

arrived from the station. Nick holds his hand out to her and introduces himself. She steps forward and takes it timidly.
    ‘Right!’ Tom says, quickly putting his arm around Meg’s shoulder. ‘Shall I show Meg up to her room?’
    ‘I’ve made up your bedroom for the two of you–is that okay?’ my mum asks. Bless my mum. And bless Tom for not simply expecting to be allowed to sleep in the same room. Even though that’s plainly what they’ve been doing for the last four months.
    ‘Brilliant. Thanks, Diane,’ he says, leaning in and giving my mum a kiss.
    She blushes and hurries him away. ‘Off you go!’
    ‘Big bro’s done alright for himself,’ Nick drawls after they’ve left the room.
    ‘Oi, you, keep your hands off!’ Terry admonishes him.
    ‘As if I would,’ he objects.
    ‘Ah, I’m only joking, kiddo.’ Terry laughs, reaching down to pat his younger son on one of his broad shoulders.
    Terry and his wife, Patricia, had a messy divorce a year before he met Mum. To have a break from it all, he took the accountancy job in Australia, but a couple of years away from his boys took its toll on him, which is the reason we moved back to England. Tom and Nick have ended up spending more time with their dad, while Patricia moved to Cornwall with her new husband. Tom and Nick don’t like him very much, and I think that’s probably why their mum doesn’t mind them staying with their dad.
    That night after we’ve all finished arguing over why Terry shouldn’t let Nick off the £6,000 rent for landing on his Park Lane Monopoly hotels, I head upstairs to my bedroom.
    This was my bedroom for only a couple of years before I went away to university. Mum and Terry have since done it up so the walls are the palest pink and the curtains are blue and white Laura Ashley. Hardly ‘me’ but at least I’ve got a double bed.
    I try calling James. He doesn’t answer his phone and it goes straight to voicemail. I try again. Voicemail. That’s odd. I could have sworn he said he was having a night in tonight. I nervously press redial one more time. Still voicemail.
    I go to the bathroom to get ready for bed, then try him again.
    And again, just as I’m dozing off.
    Eventually I give up and fall into a troubled sleep, where I dream about my mum telling me she has cancer and Terry draining the blood from her sick, white body. I wake up sobbing at around six in the morning. My heart is pounding and I can’t get back to sleep so eventually I go downstairs in my dressing gown.
    I look out of the kitchen window. Spring is well and truly here. The pear tree in the front garden is bursting with pinky-white blossom and there’s a misty haze over the pale blue sky. I can hear a blackbird trilling away somewhere and I have a sudden desire to go outside. I step into Mum’s wellies; our feet are almost the same size. Then I pull on her warm Barbour jacket and unlock the back door, walking off down the garden path. Tilly and Tonker, our brown and white goats, bleat at me as I approach. ‘Hello, boys.’ I hold out my hand and Tilly, the brown one, comes over to nuzzle his face against it. I open the door to the chicken coop and let the hens out. Smiling, I watch them as they make their way out into the garden. How I love it here.
    Back in the house, Mum is already dressed and in the kitchen. She looks up, startled, when I walk in through the door.
    ‘Lucy, you frightened me! What are you doing outside at this time?’
    ‘Couldn’t sleep. Bad dream.’ I don’t elaborate.
    ‘Oh, that’s no good. Do you want a cup of tea?’
    I resist the urge to show her how to do it Nathan’s way. She’s too much of a purist.
    After a little while, Smokey, our grey cat, comes in through the cat flap with a dead field mouse and plonks it at Mum’s feet.
    ‘Smokey!’ she berates.
    ‘Ew.’ I leave her to it. I head back upstairs and try James again. His phone just rings and rings. I feel sick. Where is he? What is he doing? I distract myself by taking a shower but as soon as I’m finished, I call him again. He answers, finally.
    ‘James! Why haven’t you been answering your phone?’
    ‘Shit, have you been trying to call?’
    ‘Only about twenty bloody times!’
    ‘Sorry. I left it here last night,’ he moans.
    ‘What do you mean, you left it? Where are you?’
    ‘I’m at home now. But I went out last night. Bit of a late one.’
    ‘I thought you were having an early night.’
    ‘Lucy, please keep it down, my head