The Men in her Life

sandwich-boards with HOLLY painted on in large black letters. She wanted to scold her daughter because Holly was always proclaiming loudly that she didn’t want to be in a serious relationship. It made people boring, she said, and Mo felt certain that that attitude would put any likely men off.
    ‘I’m sure you will,’ she told her now, not having the heart to criticize at this time of night.
    ‘Was Jack the One for you?’ Holly asked her.
    The image Mo had of him was always the same. He was standing in the bitter cold outside the shop waiting for her that Christmas. When she caught sight of him her heart had leapt as she allowed herself to believe for a fraction of a second that he was there to reclaim her. After all those years he had realized that only she could make him happy.
    ‘I thought he was,’ she told Holly, as, next to her, Eamon began to snore softly.
    At the other end of the phone she wasn’t sure whether Holly had begun to cry.
    ‘Go to sleep now, love,’ Mo said, ‘you’ll feel better in the morning.’

PART THREE
June

Chapter 16

    There were roses round the door, the colour of lemon fondant icing, but the rain had battered their soft petals, turning the edges to brown paper and scattering them on the path like confetti. It was the wettest June ever recorded. Typical, thought Holly, that this is the moment I choose to go away for a long weekend. The taxi sloshed away from the gate and she watched it disappear into the misty streets. The little grey town looked more like a deserted mining village than a resort. Holly knocked on the door.
    ‘Is it you?’ a very young, surprisingly loud voice asked from the other side.
    ‘Yes. At least I think so,’ Holly replied.
    ‘Can you come in?’
    ‘I hope so.’
    ‘MAR ME!’ shouted the voice, ‘it YOU.’
    ‘It’s her,’ Clare’s voice corrected. ‘It’s Holly.’
    ‘It Holly,’ came the echo.
    The door opened and there was Clare, her sleeves rolled up and flour all over her hands, and, at about the same height as her knees, a perfect little grinning cherub with curls exactly the same colour as Clare’s.
    ‘Hello, you must be Tom,’ said Holly.
    Suddenly shy, he turned his face into his mother’s legs.
    The two women bent forward to kiss each other on the cheek then stood up straight and looked at each other, smiling.
    ‘You’re getting wet. Come in,’ Clare said, breaking the silence of friendly appraisal, ‘mind your head. The doors are all quite low.’
    ‘Have you got a present for me?’ Tom suddenly regained his confidence.
    ‘Yes. How did you know?’ Holly asked him laughing.
    ‘Where is it?’
    ‘I am sorry to have promised him something on your behalf,’ Clare apologized, ‘it was the only way I could get him to stop demanding to go out and jump in puddles...’
    The front door opened straight into the kitchen, which was warm and smelt of cakes baking. While Clare made coffee, and Tom brought his toys, one by one, to show her, Holly sat down at the big wooden table taking in her surroundings. The chipped white porcelain sink was deep and rectangular, the draining-board made of wood that had seen many years of scrubbing. There was a fridge covered in bright plastic letters which seemed to be the only relatively modern item there. Above the wooden cupboards a frieze of children’s paintings, some burnt with age, served as wallpaper. It was the kind of artless, primitive kitchen that would have cost a fortune if it had been ordered from a contemporary designer. A door led into the back room where there was a chair, a battered old sofa, a television, and a great deal of poster-coloured plastic.
    Seeing her house through a stranger’s eyes, Clare began to make excuses.
    ‘Tom rather dominates down here, I’m afraid,’ she said, ‘he doesn’t really have a bedroom of his own, his cot’s in Joss’s office, so we let him run riot down here-As soon as Ella goes away, he’ll have her room,’ Clare saw the expression on Holly’s face, ‘it’s OK, the sofa makes into a bed. I’ll make it up later. This is why I invited you when Joss was away. It’s a bit crowded...’ She didn’t add that she had been pleased Holly had suggested a weekend when Joss was not there. She did not think the two of them would get on.
    ‘Where is Joss, by the way?’ Holly asked.
    ‘At a poetry festival. He does about two a year, you know, readings and seminars and all that. They pay his fare and put him up in a nice