‘Does Uncle D know?’
Abi nods. ‘But even we don’t really talk about it.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, really. Maybe talking about it makes the whole thing more real somehow. Like I said, he used to worry. It’s why he always kept me in the loop with his restaurant work, always wanted to help me find my way out when the time was right.’
Lily sits back in her chair, tilting her body slightly towards Abi as she asks, ‘What are you thinking now, Mum?’
‘About …’
‘Waverly, all the gossip and stuff.’
Abi sighs again. ‘Honestly? I was looking at flats this morning.’
‘Where?’
‘London, mostly.’
Lily makes a face, shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to go back to London.’
Abi isn’t surprised. The cramped city with its noise and filth had never suited her dreamy, space-seeking girl.
‘The thing is, Lil, I’m not sure it’s safe for us here any more.’
‘You mean after last night?’
Abi nods and pictures their own flat desecrated. The girls standing outside, freshly homeless.
‘Brighton?’ Lily asks and Abi smiles.
‘Brighton could work.’
‘I want to keep going to school here, though. The art department and …’ Lily doesn’t finish her sentence, but Abi is pretty sure she was about to say Blake’s name.
‘That’s fine, Lil. I understand. We’ll find a way to make it work.’
Lily nods and reaches over for her mum’s hand. Abi feels an almost overwhelming rush of love. A love flavoured with something else now, something new. Respect, deep admiration.
‘Are you going to tell everyone?’ Lily asks, lightly.
‘What about?’
‘That it was you, Mum, who had sex with Mr Kent.’
Despite everything she’s just shared, those words from Lily are still a shock.
‘I … um … no, no. If we move to Brighton there’d be no point. We’d be mostly away from it all.’
‘Hmm. I suppose.’
Abi draws Lily closer then, towards her, puts her hand behind Lily’s silken head, kisses her face and says, ‘You’re amazing – you know that, don’t you?’
Lily looks her mum right in the eye, their faces still so close Abi can feel Lily’s tea-sweetened breath on her cheek as she says, ‘I know.’
Lily doesn’t know it but it’s the best response. She moves to stand, closing the laptop before Abi says, ‘Mind if you leave that here? I want to have another look at flats.’
Lily smooths her hair behind her ear and says, ‘Course. I’m going to go upstairs and give Blake a call, OK?’
Abi feels like her heart has trebled in size as she squeezes her daughter’s smooth hand one last time, smiling as she watches her leave.
She sits for a moment, stunned by Lily but also by a new feeling of wholeness. It isn’t bringing Emma into her real life, exactly, that’s making her feel this way, but rather the absence of something else. The release of the deep, smothering fear that the rest of the world was right, and she was wrong, that the things she’s done are a sort of stain on her soul. A failure of goodness in her. Now, it doesn’t matter. The rest of the world be damned; they can think whatever they like because Lily knows. Lily knows and she will still sit next to her and listen and hold her hand and call her ‘Mum’. Lily hasn’t only offered Abi her acceptance, she’s given Abi something even more powerful. She’s given Abi her freedom.
Abi and Lily eat lunch together at home – a creamy lemon and clam linguine, one of Lily’s favourites – before Abi walks to the restaurant. The burning smell is less obvious now, but still sulphurous, like decomposing eggs. She’d messaged Diego earlier to say that she was coming in and he’d replied with a thumbs-up. He hadn’t been in touch to tell her how the previous evening had gone, and she hasn’t yet asked. Lotte had messaged, a cheery one-liner: ‘Hope you’re feeling better!’ Followed by a stream of green-faced sick emojis.
Abi stops outside the restaurant just to look at it for a few moments. The gold lettering she chose with Lotte glints like fish scales in the sun, ‘PLATE’ glittering but still elegant in its simple, bold font. Staring at the place she’d had such hopes for, she starts to feel like secret doors within herself are slamming shut. Where just a couple of hours ago she felt a kind of awakening, she now feels like she’s being wrapped in layers of suffocating cling film. Wrapped and restricted like she needs protection against seepage and spoiling. She’d wanted it to work here so badly.
Through the window, she sees movement inside the restaurant. Diego stops whatever he was doing and, sensing her, turns. He smiles immediately, lifts his hand before he frantically beckons her inside.
‘Tell me now. Before Madam arrives,’ Diego says. ‘How is Lily?’
They’re sitting at Abi’s favourite table, a little two-seater tucked into the far corner by the window, drinking coffee.
‘She’s completely blown me away, D. I … I underestimated her.’
‘Hmm. Perhaps. But she is who she is because you are who you are. You must see that.’
Abi rolls her eyes, shakes her head. ‘Oh, I don’t know. That’s …’
‘Too much to hear right now?’
Abi wrinkles her nose, nods, but she does smile. Diego squeezes Abi’s forearm where it rests on the table between them. She places her palm on top of the back of his hairy hand and they both know what is coming. The words they must say next.
Diego goes first. ‘So, look, abuela, we survived last night without you but, honest to God, I can’t, I won’t survive another service like that.’
He tells her about the waiter who left in tears, no one knowing why, the main courses that had gone cold, the errors on bills and parties being seated at the wrong tables, among many other mistakes. They’d had to comp five starters and three main courses.
‘I know you can’t,’ she says, looking right into his dark chocolate eyes, ‘and you shouldn’t have to. But …’
‘Ah.’ Diego winces. He knew there’d be a ‘but’.
‘But I can’t be here any more, D. It’s not good for me, and after what happened last night it might not even be safe.’
Diego blows out through his mouth. Abi knows he thinks she’s overreacting; he grew up in Mexico City – what happened last night was mild as milk compared to the things he’s seen.
‘I can’t work here any more, Diego,’ she says, plainly.
‘You won’t go back, will you?’
She knows what he’s asking; he’s asking if she’ll become Emma again. And it’s a good question but not one she can answer – not yet, anyway – so Abi lifts and drops her shoulders.
‘Lily and I were talking about moving to Brighton. I’m going to go and see a flat there tomorrow.’
‘Hmm,’ Diego says, lifting his hand to scrub his palm against the stubby bristle on his jaw. His eyes seem to journey elsewhere suddenly; she can’t tell what he’s thinking, whether he’s already scrolling through his internal Rolodex, trying to think of any contacts who might be able to replace Abi, or planning next week’s menu. It’s a surprise when, blinking, he returns and says, ‘A recruitment guy – someone who works in finding chefs, that sort of thing – contacted me a while back asking if I’d be interested in Sabor, that new place in Brighton.’
Abi nods, she knows it; the reviews weren’t ecstatic, but they were fine. The food is much less exciting than Diego’s, but she will need a job and likes where this thinking is leading.
‘I have his number somewhere; I could call and ask if they’re looking for someone?’
Abi doesn’t need to say yes, she just smiles at her friend and says for the second time that day, ‘You’re amazing.’
Diego nods, pushes out his bottom lip and looking sadly at Abi says, ‘I’m going to miss you here.’
And suddenly Abi feels herself crying again because this place, that for so long represented a new freedom for her, has become not a jail exactly, but a closed room, and she feels like she’s just found a way out.