The Kindness Club on Mapleberry Lane - Part Two: An Autumn Promise

Sam had felt when Veronica’s problems started all those years ago, how desperate she’d been to break away. And Veronica did wonder whether Sam, back under the same roof, would find her condition as stifling as before.
Veronica finally left her watch alone. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I’ve invited Layla and her dad over for dinner tonight.’
‘Really?’
‘Don’t look so shocked – I do have some social skills, you know,’ she bristled. It was the first time she’d done anything other than reply politely and dance on tenterhooks around her daughter.
‘That wasn’t what I meant.’
‘Layla will be here early, she’s making dinner with Audrey’s help, then Charlie will be over at 6.30 p.m. Do your best to be nice.’
‘Mum…’
Veronica waved her hand and disappeared off to the downstairs bathroom. She didn’t need to use the loo – she needed breathing space. One minute she’d been happily hearing about Sam’s new job, the next she realised, looking in Sam’s eyes, that she’d probably always be the mum everyone had talked about in the playground, the mum who hadn’t been there in the way she should’ve been.
She looked in the mirror above the vanity and adjusted the bun at the nape of her neck. Her hairstyle tended to get more and more straggly as the day went on and today was no exception. It was now totally grey, and she wondered when the strands would transition to all white, when the wrinkles on her face and around her eyes would deepen even more, when she’d go from not wanting to leave the house to not being able to because she was so old she could no longer manage it.
She thumped the edge of the basin. She got so angry with herself sometimes, furious she’d wasted all this time she could’ve been getting out and about, meeting new people, having a life. Instead, she was here, feeling sorry for herself. And she’d been doing it for so long she didn’t know how else to live.
She flushed the loo even though she hadn’t used it and went back to the kitchen. She may hide out from her neighbours but she couldn’t do the same inside her own home. ‘Whatever are you looking for?’ She found Sam peering at the shelves, inside cupboards.
‘Where’s all your wine?’
‘I don’t drink,’ she said, earning herself a look of absolute horror from Sam, so much so that she began to laugh and even Sam may have smirked somewhere beneath her shocked exterior.
‘What about for dinner tonight? Does Charlie drink?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Might be nice to offer him something.’
It had never been an issue before. ‘There’s an off-licence on the high street – grab something if you like.’
‘I might do and if Charlie doesn’t drink, I won’t open it.’
‘And you’re sure you don’t mind people coming?’ Veronica swung between wanting to be the boss in her own house and bending over backwards not to upset anyone.
‘Of course not.’
Maybe Sam was hoping it would be more enjoyable than the staid dinner times so far, with a lack of conversation, each of them eating as quickly as they could to avoid prolonging the agony.
Sam took out a mug and found the tea bags. She paused. ‘Tea?’
‘Yes, please,’ Veronica stammered. ‘That would be lovely.’ It was the first time the gesture had been extended; she wasn’t going to push it away now.
Who knew, maybe over time they’d be able to sit at the table and chat over a cup of tea, like any normal family?

Chapter Two
Audrey
Why did her mum have to turn up and ruin everything?
Audrey lay on her back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, earphones pushed in and Ariana Grande smashing out her music to drown everything else out. She’d already called Sid, her best friend and partner-in-crime when it came to their suspension from school, to moan to him about the unfairness of it all and despite him being in the hairdresser’s at the time, he’d let her whinge away. He was good like that; they were each other’s sounding board when it came to hassles with their parents, something they had in common.
Since coming here, not only was she beginning to enjoy Gran’s company, but, with distance between them, all the arguments with her mum had fizzled into the odd phone call rather than the millions of questions her mum fired her way, all day, every day: What are you doing? Where are you going? What time will you be back? Now her mum was here at Gran’s house too, Sam had ramped up the questioning again and was constantly nagging Audrey about being prepared for the new school year and quizzing her about whether she’d apply herself better than she did last time. Well, she hadn’t come out and said exactly that, but it was sort of implied.
Audrey had almost lost it when Sam first announced being in Mapleberry was permanent. But her fury hadn’t lasted. After all, she’d be moving a lot further away than a car trip one day, and as she wouldn’t have to go back to school with those horrible bitchy girls, she soon saw the change as a blessing in disguise. Now she was enrolled in a local school here for her second year of GCSEs and already she was feeling positive about having a fresh start. Sid was originally gutted she was staying in Mapleberry, but he was the kind of person who always looked on the bright side, and had told her she might surprise herself and enjoy it so much she never wanted to leave. She’d laughed at that.
Over the last week Audrey had channelled her frustrations into investigating make-up artist courses near here, and she’d found one at a college a short bus ride away. It meant that if her mum finally let up and didn’t make her do A levels, she could make a start on the career path she dreamed of. Then, if her application to move overseas took time, which she’d found from several