She’s looking rather pale and wan, but her dark helmet of hair is as immaculate as ever, and her back is ramrod straight.
“Ladeee!” shrieks Minnie as she spots Elinor. “Mummy!” She turns to me in joy. “Is Ladeeee!” Then she wrenches herself out of my grasp, runs to Elinor, and hurls herself affectionately against Elinor’s legs. Everyone in the place turns to watch, and I can hear a few “awwws.” I mean, whatever you think of Elinor, it’s a very sweet sight.
In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw Minnie quite so thrilled. Her whole body is shaking with excitement, and her eyes are bright, and she keeps glancing up at me as though to share the wondrous moment. Elinor looks pretty delighted to see Minnie too. Her cheeks have turned a kind of almostpink, and her frozen face has come alive.
“Well, Minnie,” I can hear her saying. “Well, now, Minnie. You’ve grown.”
Minnie is delving into Elinor’s crocodile-skin bag and triumphantly produces a jigsaw puzzle. Every time she sees Minnie, Elinor brings a different jigsaw puzzle and puts it together while Minnie watches in awe.
“We’ll do it together,” says Elinor. “It’s a view of the Wellesley-Baker Building in Boston. My great-grandfather used to own it. Your ancestor, Minnie.”
Minnie nods blankly, then turns to me.
“Mummy, Ladeeeee!” Her joy is so infectious that I find myself beaming and saying, “Yes, darling! Lady! Isn’t that lovely?”
The whole “Lady” thing began because we had to keep Minnie’s meetings with Elinor a secret from Luke, and we couldn’t risk her saying, I saw Granny Elinor today.
I mean, they still are secret. This meeting today is secret. And as I watch Minnie and Elinor gazing at each other in delight, I feel a sudden fresh resolve. This rift is stupid and sad and it has to end now. Luke and Elinor have to make up. They have family together.
I know Elinor said something tactless, or worse, about Luke’s beloved stepmother, which he was upset by. (I never got the exact details.) That’s how this whole argument began. But life can’t be about holding on to the bad things. It has to be about grabbing on to good things and letting the bad things go. Looking at Elinor as she opens the jigsaw with an ecstatic Minnie, I know she’s a good thing. For Minnie, and for me, and for Luke. I mean, she’s not perfect, but, then, who is?
“Can I offer you some tea?” A drifty girl in a linen apron and baggy white trousers has come up so silently, she makes me jump.
“Oh, yes, please,” I say. “Lovely. Just normal tea for me, thanks. And milk for my daughter.”
“ ‘Normal’ tea?” the girl echoes, as though I’m speaking Swahili. “Did you look at the tea menu?” She nods at a booklet on Elinor’s lap, which seems to be about forty pages long.
“I gave up,” says Elinor crisply. “I would like hot water and lemon, please.”
“Let’s just have a look.…” I start to skim through the booklet, but before long my eyes are blurring with type. How can there be so many teas? It’s stupid. In England you just have tea.
“We have teas for different needs,” says the girl helpfully. “We have fennel and peppermint for digestion, or red clover and nettle for skin complaints.…”
Skin complaints? I eye her suspiciously. Is she trying to say something?
“The white teas are very popular.…”
Honestly, tea isn’t supposed to be white. I don’t know what Mum would have to say to this girl. She’d probably produce a Typhoo tea bag and say, This is tea, love.
“Do you have a tea for making life totally brilliant in every way?” I say, just to wind the girl up.
“Yes,” she says, without missing a beat. “Our hibiscus, orange, and St. John’s wort tea promotes an improved sense of well-being through mood enhancement. We call it our happy tea.”
“Oh,” I say, taken aback. “Well, I’d better have that one, then. Would you like that, Elinor?”
“I do not wish to have my mood enhanced, thank you.” She gives the girl a stern look.
That’s a shame. I’d love to see Elinor on happy pills. She might smile properly for once. Except then she’d probably crack, it occurs to me. White powder would fall from the corners of her lips, and suddenly her whole face would disintegrate into plaster dust and whatever else they’ve patched her up with.
The girl has given our order to a passing guy in what looks like a Tibetan monk’s outfit and now turns back.
“May I offer you a complementary reflexology session or other holistic therapy?”
