Mum was slightly bucked up by the lovely new beaded bag she’d got from one of her suppliers – handmade, she told me – and she turned the car radio on. Music meant she was a rung above her lowest ebb.
I kept up a stream of neutral chatter about local events, avoiding any references to Animal, or even Joss. Relationships were not to be touched upon.
But she surprised me, as we parked the car outside the wedding venue, by bringing it up herself.
‘Don’t blame Animal,’ she said. ‘It’s not his fault.’
‘I wasn’t blaming anyone. Sometimes these things don’t last. It’s life. Look at me and Károly.’
‘Yes. And now you’ve got your lord.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say “got” him,’ I said, but my cheeks heated a little at the thought of us being an item.
‘Don’t you see a future in it, then?’ The word ‘future’ seemed to depress her again and she laid her head against the window.
‘I don’t know what the future will bring,’ I said to her. ‘Maybe you could do a Tarot reading for us?’
She smiled. I had hit the right note.
‘Maybe I will,’ she said. ‘Soon as we get back, I’ll get the cards out.’ She turned eyes to me, old eyes, older than I’d ever seen them look. ‘I bumped into somebody earlier in the week.’
‘Did you? Who was that then?’
I hoped it wasn’t the boyfriend before Animal. She’d had to get a non-molestation order out on him in the end.
‘Don’t look so worried, angel. Not Raggy, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
Sigh of relief.
‘No. Your dad.’
‘My …?’
I didn’t have a dad. Never had one. Never even knew his name – in fact, mum had always said she didn’t know his name. They had met at some sort of rave or free festival or something, too much wacky baccy was taken and I was the result.
‘Your father?’
‘Yes, I know what a dad is, thanks. I just never t
hought I had one. You said you didn’t know who he was … his name, I mean.’
‘That’s what I said.’
I gaped. ‘You mean … you’re telling me that wasn’t true? That you did know his name?’
‘I knew the name he gave me, which wasn’t the right one. I tried to get in touch when I knew you were on the way, but he’d told me a false name, so I couldn’t.’
‘What a bastard.’
She shrugged.
‘I did the same thing. Told him my name was Rainbow.’
I almost laughed but, let’s face it, a person called Lucy-In-The-Sky-With-Diamonds has no room to mock anybody’s name.
‘What did he say he was called?’
‘Yevgeniy Onegin.’