Page 16 of Little Wing
‘I don’t – you can have it. I did what you said and looked on eBay and found a plate and saucer going for a tenner. But I only needed the plate. So – you can have this. The saucer. You can just – have it.’
‘But—’
‘You can just have it,’ said Nell, slightly taken aback that there was no smile coming her way, just suspicion. ‘Seriously. My mum has the cup and saucer – she broke the plate, she said, when she first got it. So I found a plate – and, look, the saucer’s for you.’
The shopkeeper examined the saucer again.
‘You never know,’ Nell said, ‘maybe someone’ll come by and they’ve got the plate and they’re looking for these.’
‘I can give you, say, a fiver off anything in the shop.’
‘It’s just for you,’ Nell said. ‘Honestly. I don’t want anything for it. Just – have it.’
And then she thought oh shit, his eyes are welling up.
‘It’s the smallest things,’ the shopkeeper said, putting the teacup onto the saucer. He took Nell’s hand and held it. ‘Thanks, love.’
Spring’s imminence was a comfort akin to a favourite piece of music playing quietly in the background, all of the time. Mid-March wasn’t spring proper, but there were bulbs in bloom, something about the sunlight being less watery and the air carrying a scent that was positively unwintry. Spring was defiantly on its way, winter was almost done. Nell felt light and happy leaving the shop, popping into the café to be hugged but not needed, and heading off to visit her mother; a sense of triumph wrapped up with the plate.
The tearoom downstairs was quite lively with families visiting and the scamper of grandchildren weaving a joyous energy through the legs of the tables and chairs, laughter bouncing up from the sofas. Nell wondered if her mother ever ventured down here at such times, to the welcome contagion of affection. She doubted it. Her mother would tell them to turn the volume down, more like. Nell smiled in the vague direction of everybody, waved to Sylvie and then climbed the stairs to her mother’s room.
Telly on. Mum in a chair. Not much response.
‘Hello, Mum. It’s Nell.’
‘It’s Julie Andrews!’
Her mother was watchingThe Princess Diaries.
‘I’ve never actually seen this film,’ Nell said. ‘Can I make you a cup of tea?’
‘Shh, Nell, shh!’
If Nell’s day had been a good one thus far, it had just got exponentially better. Whenhadher mother last called her Nell? She sat on the edge of the bed, close to the chair, and didn’t really mind whether they got round to the plate or not. Her mother had told her to be quiet. Shh, Nell, shh.
‘Oh, I could watch that all over again!’
‘They’ll probably repeat it sometime soon,’ said Nell. ‘How are you, Mum?’
Her mother was zapping through channels, increasingly annoyed at there being nothing on that she wanted to watch.
‘Cuppa, Mum?’
I’ll keep saying it. I’ll keep reminding you that you’re Nell’s mother.
And Nell made her mother a cup of tea in the Coronation cup. She’d brought KitKats too. She took the plate out from her bag and placed the cup and saucer on it.
‘Here you go,’ she said. And she waited.
‘Thank you, dear. I love a KitKat.’ She pulled off the paper and scored down the foil between the chocolate fingers with the edge of her thumb.
‘Mum?’ Stop looking at shit on the bloody telly! ‘The plate?Theplate?’
Very carefully, her mother put the KitKat onto the arm of the chair. She placed the cup and saucer, the tea untouched, on the windowsill. The plate was in her lap and they were both focusing on it. She lifted it up, tipped this way and that so that the light danced off the gold lines and spun depth into the turquoise glaze. A very young Queen Elizabeth looked out and over their shoulders while the lion and unicorn, dressed up to the nines, kept guard.
‘But—’ Her mother looked perplexed and her voice, when it came, was small. ‘But this isn’t mine. I broke mine.’
‘I know,’ said Nell.
