Free High Tide by Veronica Henry Page B

to them, sausage rolls and mushroom vol au vents. And on the next table, fruit loaf and Victoria sponge and flapjacks. All the sorts of things her mother used to make.
    It made her feel nostalgic and homesick and above all moved by the generosity of her mother’s friends, who had all pitched in and brought something.
    Someone was pouring tea from the urn.
    The cup that cheers but does not inebriate, thought Kate, accepting a cup and saucer gratefully. It was just what she needed. That time-honoured cure for all ills. There was no worry that her mother couldn’t chase away with a cup of tea.
    Kate never drank tea in New York.
    She helped herself to a cucumber sandwich and was immediately transported back to the summer of her childhood. It was amazing how taste could hold so many memories. If she shut her eyes, she would be there on the beach, sheltered from the wind by a gaily coloured wind-break, her hair whipping round her head.
    A woman touched her on the arm.
    ‘You won’t know me,’ she said, ‘but your mother was so kind to me. When I lost my husband, she forced me out of the house and made me join the choir. It was the best thing I ever did.’
    Kate smiled. Her mother had taken the choir very seriously, even though she wasn’t religious.
    ‘Were you singing today?’ she asked.
    The woman nodded. ‘I like to think Joy would have appreciated it.’
    ‘The singing was beautiful. And she absolutely would have.’
    ‘I was so grateful to her. She was very special.’
    Kate ventured another smile, but she could feel her chin wobble slightly. She lifted the cup to her lips to hide her lack of composure and turned away. She stood for a moment, but she could feel the tears coming. She put her cup down and walked into the kitchen, hoping no one would notice.
    The kitchen hadn’t changed an iota. It even smelled the same, of bleach and beef consommé. How many times had she helped her mum with functions in here, plating up ploughmans for the harvest supper, or scooping out mulled wine into plastic cups for the Christmas bazaar? She could remember her sixteenth birthday party, serving up hot dogs at nine o’clock because her mum (quite rightly) said everyone’s stomach needed lining. Even now she could see the disco lights swirling round the ceiling, yellow and red and green, faster and faster because someone had tipped a half-bottle of rum into the punch.
    She stood in the corner of the kitchen, behind the door of the cupboard that held the mops and buckets, and wept. She didn’t think she was ever going to stop.
    ‘Hey.’ It was Debbie. Debbie, who unlike most of Pennfleet had done herself up to the nines in a shiny tight black dress and four-inch heels and her hair pulled back in a bun high on her head. ‘Come here.’
    She pulled Kate into her and held her tight, rocking her back and forth and shushing her, as she would her own children. ‘You cry, my lovely. You cry.’
    Gradually Kate’s sobs died down. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘This place brings so many memories of her, that’s all.’
    Debbie ignored her apology.
    ‘I remember when I threw up all over your parents’ couch after your party,’ she said. ‘We’d been drinking that punch all night and it was lethal. Your mum made me clear it up. But then she put me to bed and she was really kind.’
    ‘Yeah – put you into my bed,’ remembered Kate. ‘I had to sleep on the floor.’
    ‘You always had a better head for drink than me.’
    ‘Not now,’ said Kate. ‘I’m a real lightweight.’
    ‘Me too. With four kids. I fall over after one glass of wine.’
    The two of them laughed. For a moment it was as if they were back in the school canteen, planning their next escapade.
    ‘What are you doing tonight?’ asked Debbie.
    ‘I don’t know. Just going home, I suppose.’
    ‘You don’t want to be on your own, surely?’
    Kate didn’t know what she wanted. She didn’t want to go back to her parents’ empty house, but at the same time she