Danielle stared down at her hands as Ronnie answered the phone. "Hello?" her mother spoke casually, not sounding interested. Then Danielle looked up and saw her mother freeze instantly. She shivered visibly. "What? When?" After a few seconds she slammed the phone down.
"Mum?" Danielle said quietly, suddenly afraid.
Ronnie looked back at Danielle. "S-Sorry.. that was Roxy.. something's happened. I'll go and get your stuff from the B&B and then I just need to pop over to the Vic again, all right?"
Danielle nodded slowly at her mother, feeling utterly nonplussed.
Ronnie didn't even smile at her as she wrenched her coat off the nearby chair and raced towards the front door. She was gone from the flat in a flash. Shivering slightly, Danielle rose and walked over to the window, watching her mother cross the street. She looked deeply distressed.
Suddenly exhausted again, Danielle retreated to Ronnie's bedroom and lay down for a while, promising herself that she would wake up again when her mother got back.
-
"She's got some nerve."
Ronnie was beside herself as she paced furiously around the living room upstairs in the Vic, arms folded across her chest. She shook her head in disgust, hardly able to believe it. Roxy looked on helplessly, and looking at her, Ronnie saw the fear in her sister's eyes.
"Ronnie, just don't lose it, all right? Maybe she's got a good reason for--"
"She's got no reason!" Ronnie exclaimed, throwing her hands up. "She lost all sense of reason the day she walked out on us!"
"I know," Roxy muttered, "but maybe we should just hear her out. It's been ten years, Ron. She's probably changed a lot since then."
"Twenty years," Ronnie stated flatly, suddenly realising how long it had been since she and Roxy had seen their mother. She still remembered the day she'd walked out on them. At first Ronnie had blamed Archie, and in some ways she still did, but after a few years she had began to wonder why their mother hadn't tried to get in touch. Ronnie had finally managed to track her down and she and Roxy had flown over to Australia to confront their mother, only to find she had started a new life, with a new man. She even had more children now, a girl and a boy. Ronnie had been heartbroken and had vowed never to speak to her mother again. And now that ungrateful cow was coming here, to Walford? It couldn't be happening, it just couldn't.
"You," she pointed a finger at Roxy, "You have to phone her back. Tell her she's not welcome 'round here."
"She's going to come anyway!" Roxy argued back.
"That's what you want, is it? For her to come here and interrupt our lives? I mean, she didn't want us before. Probably wants money or something."
"Yeah, but even so," Roxy sighed and ran a hand through her hair, "It's been a long time, Ronnie. When I spoke on the phone to her she told me she'd moved back to England from Australia. She's divorced now, you know, from that bloke she met back there. She's got two kids, though. A boy, he's eighteen, and a girl, she's only twelve."
Ronnie suddenly felt sick, imaging her mother fussing over those children back in Australia, those children that meant nothing to Ronnie. She wouldn't even allow herself to think about them. The fact that she now had a half brother and half sister didn't bother her. She wanted nothing to do with them or their traitor of a mother.
"Ronnie? Are you all right?"
Ronnie stared down at the floor and heaved a sigh. "No," she answered shortly, not looking at Roxy.
"When is she coming?" she asked hoarsely, after an uncomfortable silence.
"She said she should be here by tomorrow," Roxy responded quietly.
Tomorrow? Well, Ronnie refused to deal with this. All she wanted now was to get things back to normal, to be with her daughter, to run the club and get on with her life. She didn't need people like her mother, Jack Branning, and even Roxy interfering with this. And no matter what happened, she wasn't letting her mother get near Danielle. That was the last thing the girl needed.
"You can talk to her," Ronnie started tonelessly, "You can bond with her, talk about all the things that have happened to us since she left. Talk to her about Dad, that'll get her back up." Then she looked at Roxy threateningly and said, "But if you so much as breathe a word to her about Danielle, then I'll wring your neck."
Roxy looked slightly amused. "Why shouldn't she know about Danielle?"
"Because I don't want Danielle to get mixed up in all this," Ronnie said, "And as long as Mum doesn't know she exists, she won't be."
"So you're going to leave Danielle in the flat, alone, while Mum's here? And act like she's not there?"
"I never said that," Ronnie spat, "I'll stay with her, Mum will never see either of us. You'd better convince her to leave pretty sharpish, because I'm not having her stay here for anything over a couple of days."
"Ronnie.." Roxy began exasperatedly, but Ronnie had already turned on her heel and stormed out.
-
The Vic was reasonably crowded that evening, but this didn't really bother Danielle much. She was hardly even in any pain. Just being here, sitting with her newfound family was enough to make her forget everything else. They were seated on the sofa near the bar. Danielle was sitting beside Ronnie, while Roxy lounged easily in the chair to their left. Phil had even chosen to join them. Peggy was still upstairs, having refused to come down.
Though her mother was still noticeably tense, Ronnie had calmed down considerably since that morning. She had even apologised profusely to Danielle when she'd returned to the flat with Danielle's clothes and other things she'd picked up from the B&B. Now she slipped an arm around Danielle, who smiled happily.
"Is she ever gonna come out of her room?" Roxy asked Phil with a frown. Phil shrugged.
"She's heartbroken," he said matter-of-factly, "It'll take a while but she'll be back to her old self soon."
"She's gonna be okay, isn't she?" Danielle asked, feeling partly responsible for causing Peggy pain.
"Course she is," Ronnie replied with a reassuring grin, "You know Peggy, she can get through anything."
"Ronnie," Roxy interrupted suddenly, looking over at the bar, "Jack's here. He's staring at you."
Ronnie huffed and didn't turn around to look. Her arm tightened around Danielle's shoulder.
"Let him look," she said, loud enough for Jack to hear. He looked slightly bemused.
Danielle wondered what the problem was. Ronnie and Roxy had been exchanging dark looks with eachother all evening, and it was beginning to get on her nerves. She decided she would ask Ronnie what was up as soon as they got home.
However, Danielle found she didn't have to wait that long. Several minutes later, she heard the door open behind her and felt a pleasant breeze come in from outside. She then saw the colour drain from Roxy's face. Ronnie looked around the same time as Danielle did, and she too looked as though she'd seen a ghost.
Danielle was confused. All she could see was a random woman standing in the doorway, looking like any of the other women who came in for a drink after a hard day's work. Then she looked closer, and noticed something. The woman was staring over her, her eyes specifically fixed on Ronnie. Danielle glanced at her mother, who's bottom lip was starting to shake.
Everything had quietened down considerably. Most people were looking over at the woman, while some were staring at Ronnie. The woman walked in, closing the door behind her. "Veronica, Roxy," she said in almost a whisper. "I.. I don't know what to say."
