Chapter 18
18
T en am on a Saturday morning and Kay stood in her lovely floral bedroom, hair dripping, tea cooling as she looked out of the window, thinking the same question she’d been thinking for the last few days. Since she’d found a space, that is, to resurrect this particular worry, dust it off and hang it out again. Caro seemed to be fine, Helen was headily in love with her new grandson of course, her mother was finally in a safe place, her father… resigned, and Amanda Woods (she’d heard via an email from Nick, who couldn’t resist violating even the sanctity of the summer holidays) had been happy with the new (inflated) grade that Zac had earned from the re-mark. Plus, her place on the unconscious bias workshop was booked for September. At last! Time to spare for her to start again with all her Alex-shaped worries. Which always began and ended with, why? Why hadn’t she learned to understand that when Alex set his mind to do something, he did it.
She wrapped her hands around her mug and held it at her chin, the steam damp on her lips. There he was now, in the drive with Shook. Together they were fixing heavy-duty straps over the trailer, over all those boxed up bits that had arrived throughout the spring and were now transformed into a contraption Evil Knievel would have been proud of.
And she’d laughed? When, at the end of another mind-bogglingly boring episode of Rust to Riches, he’d declared his intention, she’d laughed? She took a sip of tea, head shaking in disbelief.
When Alex was two, he could spend an entire nursery session threading paper loops, an activity the other children tired of in ten minutes. And at five, when she’d popped up the road to the Khans to see how their new driveway was coming along, Hassan had let Alex sit in the mini digger. Five minutes – while the adults went inside. An hour and ten minutes later she’d had to come and fetch him, after he’d worked out how to move the digger forwards and backwards, thus digging a strip of the Khans’ front garden. (Which needed doing anyway, but that wasn’t the point). So why the hell had she laughed at those boxes? Because if there was one person in the world with the patience and tunnel vision required to re-build a motorcycle from scratch, it was Alex.
As if he had heard the frenetic thrum of her thoughts, Shook looked up and waved.
Kay waved back. What a good and kind man he was. Always helping her and Alex. Never wanting or expecting anything in return. This was why she would never move. The neighbours on her street, the old timers she’d grown up with and these newcomers, were like extended family. She held her cup up and pointed at it, mouthing Tea?
Grinning, Shook gave her a thumbs up.
They’d be leaving within ten minutes and then she needed to fill her day. She’d already rung her dad who’d told her to stop worrying and do something nice. Her mother was fine. Confused, but fine. And no he didn’t need a lift because he wasn’t going today. Lindsey from Ashdown House had already rung and advised him to leave it twenty-four hours to help her mother settle. Bemused, Kay had ended the call wondering, not for the first time, at her father's readiness to acquiesce in the decisions of the professionals. Leave it to them had always been his mantra. He was of that generation who thought doctors were gods. And although she wasn’t entirely convinced that not visiting was the best way to settle her mother, she wasn’t going to go against her father either.
So what would she do? She turned to her wardrobe. Sort it out? The idea wilted before it had even begun blooming. She just didn’t have the stamina. Even after a good night’s sleep, she seemed to wake nowadays with energy levels already drained to half empty. Doctors, Kay, she whispered. You must make a time.
Two minutes later she was dressed in her uniform of leggings and t-shirt and on her way downstairs to make more tea.
In the kitchen Shook was washing his hands at the kitchen sink. He looked over his shoulder and nodded at her phone. ‘Been ringing non-stop,’ he said.
Kay picked it up. There were five missed calls from Helen who would, Kay knew, be ringing to discuss Caro. Again. As if constantly recycling the story was going to effect a different ending. It wouldn’t and the only person who seemed unable to accept that was Helen. Which was ironic, given that Helen had had the strongest resistance to Caro’s pregnancy in the first place. The episode had been awful and sad, but Caro seemed to have moved on and Kay had enough on her plate with her mother’s move and her job situation. She put the phone down and handed Shook a tea towel.
‘He’s a good mechanic,’ Shook said, drying his pink, scrubbed hands. ‘Who taught him?’
‘Alex?’ She handed him a cup. ‘He taught himself.’
‘No one showed him?’
‘No. I certainly didn’t, and his father couldn’t tell one end of a spanner from the other.’
‘Well, he knows what he’s doing. It’s impressive.’
Kay sighed. She looked out through the open kitchen door to the drive where her son stood, hands on hips, broad shoulders, surveying the trailer. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘I suppose it is.’ How tall he was, her boy. Her man now. ‘Alex? Tea?’
Alex shook his head. ‘We need to be leaving soon.’
She nodded. Of course they did. A cup of tea wasn’t going to stop him. Nothing was.
‘Better get on then.’ Shook winked and gulped his own tea back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He started towards the door and as he did, her phone started ringing.
Helen.
Again.
Six calls now, which even for Helen wasn’t right. Kay picked it up and turned to Shook. There was something she wanted to say before he left. Needed to say. ‘Wait a minute?’ she called and into the phone said, ‘Helen.’ Then, ‘What—’ Frowning, her hand went up in a stop sign, both to Shook in the doorway, and Helen across town. ‘Slow down,’ she said.
Shook slowed to a standstill. At the other end of the line, Helen rushed on.
‘Helen! Slow— Helen! ’ Kay glanced at Shook. ‘You’re not making any sense. Slow down. Start again.’
And as Helen finally slowed, and Kay listened, her hand came to her brow. ‘She just quit? Well, how bad? How bad was the stroke?… No…’ She spoke slowly now. ‘I agree,’ she said. ‘I think we should… We can go in mine… Helen! ’ Again her palm went up and she almost had to shout. ‘ I’ll drive. I can pick you up in ten.’
‘Trouble?’ Shook asked as the call ended.
Kay nodded. ‘Caro's mother has had a stroke and… well, no one can get hold of her, Caro that is. Helen’s car is in the garage,’ she said vacantly. ‘Helen thinks we should go down. Check she’s OK.’
Shook frowned. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said and stared at her phone as if she’d forgotten what a phone was. ‘The thing is, she’s quit her job.’
‘Doesn’t sound good.’ Shook stuck his lower lip out.
‘It’s not.’ Kay paused. ‘Caro… I can’t imagine it. Caro loves her job.’
‘Is this the Caro who was here when I did the electrics in the bedroom?’
‘Yes.’ Kay looked at him. When did Shook put the extra socket in her bedroom? Before Cyprus? It seemed odd to her that he should remember. ‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘That was Caro.’ And without stopping to think, added, ‘She’s just lost a baby and now she’s quit her job.’
‘Baby?’
‘I don’t mean lost…’ Kay blurted. ‘I mean… I mean she was expecting… and now she isn’t. She had a miscarriage. It was quite bad. There were some complications and she had to have a hysterectomy…’ If Kay could have stopped talking, she would have. If a celestial hand had appeared and slapped it across her wide open mouth she wouldn’t have resisted. Why did she keep going? Because it was clear by the mix of emotions passing through Shook’s face that she should have stopped three sentences ago. Sometimes that happened though, didn’t it? Words just came out. Fell… spewed… To avoid adding to Shook’s discomfiture, she looked at her phone again.
His face a deep red, he nodded.
‘We’re… Anyway, my other friend thinks we should go and try and find her…’ And again Kay trailed off to study her hand, as if it wasn’t her phone she was holding but a tiny Helen calling out instructions.
‘Are you worried?’
Kay looked up. ‘Yes,’ she answered. Caro quitting her job, not answering her phone, were so far out of character as to be… worrying. Her legs went airy and her stomach went cold. She’d known Caro for many years and through some awful times, the worst of which was so recent, but Caro had never gone AWOL like this. She always responded to a text or a missed call. It wasn’t in her nature not to, she was too diligent. Even the night before her ex, Mike, had got married, when she’d shut herself away for the weekend, she’d still responded to Kay’s text: Are you alright? Fine, just need to be alone. And just a couple of weeks ago, when she came out of hospital, I’m fine, Kay. Honestly, I’m fine.
‘You should go then.’
Shook’s calm voice stirred her. Kay looked at him.
‘It sounds like she might need her friends,’ he said. ‘You should go.’
Lips pressed tight together, Kay turned the phone over. Shook was right. Caro, who had never admitted to needing anyone in her life. Who had never really had anyone in her life, needed her friends now like she never had before. Even, Kay decided, if she didn’t know that herself.
‘We need to be going as well.’
‘Shook?’ There was a note of pain in Kay’s voice, as if it had been pinched. This was it. This was what she needed to say before they left. ‘You’ll look after him, won’t you? Alex? He’s all I’ve got.’
Shook smiled and all the cragged lines of his face folded upward like a pleated fan. ‘Like he was my own, Kay,’ he said.
The pressure eased, her voice softened. 'Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’