Chapter 5
PHYLLIS
Phyllis had known something was going to come along to upturn her world.
The tea leaves had told her so this morning, but she was still stunned at the speed it had happened, and the callous way she’d been treated.
She had done her best to look after Joyce, and it hadn’t been easy after the fall had made Joyce practically bedridden.
Now she was getting worse and Phyllis had been thinking of quitting work so that she could look after her full-time.
It seemed that Joyce’s son, Howard, who had finally been visiting his mother regularly just lately for the first time in years, had noticed her decline too.
On the way out on Sunday, just two days ago, he had informed Phyllis that his mother needed professional care, so he had arranged for her to go into a home where she could be properly looked after.
And he would be clearing out the house and selling it, which meant Phyllis had to go.
‘You can’t just turf me out,’ Phyllis had protested. ‘You have to give me time to find somewhere else to live.’
‘I’m not obliged to do anything. You’ve been freeloading off my mother for years.
You can’t expect it to continue now that she needs more care and has had to go into a home.
However, I’m a reasonable man, so I’ll give you until the end of the week.
Then your things will be placed in the shed outside and the locks changed,’ Howard told her firmly.
He was such an odious man. He’d never approved of Joyce and Phyllis’s relationship, blaming Phyllis for taking advantage of his mother when she was lonely after his father died.
So that was it. After all their years together.
* * *
At first they’d been friends, meeting up for a chat, a shopping trip, sometimes a meal when Joyce’s husband, Cecil, was alive, then more regularly after he had died.
Finally acknowledging the depth of their feelings for each other they had become lovers ten years ago.
Phyllis had never had children, or married, living most of her life in a caravan on various mobile home parks.
She had been brought up by her grandmother, in a caravan, and preferred a small place.
It was cosier. She’d been living happily on a small residential park for years, but then five years ago the owners had sold the site and the new manager had decided all the older vans had to go, including Phyllis’s, which – to be fair – was falling apart.
‘Come and keep me company. I hate living in that empty house all by myself,’ Joyce had said when Phyllis had told her what had happened.
She’d asked her a few times previously but Phyllis had been worried about giving up her independence.
This time she’d agreed, and it had been a good decision.
She and Joyce were no longer lovers but still good friends and got on well.
They often sat together in the lounge in the evenings watching a film, drinking a hot toddy and talking about the old times.
If ever Joyce got a bit narky, Phyllis either went out or retreated to her own room and left her alone.
Given a bit of space, Joyce soon came out of her mood.
Everything was fine until Joyce had that fall a few months ago.
She’d tripped over the old rug in the hall and hit her head on the telephone table – Joyce insisted on keeping her landline.
Phyllis had found her lying there when she came home from work, conscious but unable to move, and had called an ambulance immediately.
It turned out that Joyce had hurt her back and broken her leg.
She’d been practically bedridden since and Phyllis had looked after her the best she could, which had been difficult because Joyce was fiercely independent and hated not being able to care for herself.
Now she understood why Howard had started popping in every so often to spend a bit of time with his mother.
Phyllis had realised that he’d been secretly plotting to have Joyce put in a home, even getting the family doctor on side.
Poor Joyce, she’d always worried about going into a home.
She must be terrified at the news. Or maybe Howard hadn’t told her and was just going ahead and arranging it. She wouldn’t put anything past him.
Phyllis had gone straight up to see Joyce, she’d been lying down in bed, her eyes closed.
‘Joyce darling, are you asleep?’ Phyllis had sat down in the chair by her side and taken Joyce’s thin, cold hand in hers.
Joyce’s eyes had fluttered open. ‘I take it Howard has told you?’
So she did know. Phyllis had nodded and squeezed Joyce’s hand comfortingly. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I can’t carry on like this. I’ve known it’s coming. I’ll be fine.’
Phyllis had placed her other hand on Joyce’s cheek. ‘I’ll come and visit. And when you get stronger…’
She’d left the sentence unfinished because they both knew that Joyce wasn’t going to get stronger.
‘Lie with me, just one more night,’ Joyce had whispered.
* * *
So last night Phyllis had shared Joyce’s bed, holding her close, and they had both cried a little.
Today she’d come home from work to find Joyce gone.
Howard hadn’t wasted any time. He’d left a note by the phone telling Phyllis the address of the home Joyce was in and Phyllis was going to visit her tomorrow.
Then, somehow, she had to find somewhere to live because she would be homeless at the end of the week.
She had known that this day would come. Joyce had told her a few years ago that she’d transferred ownership of the house to Howard not long after Clive had died, to avoid inheritance tax.
‘He’s my only child; it will be his when I’m gone,’ she’d said.
Phyllis had started putting a bit of money away in order to buy a caravan again but she hadn’t expected it this soon, and didn’t have enough saved yet.
‘What do we do now, Cobweb?’ she asked, stroking her little black cat. She adored Cobweb, and so did Joyce. Phyllis had found Cobweb when she was foraging for berries a few years ago. She was just a tiny kitten then and had been dumped in a box in a hedge, a cobweb hanging from one ear.
Phyllis had taken her back home and she and Joyce had become very fond of her.
Cobweb was no trouble. She slept in Phyllis’s room and kept Joyce company all day when Phyllis was at work.
They had a cat flap fitted to the back door so that Cobweb could come and go as she pleased.
When poor Joyce became bedridden, Phyllis would often come home to find Cobweb curled up on Joyce’s bed.
Cobweb looked up and stared at her, her black pupils growing bigger until there was hardly any of the yellow iris showing. Then she jumped down and trotted over to her food dish.
There wasn’t much time to sort herself out, but she had to do something or she and Cobweb would be on the streets.
Phyllis ran through the list of friends who might be able to offer her a sofa to sleep on.
Or perhaps, she could use the storeroom of Mystic Quartz, the holistic gift shop she worked in, for a while until she sorted herself out.
It would be a squash and there were no bathing facilities, only the sink in the small kitchen at the back of the shop, and an outside loo.
Still, it was better than nothing and she knew that Aurora, the shop owner, wouldn’t mind.
She’d see what her tea leaves said in the morning. She always preferred a morning reading. It was far more accurate. Hopefully the leaves would give her some guidance.