Chapter four #2
‘Good God, it’s worse than I remembered. I’ll call Jacqueline and ask her to take some of her junk home. It’s about time she sorted through it.’ Martine gingerly peered into a box. ‘Feel free to cart some of this downstairs to make space.’
‘Thanks. I’ll move it back once I know how much room I need.’ Already I knew I’d be telling the man with the van outside that we’d be making another trip to the storage units with everything but my desk chair.
Martine was peering into a shoebox marked M letters. ‘Hmm? Yes, of course. Do whatever you need to do.’ She tucked the box under her arm and handed me the keys. ‘I’ll leave you to settle in.’
I hesitated, lost for words. I wanted to say something to acknowledge how much it had meant to have been offered this lifeline, by someone who hadn’t seen me for years, and didn’t really know me all that well in the first place.
Fraser loved his mother, but he always said they got on best when they spent a maximum of thirty-six hours together at a time.
‘She has an obsession with improving things,’ he said, ‘and I’m happy with how I am. ’
I didn’t mind being given advice, though. I still used Martine’s trick with a needle for making tulips stand up in a vase.
‘I really appreciate this,’ I started. ‘It’s so kind of you to help me out. Even though we’re not . . . I mean, I’m not . . .’
Martine patted my arm. ‘Glad to be able to help, Beth. Now, make yourself at home. I’m sure that dog of yours is dying to get out of the van and have a sniff around the garden. You should get your laptop out and try to write a chapter or two before bed, too! No time like the present!’
I listened to her tapping her way down the stairs, then the double ker-clunk of the door.
Outside, birds were singing in the long garden that separated the Hendersons’ house from the garage, and I closed my eyes to listen for a moment, feeling the peace and quiet and relief seep into my bones.
This wasn’t my home, and I wasn’t meant to be here, but I had the oddest certainty that the universe had delivered me to exactly the right place.
And yes, I thought, opening my eyes, maybe I would get my laptop out.
Several hours later, I closed my eyes again, this time on the sofa with a mug of tea and Tomsk draped over me like a weighted blanket, his nose exhausted from a long inspection of our new neighbourhood.
My back ached and I’d broken three nails. But I was in.
The van man and I had stacked the boxes and general junk in the corner of the room and thrown dustsheets over the rest. Once it was piled up, I’d discovered a red Persian rug framing the seating area, and a gas fire on the far wall, surrounded by yellow tiles that fanned out in sunrays.
Along one shelf was a collection of solitary Staffordshire dogs of various sizes and colours, some tiny and black with gold features, some huge and white, covered in spiderweb crazing.
Most of my stuff had gone to the storage unit, but I had what I needed for the time being: my work chair, my kitchen essentials, some books and a bag of clothes.
It was funny, but not being surrounded by familiar things made it easier: more like being on holiday for a few weeks than rudely ejected from my own life.
Besides, there was enough immediate admin to distract me from darker thoughts – stopping redirections, cancelling utilities, and so on – and when my phone rang at half-five, I was surprised to see how late it had got.
‘Beth?’ It was Jackie.
I sat up straighter on the sofa. ‘Hello!’
‘Beth, I’ve just had a call from Mum – she says you’ve moved into the coach house? Is that right?’
‘Um, yes?’ The way she said it made me wonder if there was a right and a wrong answer. ‘Just for a few weeks, until this new flat is available. It’s incredibly kind of her, I don’t know what I’d have done otherwise.’
‘Oh! OK.’ Jackie sounded wrongfooted. Hadn’t Martine discussed it with her first?
‘If she called you asking you to move some of your boxes there’s absolutely no rush,’ I added, in case she was feeling aggrieved about that. ‘I’ve moved them downstairs but I can bring them back up when I move out.’
‘No, it’s fine, they’ve been there thirty-odd years, I can’t say I’ve needed whatever’s in them. I’ll come round soon and get them out of your way. It would be good to have, um . . . a chat with you, in any case.’
I braced. About what? Fraser? Had he got married? Would he mind me being here?
‘It’s just that . . .’ She seemed to be struggling for the right words.
‘Look, it’s only fair that you know – Mum’s amazing for her age, don’t get me wrong, but she’s not quite as hale and hearty as she makes out.
We’re all worried that house is getting too much for her.
I mean, it is too much for her. It’s ridiculous, it was too big for her and Dad, but she refuses to discuss any help.
And I’m not sure she’s always completely aware of—’ She stopped herself.
‘I’ll be honest, Beth, after that fall last week I tried to persuade her again to think about somewhere more manageable, but she simply won’t accept she’s not fifty anymore. ’
I murmured sympathetically, but was privately rooting for Martine here; Coleridge Drive was a dream home. You’d have had to drag me out of it too.
‘So while it is very kind of her to let you camp out there,’ she went on, ‘I have to warn you that it’s probably one of her little schemes.
I asked her what would happen if she fell down the stairs, whether she was happy knowing help wasn’t exactly at the bottom of the garden.
’ Jackie let out a frustrated breath. ‘And now – conveniently – there is help at the bottom of the garden. You! I’m sorry, Beth.
You know what Mum can be like. I don’t want you to get dragged into one of our ridiculous family mind games. ’
Honestly? Quite apart from the fact that it solved my housing problem, it was actually almost heartwarming to be dragged into the Henderson family’s goings-on.
Admittedly, it took a tiny bit of shine off Martine’s generous offer, but part of me was flattered that she trusted me enough to involve me in her plan.
After all, hadn’t she said she didn’t want just anyone renting the garage flat?
‘I appreciate you telling me that,’ I said, ‘but she’s doing me a huge favour, and it shouldn’t be for too long. I’m happy to keep a discreet eye on her, if it puts your mind at rest?’
‘Would you?’ Jackie sounded weary. ‘I worry about Mum, but I can’t be in ten different places at once. I suggested we have a look at a lovely assisted living place just up the road and you’d think I’d asked her for her funeral plans.’
‘It must be hard, being here without your dad.’
‘Yes.’ A sigh of remorse. ‘Yes, of course it is. They were such a pair of bookends, Mum and Dad. But part of the reason he sold the business was so they wouldn’t have any worries about decent care when they needed it, and—’ She stopped.
‘Sorry, you don’t need to know all this.
We must have a coffee some time, catch up! ’
‘I’d love that.’ I wasn’t sure if Jackie meant it, but it felt nice to be asked.
We said our goodbyes, and I’d nearly put the phone down when Jackie said something I didn’t quite catch.
‘Sorry?’
‘I said, watch out for the servant’s bell.’
‘The what?’
She laughed. ‘Sorry, that’s just me being mean. Probably doesn’t even work anymore. Take care!’
I’d gone to bed, and was nearly asleep when I heard something ringing, a shrill peal like an old-fashioned telephone. It was coming from the sitting room but I definitely hadn’t seen a phone in there.
For a second, I thought I was dreaming but Tomsk was already sitting up in his basket, growling low under his breath. The whites of his eyes gleamed in the dark as he scanned the darkened room.
I sat up, heart hammering. Was this place haunted? Was that what Jackie had meant? Did their au pairs complain of a ghostly bell waking them? Surely that would have been part of the family folklore if so?
The phantom telephone carried on ringing. I swung my legs out of bed, and followed the sound. Where was it coming from?
And then I saw it, hidden at an angle on the wall by the window: an old 1970s handset like the one in the kitchen of the main house. Tentatively, I lifted it, bracing myself for the crackle of static (I listened to a lot of podcasts about ghosts).
‘Hello? Hello?’ said a very real voice.
‘Martine?’
‘Beth! Did I wake you?’
‘No,’ I lied.
There was a clock on the wall: it was quarter to one.
I had no idea Martine kept such late hours; she’d always gone to bed at ten whenever Fraser and I visited.
I leaned to one side to see out of the window and saw two long windows illuminated upstairs in the main house, elegant rectangles of dull gold against the darkness.
‘I just wanted to see if this still worked. I thought it might have been disconnected but obviously not! We found it so handy for the au pairs, so we didn’t have to be running up and down the garden to get them.’
I wondered if that had happened a lot.
‘Did you need something?’ I asked.
‘No, no, I just wanted to check you were settled in, had hot water and so on.’
‘Yes, everything’s fine, thank you.’ Did Martine know it was nearly one in the morning?
‘Wonderful. Do shout if you need anything.’
‘I will! And of course, give me a ring if you need anything,’ I said, without thinking.
‘So kind of you,’ said Martine. ‘Goodnight, Beth!’
And she hung up.
I stood there in the darkness, staring at my bare feet in a pool of moonlight on the parquet floor.
That was weird, I thought. If this was a fairytale, I’d basically spoken the words that made me staff, just like the chauffeur, the housekeeper and all the au pairs.
Don’t be so dramatic, I told myself, and went back to bed.