Chapter seventeen #2
I peered cautiously out of the window, not wanting to be seen.
Three teenage boys were now slouching by the elm tree, with a fourth, smaller boy dangling on the ancient swing suspended from the lowest branch.
I could tell they were related by their studious ignoring of each other, as well as their identical mops of blond hair.
All four were engrossed with their phones, until the peace was broken by a shriek from inside.
‘Cooper! Cooper, get off!’ A woman came running out of the house, jabbing her finger at the tree. ‘It’s not safe! Get off now!’
Cara! I thought, with a flutter of excitement. She hadn’t changed. Same shoulder-length executive hair, same statement black glasses, but now with a noticeable mid-Atlantic accent.
She glared back towards the house, and yelled, ‘Do you guys want to stop arguing about a bloody piano and come out here and supervise the kids?’ She swung round and tugged at the swing. ‘This thing’s fifty years old! Has anyone checked it?’
‘It’s fine, stop being that parent.’ Jackie appeared with a teapot on a tray. ‘The boys are looking after Cooper, aren’t you? Oh, honestly, you’re not all on your phones – can’t you play a game in real life with each other? Perry? Perry, will you bring Mum’s chair out?’
And then they trooped out: Martine, Jackie’s husband Perry struggling with a huge wicker peacock chair/throne, Heather (alone, no boyfriend), a man I assumed was the father of Cara’s son, Cooper, and finally . . . Fraser.
Time stopped. Even though I’d run this moment through in my imagination over and over, my heart suddenly felt too big for my chest.
He was the same: same blue shirt, same broad shoulders, same intelligent face, hair still thick and pushed back off his face. The man I’d woken up next to for four years, the man I’d assumed I’d spend the rest of my life waking up with.
If I hadn’t started that stupid conversation, I thought, I’d be part of this scene, leading my own wobbling toddler, cute and dumpy in her cousins’ hand-me-down dungarees, helping Jackie de-clingfilm the sandwiches: I’d be down there, not up here.
In a parallel universe, a ghost Beth, a Beth that had ignored Mali’s advice and just waited, was living this life.
If only I could turn back the clock and just keep my mouth shut, I’d materialise in my rightful place: not a ghost looking down from a garage full of unwanted junk, but a happy, laughing part of Fraser’s family.
It was so unfair it made me forget to breathe for a second.
Fraser took Martine’s chair from Perry, who was struggling, and hoisted it easily on to the paved area to place it at the head of the party table. I leaned forward to get a better view and must have leaned nearer the window than I meant to, because there was another shriek, this time from Heather.
‘Shit! Shit! There’s someone in the garage! Look, up there! Someone’s broken into the garage! Mum!’
Everyone’s gaze swung up and towards me, and I froze at the window, a rabbit in the spotlight of their combined curiosity.
Only Martine didn’t bother to look up. ‘Oh, that’s Beth.’
‘Beth? Beth who?’ Cara glanced at Jackie, with a subtle ‘is this what you mean about Mum losing the plot?’ gesture at her temple.
I cringed. Beth who? She followed me on Instagram. I’d liked all her boring posts about ‘Central Park springtime!’.
Jackie beetled her brows at Cara, then looked up and pretended to spot me for the first time. ‘Beth! Come down and join us for a cup of tea!’
Her headteacher voice was loud enough to be heard through the window, but she mimed ‘come down’ and ‘tea’, just in case. I had no choice, but descended the stairs as slowly as was polite, to give Jackie enough time to fill in the details for anyone who hadn’t been told about their mother’s lodger.
Even so, when I stepped into the garden through the side gate, I could hear indistinct muttering, spiked with whys and whats, and caught the tail end of Martine snapping, ‘. . . still my house, and I still have the final say in what happens here, so really, Cara, it’s not relevant what you feel.’
When I appeared, it stopped abruptly.
‘Hi!’ I raised an awkward hand.
Jackie seemed embarrassed; Cara, impatient; Heather and Fraser, confused; the teenagers were still glued to their phones. Cooper had taken the opportunity to slither back on to the ‘potentially lethal’ swing.
‘Beth.’ Martine gestured towards the table. ‘We’re just about to have some tea. Will you have a cup? Your hair looks marvellous, by the way.’
I touched it, and tried not to look at Fraser. It was like not looking at your Christmas presents. Or a solar eclipse. ‘Thank you! And . . .’ I blinked, taking in Martine’s new ’do. ‘You look so chic.’
We’d only spoken on the phone for the last few nights so I hadn’t seen the results of the ‘glow-up’ in person: and it was dramatic.
Martine’s hairdresser had cut her long silver hair into a sculpted bob, curling elegantly around her cheekbones.
It took years off her without diminishing her regal aura in the slightest. If anything, she looked more glamorous.
‘Oh, it’s years since someone called me chic.’ She beamed with the compliment. ‘Thank you, Heather – what a treat.’
Not everyone seemed in favour of the transformation. ‘You knew about this?’ Cara turned to Heather. ‘Did nobody think to go with Mum, in case something like this happened? This weekend, of all weekends?’
‘I keep telling you, I booked a glow-up,’ Heather insisted. ‘I didn’t ask them to chop her hair off.’
‘No, I told them to,’ said Martine calmly. ‘I wanted a change and it’s much easier to keep on top of. Now, tea? It’s going cold.’
Cara and Heather carried on muttering while herding the boys to the table.
Jackie poured tea and handed out the delicate china.
‘This was a wedding present from Dad’s Auntie Martha and Uncle Ted, wasn’t it, Mum?
’ Martine, I noticed, was smiling, but her expression was a little tight.
She gave me an imperceptible blink when Jackie handed me my tea, and I wasn’t sure how best to respond.
There was definitely a ‘family row’ atmosphere.
I could tell by the way conversation focused on me with a super-courteous laser beam: first Perry’s neutral opener about the rental market (yes, that bad), followed by Jackie’s jolly follow-up about it being a ‘good incentive to clear out our junk!’ from the garage.
Then Fraser, with whom I’d been trying not to make eye contact, in case my heart exploded, coughed, and said, ‘If you don’t mind me asking, Beth, why are you staying here? I mean . . .’ He searched for politer words, then gave up. ‘No, there’s no other way of putting it. Why here?’
Jackie spluttered. ‘Fraser!’
‘Well, come on,’ he said. ‘You’re all thinking it.’
‘No, fair enough, it’s a bit random,’ I said quickly. ‘It was just one of those serendipitous things! I happened to bump into Martine the day before my move fell through. She was kind enough to offer me a temporary solution until another property became available.’
Cara and Jackie exchanged another ‘see? Mum’s being odd’ look, which again only I caught.
‘Good for you, Martine,’ said Perry, raising his teacup. ‘Very generous.’
But Fraser hadn’t finished. ‘So, when you say your tenancy came to an end, is that you, or you and . . . ?’
‘Me and my dog,’ I said. ‘Tomsk. That’s what made it tricky, finding somewhere I could bring Tomsk too.’
‘Tomsk is Beth’s dog,’ said Jackie, as if reminding him of something he’d been told.
‘Right.’ He seemed unclear. ‘OK. You’re not . . . married?’
What? Was he checking to see if I was single? I mean, there wasn’t any other way to interpret that, was there? I felt a powerful ba-doom of excitement in my veins.
Heather rolled her eyes. ‘I get that you work in IT but that is a deeply inappropriate question.’
‘I’m only asking!’ He raised his hands and I noted there was no ring in sight on either hand. Yes.
‘No, it’s fine,’ I said again quickly. ‘It’s just me, yes.’
I tried to read Fraser’s expression; that was a flirty question, surely, but he didn’t exactly look flirty, more confused. Maybe when Jackie had told him about Tomsk, he’d misheard, assuming ‘Tom’ was my boyfriend?
Still. My heart was racing; the very first thing he’d wanted to know was whether I was still single. That had to mean something.
‘And you’re here for how long?’ he asked.
‘Fraser!’ Jackie’s forehead was a monobrow of admonishment.
‘A couple more weeks? I should hear from the estate agent any day now about the new place.’
‘Although Beth’s welcome to stay as long as she likes!
’ Martine had clearly tired of this conversation being conducted over her head.
‘It’s rather nice having someone to chat to in the evenings – you should ask her about the fascinating oral history project she’s co-ordinating up at that old people’s home you’re all so desperate for me to move into. ’
‘Good for you!’ said Perry again, as I said, ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say I’m co-ordinating it.’
‘Yes, do tell us about that,’ said Jackie with slightly too much enthusiasm, and I found myself recounting a couple of the better stories from the project, while the teenagers hoovered up the cakes and the adults picked at the sandwiches.
I ate nothing. Not because I didn’t want to eat in front of Fraser but because my stomach was occupied doing pleasant loop-the-loops with every glance I drank in of him.
It was starting to feel wonderfully normal and relaxed, when Martine abruptly shaded her eyes with her forearm. ‘Would anyone mind if I went back inside for five minutes? This sun’s so bright.’
Jackie and Cara exchanged glances. ‘Of course not, Mum. Do you need a nap?’
‘No, I . . . Well, maybe yes.’
‘Charlie? Charlie, stop that!’ Jackie waved at the oldest boy, who was eating two cakes at once to save time. ‘Can you help Grandma inside?’
Martine frowned. ‘How on earth do you think I get in and out of this house when you’re not here?’
Jackie sighed. ‘Mum . . . Please.’ There was a lot of previous conversation between those two words, I thought, but Martine deigned to let Charlie pull her chair back from the table and escort her away.
Once Martine and Charlie were safely out of earshot, Jackie gestured at her siblings, and muttered, ‘I think this is a good time to have a pre-chat chat, OK? Get our ducks in a row.’ She turned to me.
‘Beth, just so you know, we’re going to talk to Mum about her options – staying here, moving to assisted living, getting more help, and so on. ’
So this was an ambush, not a party?
Cara opened her mouth to say something, but Jackie cut her off. ‘Beth’s been keeping a discreet eye on Mum, making sure she’s not, you know, putting herself in danger.’
‘We speak every evening,’ I added. ‘On the phone. She rings me. I don’t intrude!’
‘She must be so lonely in the house on her own.’ Heather gazed at the wedding-present teacup, then, tearful, looked up at the house. ‘Without Dad.’
‘Beth’s been a godsend,’ said Jackie. ‘It’s worked out well both ways.’
I squirmed. It was nice of her to say that, but I was feeling increasingly torn between wanting to help Jackie and thinking that maybe Martine wasn’t anywhere near as ‘erratic’ as she seemed to think. She just wasn’t behaving in the way Jackie expected her to.
‘I’ll leave you to it,’ I said, before there was any question of me staying or going. ‘Tomsk needs his walk about now.’
There was a chorus of ‘lovely to see yous’, and I paused for a moment, holding Fraser’s gaze as we looked at each other, for the first time in so long.
The air crackled between us, and he nodded, with a slight smile touching his lips.
My heart looped in my chest. I nodded back. Keep calm.
‘Fraser!’ snapped Heather.
I felt shivery, I felt normal, I felt as if I’d seen him yesterday, I felt as if I’d see him tomorrow.
This was the start of a new chapter, I told myself. A clean page, a new Act.
I just had to listen to my intuition this time, not other people’s bad advice.
When Tomsk and I came home from our walk, an hour or so later, Fraser suddenly appeared by the door – as if he’d been watching out for my return.
‘Hey! Look, I just wanted to say sorry if I came across as rude before.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘It’s been a weird day.’
I nodded sympathetically. ‘I can imagine.’
‘Jackie did tell me you were staying, but . . .’ He hesitated. ‘I’ll be honest, seeing you – it really threw me. You haven’t changed at all.’
‘Neither have you.’
He grinned, and I was spun back on an invisible bungee to the time when he smiled at me like that all the time; in the car, in the supermarket, every morning when I woke up.
I hadn’t changed. (I totally had.) Did he say that because he wanted to pick things up where we’d left them?
‘So, what I wanted to say was, I’m here next weekend to sort out Mum’s internet. Jackie’s drawn up a rota.’ He nodded towards the house. ‘If you’re still here too, it would be good to have a coffee, maybe? Catch up?’
‘I’d love that.’ I told myself to look cool but not quickly enough for my face, which broke out a broad smile.
Fraser looked pleased too. ‘Good. Good.’
This was the awkward bit: how did we part? A kiss on the cheek? A hug? Nothing?
Tomsk decided it for me by nudging at the door with his head, as if I needed a clue.
‘Someone’s ready for his supper! Hello, mate.’ Fraser bent down and ruffled Tomsk’s long ears. He’d always been good with dogs; he had that inner calmness that they responded to. ‘Lovely eyes. What breed is he?’
‘Not sure, he’s a rescue. Part sofahound, part snufflador?’
‘Part hair metaller?’ He lifted Tomsk’s wispy fringe. ‘Love the highlights. Very early eighties.’
The ice had been broken. This was OK. Inane small talk about my dog I could do. But Tomsk, unusually for him, whined and nudged the door with his nose.
‘Don’t keep him waiting!’ Fraser straightened up. ‘I’ll text you about next week – same number?’
I nodded. Imaginary fireworks were going off around us.
‘Great! See you then.’
And just like that, Fraser and I had a date.