Chapter 30
As Lily entered the cottage, she was struck by a deafening silence.
Everywhere you looked, Gran’s absence was like a physical slap.
No glasses on her table, no music playing, no paper half read.
Gran’s little but imposing figure typically inhabited the armchair, but today it seemed empty and abandoned.
The quiet room was filled with the loud echo of the old clock on the mantel, which had formerly provided solace as background noise but now seemed like a timpani.
She noticed Mr Mistoffelees sitting on Gran’s armchair.
‘She won’t be happy seeing you there,’ said Lily with a false enthusiasm as she walked through the room and opened the back door.
As she watched the sun set, Nick cleaned up the mess the paramedics had left in the living room and put the rubbish in the kitchen bin and tied up the bag.
‘I’ll take this out and then head off if you want,’ said Nick to Lily.
She turned around. ‘Can you stay a while?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said and went outside to dispose of the rubbish and returned to her and washed his hands.
Lily wandered about, looking for something to do. The cottage always looked its best when the morning sun came through the front windows and when the sunset came through the back windows and doors.
The sunset light flowed through the back windows and door, bathing everything in rich, amber tones that appeared to make the house glow from within.
The few copper pans hanging above the old cooker in the kitchen seemed to smoulder in the light, reminding Lily of the many days she spent baking with Gran.
The old wooden table, its surface scarred by years of usage, was bathed in a gentle, honey-coloured light and Lily could see her father’s initials in the wood, and her own and then Gran’s and those of Gran’s father.
Four generations of vandalism, Gran used to say.
Lily wondered if she would have a child one day who might carve their initials into the wood. She could only hope, she thought.
Lily could just see Gran sitting there with her wrinkled hands wrapped around a steaming mug of tea and the paper spread out in front of her, as she read from it, giving opinions and remarks on anything that she thought deserved attention.
The living room was a tapestry of recollections in the dying light.
Shadows swirled across Gran’s old flowered wallpaper, which she had always intended to change but never did.
The armchair, Gran’s favourite seat, with the cat on it, a king for a day while the queen was away from the palace, but Lily could still imagine her there, remembering when she used to knit, the needles clicking softly as she worked on another jumper for Lily for winter.
One wall was lined with bookshelves and photo albums, each one filled with a favourite book of Gran’s or Lily’s favourite childhood stories. Lily stroked her fingers along them.
‘You okay?’ she heard Nick ask and she turned to him.
‘When I was young, Gran would call out, row three, number five from the left, page 45, third paragraph, and I would have to pick the book and open it and read from that exact place.’ She smiled at him.
‘That sounds fun,’ he said.
‘Well it was a great way to get me to read. Because I would often want to know the context of the paragraph or the characters and so on. Unless it was one of Grandad’s books on air force fighter planes from the Second World War.’
Nick laughed. ‘Yes, not really scintillating material for a young girl.’
She looked at the piano. She had been avoiding it the entire time she had been at Pippin Cottage. Lifting the lid, even the faded keys appeared to shine in the failing light. Lily could almost hear the echoes of the songs they’d performed together, Gran’s rich alto mixing with her soprano.
She opened the piano stool and saw all the sheet music inside it, and she picked up a copy of Cole Porter’s songbook and sat at the piano and placed it on the stand. She played the first opening bars of ‘I Concentrate On You’ and then started to sing.
As she sang, a song she knew by heart, she closed her eyes, and saw her gran through the years.
She opened her eyes and looked up as the mantelpiece captured the final rays of sunlight.
The framed photos reinforced what she had been seeing in her mind.
Images of Gran over the years – as a young lady, on her wedding day, cradling baby Lily – appeared to come to life during the golden hour.
Each was a frozen moment in time, and now Lily was starting the process of saying goodbye.
She felt a sob catch in her throat as she sang and Nick joined in, taking over the melody as she played until she came to the last chorus of the song and they sang together, their voices blending perfectly in the small room.
Lily turned to look at Nick. ‘I haven’t played that piano for years and yet it’s still in tune. I think she’s been getting it tuned, just in case. She kept asking me to play and I didn’t and now I feel terrible.’
She started to cry and Nick pulled her into his arms, lifted her from the stool and held her on his lap.
‘It’s okay. You weren’t to know. You had things happening; stop being so hard on yourself.’
Lily relaxed into his chest, feeling his arms around her.
‘All my life, Gran was my safe place,’ she said. ‘Mum and Dad aren’t terrible people but Dad’s kind of henpecked and Mum is the biggest mother hen in the world, sort of suffocating me under all those feathers,’ she said.
Nick gave a little laugh.
‘I could be myself here. I think I’ve been closer to my true self since I’ve been back.’
Nick held her close. ‘That’s good,’ he said and she moved her head so she could see his face and then she smiled and kissed him on the mouth.
A slow kiss, and she felt him kiss her in return. She moved her body so she was sitting facing him now, and he kissed her again and she felt his hands on her back and then lower. She pushed into him as his hands went under her shirt and she started to unbutton it and he held her hands.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Never been more certain,’ she said as the sun finally dipped below the horizon.
*
The next morning, Lily was up before Nick, asleep in the little bed, which they had somehow managed to get some sleep in, despite the owls calling, the cat trying to dig his claws into Nick’s feet, and the fact they simply couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
But Lily woke feeling invigorated and she showered and set about getting ready for work.
‘Morning,’ said Nick, when she came back into the bedroom to dress, wrapped in a towel.
‘Hello.’ She smiled at him.
‘Any chance of that towel dropping and you running away from work today?’ he asked.
‘Nope, I have a very busy day. Don’t you have work today?’
He shook his head. ‘No, but I did promise Jasper to help with the sets.’
Lily dressed quickly in jeans and a linen blouse and pulled her hair up into a ponytail.
‘I’m going to work, then I’ll see Gran and then be at rehearsals,’ she said, checking her phone.
‘I haven’t heard from Dad or Mum so I assume no change in Gran’s condition overnight.
’ She slipped the phone into her pocket.
‘Okay, I’m going to go and get coffee before work.
Stay here for the day between helping Jasper and rehearsals if you like,’ she said and she leaned down and kissed him, feeling the butterflies come back. ‘I’ll see you at rehearsals?’
‘See you then,’ he said with that beautiful smile of his, and Lily rushed out of the house before she could stop herself and stay in bed with him all day.