CHAPTER TWO
‘That’s all of it,’ Amir announced, holding onto the attic ladder with one hand and balancing a cardboard box on his shoulder with the other. He set it down carefully on the landing, alongside the others, and dusted his hands off.
‘Can I make you a cup of tea?’ Beth asked hopefully. Anything to delay having to sort them out.
‘I’m alright thanks, Mrs Fairfax. I’d better get on. I’ve got lectures this afternoon.’
Beth tried to press a twenty-pound note into his palm ‘for his trouble,’ but he refused that as well, so she waved him off, thankful that her neighbour was so kind. She never would have managed to get up the attic on her own.
It was a long time since she’d seen what was up there, but from what she remembered much of it was junk.
As she opened the flap of the nearest box, she couldn’t for the life of her work out why she had hung onto an old iron that didn’t work, or that vase, considering she had never liked it. Beth anticipated that she would be making several trips to the household waste recycling centre, and she was quite looking forward to it, as she’d never been there before. Not surprising, since she’d only recently bought a car.
She chuckled as she remembered the look on Dulcie and Maisie’s faces when she’d rocked up at the farm in it at Easter. Dulcie had feared that she was going to insist on staying longer than the fortnight she’d planned, but her middle daughter needn’t have worried; Beth hadn’t had any intention of staying. And she had no intention of staying now, not when she would have a home of her own in Picklewick.
A twinge of conscience pricked her: she hadn’t told her children what she’d done. She would have to at some point, but not yet, not until it was irreversible. Actually, it was irreversible now, since she had given notice on this place and had taken out a lease on her new one. There was no going back. But she was nevertheless reluctant to tell her kids. Jay, in New Zealand, probably wouldn’t mind, but the girls were a different matter.
She honestly didn’t know what their reaction would be. She hoped they would understand that she missed them. All three now lived in Picklewick, so was it so wrong for her to want to be near them?
As she settled into her task of sorting out more than three decades of living in this house, Beth prayed they wouldn’t be too upset. She knew how irritated they could get with her, and she didn’t mean to be annoying, but no matter what she did or said, one or the other of them would get cross.
At times she felt like she was the child and Nikki or Dulcie was the parent. Not so much with Maisie, because her youngest still acted more like a teenager than an adult. Although, to be fair, since Maisie had met Adam, she was less fifteen and more twenty-five, which was her actual age.
Aw, look, Nikki’s first pair of proper shoes!
A wave of sadness enveloped Beth, both for the time long gone and for her firstborn who was now a mother herself. And a smidgen of guilt followed quickly in its wake as she realised that she hadn’t kept any of her other children’s first pairs of shoes. And neither had she filled in their baby books the way she had diligently filled in Nikki’s. It didn’t seem fair to hang onto Nikki’s baby things when she hadn’t bothered to keep anything belonging to the others.
Not wanting to lose the shoes completely, she took a photo of them before she added them to the pile meant for the charity shop. She decided she would take photos of anything else that she didn’t intend to hang onto but wanted to remember.
Despite looking forward to a new home and a new life in Picklewick, Beth would be sad to leave this house. Her children had been born here. Not in the house itself, of course – they had all been born in hospital – but this was where she had raised them. It held so many memories, some happy, some not so happy, and some downright horrid, but every single one was a piece of the mosaic that made up the picture of her life with her children.
If only they hadn’t moved away…
But they had, and she wasn’t prepared to rattle around in this house on her own, feeling lonely. She had four kids, one grandchild, and another on the way, and she hardly saw any of them. It simply wouldn’t do. Which was why she had taken matters into her own hands and decided to be proactive, rather than sitting here feeling envious because all her friends had family living close by and she had no one.
Having sorted through the first few boxes, Beth took a break, and while she drank her mug of tea, she scrolled through the photos of the little terraced house in Picklewick and knew she was doing the right thing. She would be close enough to babysit Sammy or lend a hand when her daughters needed it, but not so close as to be living in anyone’s pocket. She would be independent, yet still part of the family.
It would be perfect.
‘Have you heard from Mum lately?’ Dulcie asked. She was wiping the counters down as Maisie entered the kitchen. The aroma of freshly made cottage pie hung in the air, and Walter’s tummy rumbled. It was nice not to have to cook for himself.
‘Not for a few days. Why?’ Maisie peered into the oven. ‘That looks yummy.’
‘I hope it tastes as good as it looks,’ Dulcie said. ‘Otto didn’t make this, I did.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be delicious. You always were a better cook than me.’
‘That’s because you had Mum to cook for you.’
‘I’m improving,’ Maisie replied, ‘But maybe I’ll ask Otto for some pointers.’
‘Best not, unless you want jus with this and jam with that,’ Walter chortled. ‘And I’m not referring to the kind of jam you can buy in the supermarket either. He was telling me about seaweed jam the other day. It sounded awful.’
Otto had also mentioned bourbon jam, which sounded much better. However, Walter didn’t feel inclined to put it on his toast in the morning. How his son came up with these strange food combinations was beyond him.
Dulcie had finished tidying the kitchen and was now checking her phone. ‘The last time I heard from Mum was nearly two weeks ago. It’s not like her to maintain radio silence. How about you?’
Maisie peered at her mobile. ‘About the same.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Do you think she’s okay?’
‘There’s one way to find out.’ Dulcie flicked a finger across the screen and waited for the call to be answered. ‘Mum? Thank goodness! Are you alright?’
Walter could hear a tinny voice emanating from the phone, but he couldn’t hear what Beth was saying, and neither did he want to. That woman was a damned nuisance.
After a couple of minutes the call ended, and Dulcie looked relieved. ‘She hasn’t rung because she’s busy.’
‘She could have messaged one of us,’ Maisie said.
‘Apparently she’s too busy for that, too.’
‘Why? What’s she doing?’
‘De-cluttering.’
Maisie frowned. ‘I hope she isn’t de-cluttering any of my stuff.’
‘I thought you had fetched everything you wanted?’
‘I did, but there’s my old school reports and that project I did for art. Oh, and my cheerleading outfits.’
Dulcie laughed. ‘I’d forgotten you used to do cheerleading. I bet Mum didn’t keep any of them.’
‘I put them in the attic.’
‘They are probably still there, in that case. Mum hasn’t been up there for years. I used to have to get the Christmas decorations down for her.’
‘She won’t be needing those again,’ Maisie pointed out. ‘Not if she spends Christmas here, like she did last year.’
Walter pulled a face. Beth had stayed at the farm for a full two weeks. And she’d turned up again at Easter. That visit had been for a couple of weeks, as well. She had every right to be here, considering she was Dulcie’s mother, but Walter wished she wasn’t so argumentative. Whenever he was in the same room as her, they seemed to butt heads. She was worse than his pet sheep, Flossie. Flossie was a head-butter too, but considerably less prickly. Beth called it, ‘being forthright’, and ‘calling a spade a spade.’ Walter called it annoying.
She was a fine-looking woman though, with her good cheekbones and her clear blue eyes, and when he’d first met her, he’d thought she was easy on the eye. It was a pity she wasn’t equally as easy on the ear. Or his patience.
Maisie was saying, ‘Isn’t it daft how you never notice something, but when you do you see them everywhere.’
Dulcie replied, ‘What do you mean? Another five minutes and I’ll serve up, so do you want to lay the table?’
‘Dalmatians,’ Maisie said, getting a handful of knives and forks out of a drawer. ‘I take it Otto’s not eating with us?’
‘Good lord, no! Do you think he’d let me cook if he was?’
‘True. As I was saying, I saw a Dalmatian dog in the high street the other day, and now I keep seeing them everywhere.’
‘Are you sure it’s not the same one?’
‘Don’t say that, because I could have sworn I saw Mum’s car in the village the other day too.’
‘It’s a well-known thing,’ Walter said. He’d read about it recently. When the farm was his, he’d barely had time to open a newspaper, but these days he scoured it from end to end. What else did he have to do with his time? He continued, ‘It’s called ‘the frequency illusion’ where you see something, like a particular breed of dog or model of car let’s say, or hear something like a name, and then you begin to notice it everywhere, so you think it’s more common than it is.’
‘You learn something new every day.’ Dulcie opened the oven door and a waft of fragrant steam billowed out.
Walter’s mouth watered. He was looking forward to this – good, simple, honest food, without any frills, just like his wife (God rest her soul) used to make. As so often happened when he thought of her, Walter was filled with sadness. She had died far too young, when Otto was a teenager. It was she who had nurtured Otto’s love of cooking.
‘I’ll put some of this pie aside for Adam to have later, shall I?’ Dulcie suggested, ladling out generous portions onto plates.
‘That would be lovely, thanks.’ Maisie gave her sister a one-armed hug.
It warmed Walter’s heart to see how well the sisters got on, because that hadn’t always been the case. Maisie had been drifting and rudderless when he’d first met her, flitting from job to job (Nikki used to call her Maisie Daydream), but the girl seemed to have settled down, helping Dulcie on the farm, as well as trying to get the old place on the hill up and running. She was a hard worker, he’d give her that, and so was Adam.
He envied the youngsters their enthusiasm, drive, and energy levels. Just thinking about it made him feel tired, but he supposed feeling tired was par for the course as one got older; and it hadn’t helped matters that he had been so unwell. Thankfully, he could feel his energy slowly returning, although he was aware it would never be the same as it was.
He should learn to celebrate the small things, the little wins, such as he and Amos making play equipment for the goats, and him walking to the top of the mountain and back – even though it had laid him up for a couple of days afterwards.
Walter was feeling fine again now though, so maybe it was time to make inroads on all those odd jobs that needed doing around the cottage. If he took it slow and didn’t over-exert himself, he was certain he could get them done without having to ask for help. It would give him something to do, and at the same time would prove to Otto and the rest that he wasn’t over the hill just yet.
Despite the house looking barer than Beth could ever remember it being, the move to Picklewick still didn’t seem real, even though she had given notice to her landlord, arranged for her post to be redirected, informed all the necessary utilities, and had booked the removal company.
It had been difficult to decide what she would take with her and what had to be got rid of (the house in Picklewick was smaller than this one, so about half of her furniture had to go), but afterwards she had felt strangely cleansed. And it hadn’t taken as long as she’d anticipated to go through everything, and she was now left with the bare bones of her old home.
She had been quite ruthless and had probably thrown out stuff she could have used in her new place, but she wanted a fresh start; so this morning, with a week left until moving day, she intended to go shopping with Enka, who was probably her oldest friend. She had worked with her for almost twenty years until Enka had packed in her job to help look after her little grandson when his mum went back to work.
‘What are you looking for?’ Enka asked, as they walked towards the Bullring Shopping Centre, Enka dragging her shopping trolley behind her. Short and dumpy, Enka dressed like a Russian peasant from the nineteenth century and swore worse than a football hooligan. Beth adored her.
She was going to miss her badly, but they were seeing less and less of each other since both ladies had ceased work. Whereas Enka’s life was full of her children and her grandchildren, Beth’s life lacked both… Hopefully her move to Picklewick would rectify not seeing enough of her kids and Sammy.
Beth patted her handbag. ‘Curtains,’ she announced. ‘I’ve brought the measurements with me. There are curtains up at the windows already, but they’re not to my taste. And I thought I’d buy a couple of cushions to go with.’ She beamed. ‘I might even treat myself to some new tea towels.’
‘I think you should,’ Enka said. ‘You can never have enough tea towels. Or flannels.’
‘Shall we have a cuppa first?’ Beth suggested.
If she was honest, she was keener on having a good old chin wag than buying curtains, because she was all too aware that it might be a long time before she saw Enka again. Once Beth was settled in Picklewick, she suspected she would be unlikely to return to Birmingham any time soon.
Cuppas bought, they settled themselves in a corner booth of the retro diner and Beth brought out a packet of Fig Rolls and offered one to Enka.
‘I don’t think you’re allowed to eat your own food in here,’ Enka said, taking one, nevertheless.
‘I’m not paying those prices for a bit of cake,’ Beth said, biting into hers. Fruity sweetness exploded on her tongue. ‘Daylight robbery, that’s what it is.’
‘Will cake be any cheaper where you’re going?’ Enka asked.
‘Doubt it. Nothing is cheap anymore.’
‘What’s Picklewick like?’
‘Pretty, quiet, lots of fields around.’
‘It sounds lovely.’
‘It is. I’m not sure I’d want to live there if it wasn’t for the girls, though.’
‘Still, it’s a fresh start, isn’t it?’ Enka helped herself to another Fig Roll and dunked it in her tea. ‘You’ll soon make new friends.’ She arched a heavily pencilled eyebrow and added, ‘Man friends.’
‘I don’t think so. Not at my age.’
‘You’re never too old for a bit of how’s-your-father,’ Enka cackled. ‘It puts a spring in your step.’
‘I’ve got enough spring, thank you. Any more and I might as well have pogo sticks strapped to my legs.’ Beth paused, her mug halfway to her mouth. ‘You don’t see many pogo sticks, these days, do you?’
‘You don’t see many eligible men either – they’re either serial bachelors or they’re widowers and are looking for someone to wash their smalls.’
Beth chortled. ‘You can say that again. I wouldn’t have another man if you paid me.’ The last one had left her with four kids, but at least he’d had the decency to pop his clogs before the divorce had gone through. Good riddance to bad rubbish, she always said.
But despite Enka’s lamentations of there being no eligible men out there, it didn’t stop Enka from looking. Beth was going to miss her friend’s stories of her disastrous dates. They always made her chuckle. Where Enka found them was a mystery; Beth hadn’t had a sniff of a date in years. Mind you, she didn’t want to. At her age she was well past all that nonsense.
Love and romance were for the young – and they were welcome to it.
Drip, drip, drip… The damned noise was driving Walter insane. Every time it rained, it was like being tortured by the KGB. It was getting to the point where he began to dread seeing dark clouds gathering, and last night they’d gathered in abundance. Thankfully, the rain had held off until he’d managed to drop off to sleep, but when he’d woken in the middle of the night to use the loo, the incessant dripping had kept him awake.
The rain had stopped at around the same time as the sun had come up, but Walter knew that the dripping would continue for a while yet. Which was why he was at this moment trying to wrestle a set of ladders into position against the back wall of the cottage.
First, he would clear out the guttering, then he would scrape the moss away, before wrapping duct tape around the join between the two lengths.
As he shuffled the ladder slightly to the right, a dripper landed on one of the metal rings and splashed into his face. Walter wiped it away with his sleeve, muttering to himself. At his feet, Peg whined anxiously.
‘Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten breakfast. We’ll have tea and toast in a bit. I want to get this sorted first.’
The dog hung back warily, staying a safe distance from the ladder, and her brown eyes gazed worriedly at him. She disliked any change to her routine – unless that change involved a nice walk or an outing in the car. She had enjoyed the walk up to Maisie and Adam’s place the other day, but like him, she’d been knackered afterwards. And, like him, the dog wasn’t getting any younger.
With the ladder now in position, Walter gave it a little shake. It seemed steady enough. He wasn’t keen on ladders, but this wasn’t his first jaunt up one. He had done all his own repairs around the farm, apart from when the farmhouse had needed a new roof. About forty years ago, that had been, and he’d left it to a team of roofers because they knew what they were doing better than him. He was pleased that the roof was still going strong. Dulcie would probably get another forty years out of it before it needed replacing.
Taking a deep breath, Walter slid the roll of duct tape over his arm, and with a final check to make sure the ladder’s base was level, he began to climb.
He had got about halfway up when his foot slipped, and Walter had a split second to lament the fact that he’d forgotten to change out of his slippers before he hit the ground with a sickening crack.
Walter wondered if he’d fallen asleep in front of the telly again as he struggled to open his eyes.
‘Dad, can you hear me?’
Bloody hell, it was bright. Walter squinted, blinking as his eyes watered. Then he realised where he was, and as his memory came flooding back, his wince was equal parts pain and embarrassment.
Otto was peering at him anxiously. Walter struggled to sit up, but Otto put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Do you know where you are?’ his son asked.
‘Of course I bloody know. I’m in hospital. I’ve broken my leg, not lost my marbles.’
‘Just checking.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Why, have you got somewhere you need to be?’
‘I haven’t, but I bet you have.’
‘I don’t need to be anywhere else but here.’
‘Liar.’ Walter appreciated the sentiment though.
Otto sank onto a red plastic chair. ‘What were you doing, going up a ladder at your age?’
‘Cleaning out the gutters.’
‘You should have asked me to do it.’
‘Hmph. What’s the time?’ Walter repeated.
‘Eight forty-seven.’
‘Have you been here all day?’
‘Yes.’
‘You need to get off home.’
‘I wanted to wait until they found you a bed.’
The ache in Walter’s leg was abominable, and he shifted uncomfortably.
‘They had to pin it,’ Otto said.
‘I know; they told me.’
‘You’ll have a cast for about six weeks.’
‘They told me that, too.’
‘How are you feeling?’ Otto asked. He looked drawn and there were bags under his eyes.
Walter felt awful for worrying him. ‘Not so bad.’ His reply didn’t fool Otto.
‘Do you need any pain relief?’
‘Aye, I could do with some.’
‘I’ll fetch a nurse.’
Walter closed his eyes. Not only was he in pain from his broken leg, but he felt sick, probably from the anaesthetic. His head was fuzzy, his memory jumbled. He remembered thinking, ‘Oh shit,’ followed by a terrible pain in his lower left leg. And he remembered Peg whining and licking his face. Then nothing until the ride in the ambulance and his arrival at hospital. More blurry memories; something about a CT scan and an X-ray, then being told he needed an operation.
He remembered feeling embarrassed because they cut his trousers off, and he recalled being asked to count backwards from ten. He also remembered asking someone to give Peg her toast, and lying flat on his back as he was being wheeled down a corridor, but he wasn’t sure which order those memories were supposed to be in. He had a vague recollection of a firm female voice telling him to open his eyes, then more corridors, then being lifted into the bed he was currently in, before sleep reclaimed him.
His eyes must have drifted shut now, because he was startled by someone touching his wrist. ‘Mr York, your son tells me you are a bit uncomfortable.’ A nurse was peering at his chart and writing something down.
‘You could say that,’ he agreed.
‘We’ll get you something for your pain. Otherwise, how are you feeling?’
‘Not so bad.’
‘Not so good, more like,’ Otto muttered. ‘The daft sod.’
‘Fell off a ladder, I heard,’ the nurse said.
‘He was wearing slippers.’ Otto was shaking his head.
‘We won’t be doing that again, will we?’ the nurse trilled.
‘No, he bloody well won’t. Will you, Dad?’
Walter pulled a face. ‘I’ll wear trainers next time. I forgot to—’
‘I meant,’ Otto broke in stonily, ‘you won’t be going up a ladder again.’
‘But what about my guttering?’
‘What about your waterworks?’ the nurse asked. ‘Do you need the toilet?’
Now that she’d mentioned it, Walter realised that he did need a pee. He also realised that it was going to be fun and games to get from the bed to the bathroom and back.
‘Help me up,’ he muttered to Otto.
The nurse said, ‘No need. I’ll get you a bedpan.’
‘I’m not peeing into a bedpan. I’m not disabled.’
The nurse gave him a look. ‘I think you’ll find that is exactly what you are until your leg mends. You, Mr York, are going to need all the help you can get for a while.’