CHAPTER EIGHT
‘Is something wrong?’ asked Minnie.
‘Really? Oh, no, that’s the last thing you need while all this is going on with your father.’
I forced a smile. ‘The only thing that matters to me now is Dad getting well again. His accident has put everything into perspective.’ I shrugged. ‘Losing a house is nothing in the grand scheme of things. We’ll just... move somewhere else.’
‘No, but your home is important. Especially at a time like this.’ Minnie looked genuinely upset.
‘It’ll be fine. After my interview the other day, maybe I’ll be earning again soon.’ I crossed my fingers, looking more hopeful than I was feeling.
When I opened the second letter, which was addressed to me, I actually laughed out loud at the contents, although it really wasn’t funny at all.
‘Ah, well, scratch that! Apparently, the company thinks I don’t have enough experience.
But they wish me well in my job hunt, which is nice.
’ I dropped the letter next to the one from the bank and looked at Minnie with an amused shrug, although inside, I was feeling the weariness of yet another rejection.
‘Right, that’s it,’ said Minnie, tapping the table. ‘You must let me pay your mortgage arrears.’
‘What? No!’ I stared at her in amazement.
‘Look, it’s partly my fault your lovely father is in hospital fighting for his life and unable to go back to work as he’d planned. Really, it’s the very least I can do.’
‘Minnie, I could never let you do that.’
‘But why not? You can pay me back when you can. If you must. But I can’t let you lose your lovely house.’ She looked around her. ‘It just wouldn’t be right.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s so kind of you to offer, Minnie, but I couldn’t –’
‘It’s not kind at all. In fact, you’d be doing me a favour if you were to accept.’
I chuckled gently. ‘How do you make that out, then?’
‘Well, you’d be making an old lady feel much better. I’ve been feeling so bad about what happened. If you’d let me help you by relieving your financial worries a little, the guilt might not feel quite so sharp. You see?’
‘Nice try. But you have nothing at all to feel guilty about, Minnie,’ I said gently. ‘It’s the robbers and the driver of that speeding white van who should be losing sleep over this. Definitely not you.’
‘But I can afford it!’ insisted Minnie, looking quite distressed.
‘My husband, bless him, left me very well provided for. And at my age, I don’t need money for fancy holidays or new cars or the like.
The money is just sitting there in the building society doing no good for anyone.
When it could be helping you !’ She dug into her handbag and pulled out her purse.
‘I don’t think there are any rules about who pays a mortgage, are there? Just use my card to clear the debt.’
She dropped the purse on the table and pushed the card towards me.
Smiling affectionately, I slid the card firmly back to her. ‘Minnie, no.’
She sighed, observing me with kindly frustration.
‘Ooh, who are they?’ To distract her, I pointed at the photo of two cute curly-headed little boys displayed in her purse.
She smiled fondly. ‘My twin grandsons. That was taken years ago when they were about eight. Family is so important. Even more so when you get to my age.’
‘You’re right there,’ I murmured.
‘Anyway, I’d better go and let you get to the hospital.’ Minnie stood up, slipped her purse in her handbag and hooked it over her arm. Her bank card was still lying on the table. ‘Will you let me know how things are... with your dad? I’ll be praying every day for him to wake up.’
‘Of course I will. And thank you for coming to see me. It was so lovely to meet you, Minnie.’ Smiling, I handed her the bank card.
‘Oh. Thank you, dear. Imagine if I’d walked away without that. Why did I get it out in the first place?’ She looked confused for a moment. Then she smiled and squeezed my forearm. ‘Oh, of course. I wanted to help you but you won’t let me. Dear me, my memory is terrible these days.’
I smiled and we exchanged numbers. Then I waved her off in her little red mini.
She seemed like such a lovely woman and was thankfully showing no visible signs of the harrowing thing that had happened to her.
But she’d got confused about her bank card, and she’d asked me the same question three times: Are you close to your father?
It had taken a real toll on Dad and me, watching my gran slip further and further away from us until she no longer knew who we were.
Of course, Minnie was a good decade older than Dad’s mum had been when she first started showing symptoms. Minnie looked to be in her eighties. So maybe her forgetfulness was simply a symptom of getting older?
Thinking of Minnie’s kind heart and her dazzling smile, I found myself really hoping that was the case...
*****
It was later that day and I was sitting in the bar of the Swan Hotel.
I was getting the distinct feeling I’d been stood up.
Glancing at my phone for the millionth time, I clocked that I’d been waiting in the bar of the Swan Hotel for exactly fifteen minutes past the time we’d agreed to meet – but ‘Stephen’ (GSOH, likes football and chickens) still hadn’t appeared.
I’d trawled through the responses to my online profile and narrowed it down to two ‘possibles’.
‘Gary’ looked nice and ‘normal’ in his photo – although since he’d posted only one picture, I couldn’t help feeling a little doubtful.
It was probably the best photo ever taken of him, shot from exactly the right flattering angle when he was standing roughly a hundred yards away from the camera.
It was also quite possibly a decade old.
Not that I was in any way cynical about the opposite sex these days. Why would I be? Being dumped by my fiancé thirteen days before our big white wedding was obviously something I’d taken completely in my stride. (Ha ha.)
My other possible match, ‘Stephen’, had caught my eye mainly because I’d found the ‘likes football and chickens’ mildly intriguing. Not the football bit, but the ‘chickens’.
Was he genuinely into ‘the good life’? Did he really have hens pecking away in a coop in his back garden?
Or was it much more mundane than that? Had he actually meant to say ‘likes chicken’?
Without the ‘s’? Which would obviously suggest that any future dates were likely to feature a well-known chain of restaurants beginning with the letter ‘N’.
I stifled a sigh, wishing I’d stayed in and watched TV, instead of faffing around getting dressed up for a date I didn’t even want to go on... a date which I wouldn’t have gone on – if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was doing it for Dad!
I’d promised him faithfully I’d get back onto the dating scene and I wasn’t about to back out.
So I’d sit there until ‘Stephen’ showed up and then maybe I’d have something interesting to report to Dad the next day...
But as the minutes ticked by and I sipped my cola, I was resigning myself to a no-show.
Lyndsay, my best friend, had texted me asking about Dad, and I’d told her there was no change and that I was sitting in a bar on my own, having possibly been stood up.
I’ll give him another 15 minutes then I’m leaving
She texted straight back.
Wish I could join you there but it’s date night and I don’t think Jon would appreciate me deserting him for you!
I ended with: No problem. I’ll just sit here feeling sad and unloved. LOL. See you soon!
Drumming my fingers on the table, I drank my cola in tiny sips and stared at the door.
‘Stephen-GSOH-likes-football-and-chickens/chicken’ hadn’t even texted me with an excuse. And he was now half an hour late. He obviously wasn’t coming. Not that I was particularly bothered. Maybe I’d go straight to the hospital from here and tell Dad about nice, normal-looking Gary...
Mind made up, I picked up my bag, left the bar and hurried out.
I was slightly distracted, thinking about buses and whether I’d be able to get to the hospital this late – there weren’t many buses running in the evenings – so I wasn’t looking where I was going and as I exited onto the high street, I bumped straight into someone walking past.
‘Whoops, sorry,’ I mumbled.
‘Whoa, are you okay?’ said a voice that sounded a little familiar. ‘ Anika ?’
‘Xander!’
‘Well, hello. Fancy meeting you here.’
‘Yes. Hi!’ Xander had come to work at the bank about a year before all the redundancies, but he’d been in a different department, so we’d only ever chatted briefly in the canteen.
Although now I thought about it, there was that one memorable time we found ourselves stuck in the lift at work for almost an hour.
I couldn’t remember what we’d talked about all that time.
I just remember Xander had made me laugh, despite the fact that he’d only recently broken up with his girlfriend. ‘So how are you?’
‘Good. I’m working as a financial advisor now. You?’
I shook my head, admiring the small tattoo of a flower on the side of his neck. ‘Still no luck with the job hunting.’
‘Oh, that’s tough.’ He looked genuinely sorry. ‘Look, give me your number and I’ll keep my ear to the ground, okay? Let you know if I hear of any vacancies?’
‘Aw, thanks!’ I smiled at him as we exchanged numbers. ‘That’s so nice of you.’
It was an iris, the tattoo on his neck. It had always intrigued me and I was about to ask him about it, when he smiled and said, ‘So where are you off to now?’
‘Er... home.’ I gave him a sheepish grin. ‘I’ve been stood up by someone I’ve never even met. He hasn’t even bothered to text me an explanation.’
‘Oh, no!’ He looked appalled. ‘Well, that’s just bloody rude.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘You don’t look too worried about it.’ He assessed my demeanour. ‘In fact, you seem... well, a bit relieved , dare I say?’
I nodded. ‘I was. I am.’ I swallowed. ‘To be honest, I was only doing it to please my dad.’
‘Your dad ? Wow, since when did parents get the right to organise their kids’ love lives?’ he joked.