Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-four
July
Living at Kilmory Cottage: Carly, Frank, Kenny, Eddie
Bella and Ana both offer Eddie their beds that night. No, he’ll be fine, he insists. ‘You’ve had a rough time, Ed,’ Bella reminds him. ‘Honestly, I don’t mind. I’ll sleep downstairs on the sofa.’
‘I’ll be fine ,’ he says, a little more forcefully now that Prish, Myra, Sandra and Ian have left. The sofa will be FINE, seeing as Granddad seems to have moved into his room now!
Eddie observes me, pointedly, as I spread a sheet over the sofa, and then bring down the spare duvet we’d always kept for sleepovers, and which Dad rejected in favour of blankets. ‘I hope you’re comfy here,’ I say, feeling helpless as to how to make him feel better. He’s already spilled out what happened: the blind fiasco. The blind you ordered, Mum. As if that, like the pregnancy, was somehow also my fault. Imagine, buying him an item that would result in injury and unemployment! And hadn’t he told me that he’d put it up months ago? Why had he lied about that?
‘What happened exactly?’ Frank asked. Eddie muttered that the stepladder he’d used, in order to position the blind accurately – according to the instructions – had suddenly collapsed. And then his boss had been totally unsupportive – sacking him with no notice, for having an accident! Eddie had only found out when he’d borrowed Raj’s phone again and finally managed to get hold of Marius at the restaurant. As he doesn’t know Lyla’s number, he’s been unable to contact her – and instead of being at home when she was due to visit, he’d opted for drowning his sorrows in the pub. When he’d woken this morning, depressed, hungover and still phoneless, all he could think of was to grab a bag of essentials and catch the next train home.
We’d all gathered around him, dispensing sympathy and careful hugs, so as not to knock his bad arm. ‘It’s fine ,’ he said sharply as I fussed over him, asking if it hurt, or whether he needed painkillers.
I glance at him now, all pale and exhausted and looking as if he’s been in a fight. I’ve already texted Suki, explaining briefly what’s happened and asking for Lyla’s number. As she has yet to reply, I assume she’s up at the cabin. ‘I’ll just fetch you a pillow,’ I say.
‘Yeah, if you’ve got one,’ he mutters.
I frown, suddenly reminded of my petulant, pre-Edinburgh son. Now you’re deciding which Quality Street I like? ‘Eddie, of course there’s a pillow—’
‘—Or I could make do with a cushion.’
Don’t rise to it, I tell myself. He’s been through an awful lot. ‘Sure you’ll be okay down here?’ I ask later, when he’s tucked up.
‘Yeah.’ Please go away now, is the strong signal he’s sending out. The fact that he has Lyla’s number now – Suki got back to me, full of concern – hasn’t seemed to lift his mood.
‘You know the girls are heading off tomorrow, so you’ll have a bed then,’ I add. Eddie nods, duvet pulled up tightly to his chin. ‘You’re not really fed up that Granddad’s in your room, are you?’
A shrug. ‘Not really.’
I peer at him, trying to make sense of this. ‘Eddie, you’d moved out. I didn’t think you’d be back. And you knew Granddad had moved in with us—’
‘I didn’t know he’d have my room!’
I open my mouth, stunned by his outburst. ‘Should we have asked permission?’
‘It would’ve been nice to know it was still there,’ he mutters, looking a little shamefaced now.
‘It is there,’ I say, patience fraying now. ‘And it’s only temporary, Granddad being here—’
‘Yeah,’ Eddie says. ‘It’s just that some parents keep their kids’ rooms exactly as they are.’
*
As a shrine , he meant, which kills Prish, Jamie and Marilyn when I tell them at the library on Monday morning. ‘Like you did, Prish,’ Jamie teases. ‘Didn’t you have Joe’s room up on Airbnb before he’d unpacked his stuff in uni halls?’
We laugh, and as the days go on, I take to offloading about my home situation on a daily basis. Since the weekend at the cabin, Suki and I have also been messaging occasionally. Oliver was concerned about my dad, she’s told me, and she’s reassured him that everything’s okay. I’m enjoying the connection with her, mainly because we’re sharing a huge thing here; the arrival of our first grandchild. Happily, the focus is more on the birth, and the baby, than the parents’ relationship. What names do we think they’ll choose? Does Lyla have a birth plan? We share our own birth stories and admit how nerve-shredding it’ll be for us, when the day finally arrives.
Also, surprisingly to me, Suki seems to enjoy my updates on home life. Carly, you’re a saint, she’s said on more than one occasion. Of course it’s not true because often my thoughts are far from saintly. But all of this helps to keep me sane while I’m living with Frank, Eddie and Dad. A lone female now, missing my daughters and concerned about Bella, even though she insists she’s okay.
Meanwhile Dad keeps insisting that I’m trying to overfeed him. And Eddie’s lengthy soaks in the bath trigger much door banging from Dad. In turn, Eddie is appalled by our new dinner-on-laps regime with the endless quiz shows, and the way his granddad leaves his pill packets scattered all over the bathroom.
‘Everything’s gone so weird here,’ he’s complained. As if, during his absence, Kilmory Cottage was taken over by an invading force, who have instilled a harsh and unsettling new regime, and no one thought to warn him. Plus, since his spell in Edinburgh his already tenuous ties with his remaining Sandybanks friends seem to have weakened even more. Without a phone, it seems, you just can’t communicate with anyone (when I suggested he popped round to see a couple of old mates in person, he looked aghast). Quite reasonably, Frank says we’re not buying him another phone, not when there’s a perfectly good one sitting in an Edinburgh flat. Why can’t Lyla post it to him? I have no idea, and am loath to broach the subject. Perhaps she, like Eddie, is allergic to anything to do with the postal system.
Meanwhile I might have expected that, as a professional chef, Eddie might offer to cook now and again. But instead, he has taken to patronising me in the kitchen. ‘Your knife skills are terrible,’ he hectors, looming over me in his hooded brown robe as I dice an onion. Yep, now they’re reunited – the disgusting article was given a boil-wash in his absence – and he’s taken to wearing it again like a second skin. ‘You should never stir a paella, Mum,’ he scolds. ‘You’re breaking down the starch in the rice and that’s what’s making it sludgy.’
This from the boy who incinerated my best pan and grated his thumb!
Another night, as I prepare a quick dinner: ‘When you’re making a vegetable base like that, you need to chop the shallots and carrots really finely, to make a mirepoix —’
‘Eddie, it’s just a pasta sauce.’
‘—and you should braise it gently for a very, very long time, in butter.’
I form a rictus smile. ‘Thanks, love. I’ll do that.’ He’ll settle down, I tell myself. It’s just that he has no job to go to and nothing much to do. Meanwhile Frank has returned to the shed.
‘I could burn it down when he’s out at work,’ I suggest, during a Monday lunchtime walk with Prish. ‘ And Eddie’s robe—’
‘Oh, is that back in action?’ she asks, trying to stop a laugh. I suppose it is funny, in a demented sort of way. And I can’t help smirking when I glimpse The Empty-Nester’s Handbook sitting there on the bookshelf.
However, one morning I’m not laughing at all as Frank and I stroll along the seafront together. ‘Fancy walking to work with me this morning?’ I’d asked. ‘We never get the chance to talk properly anymore.’
Although a little nonplussed, he’d agreed. Three weeks since Eddie came home, and I was desperate to have some time alone together.
‘Can you believe this has happened to us?’ I ask now, glancing out over the choppy sea. The ferry is making its way towards Arran, and the island is shrouded in mist.
‘Not really, no,’ Frank replies.
‘D’you think Eddie’s all right? I mean, I worry about his mental health—’
‘He’ll be fine when he gets his phone back,’ he says sharply.
I bite my lip. ‘Maybe. I hope so. Why won’t Lyla post it?’
Frank merely shrugs and grunts.
‘We could pick it up when we go over to collect his stuff,’ I add. ‘When d’you think we should do that?’
‘I don’t know—’
‘D’you think he’s going to give up the flat? I’ve tried to ask but he just shuts me down. I guess the guys will want to find another flatmate—’
‘Can we stop obsessing over what Eddie’s doing or not doing?’ Frank blasts out.
I stop and stare at him. ‘I’m not! I’m just … wondering . That’s all.’
We start walking again in silence. My heart is thudding, and my chest feels tight. ‘The thing is,’ he announces with startling force, ‘it’s not really our job to be in charge of his life, is it?’
I take a breath, trying to stay calm. I can’t face an argument now, not right before I head off to work. ‘I know it’s not,’ I reply. ‘But it’s the way things have turned out.’ I turn away from Frank, barely able to look at him now. Instead, I glance down at the beach where several dog walkers are walking together in a group. Their dogs are running and playing, delighted to be in a pack. And then I see a familiar woman in a tracksuit striding along the seafront. It’s Janine, Calum’s mum, who has a stream-of-consciousness way of speaking, and who of course knows all about Eddie’s baby.
‘Who’d have thought it?’ she announces, catching her breath.
‘I know!’ I force a smile.
‘Remember that time at your barbecue, you were saying he had quite some growing up to do? But boys are like that, aren’t they? Late developers, lagging behind …’ By ‘growing up’ I’d meant helping in the house, and perhaps ingesting some fruit now and again. Not making a baby. ‘You do your best to help them along their way,’ she goes on. ‘But they have to get there by themselves, don’t they? It has to come from them , not us. Look at Calum, nearly dropping out of uni. Couldn’t take the pace. And now he’s flying, loving his life …’
‘I’m glad he’s doing so well,’ I say, glancing at Frank. He’s been standing there, as mute and unmoving as the sea wall.
We part ways and finally, the man speaketh. ‘What was all that about?’
‘You know Janine. She just goes on a bit.’
‘Maybe she’s right though,’ he adds. ‘Maybe we should’ve kept out of things with Eddie.’
I stare at him. ‘What’re you talking about?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he blusters. ‘The stuff we get involved with—’
‘Like what, Frank? Like helping him move, and trying to be supportive when he needs us—’
‘Didn’t we say this was our time now, when we were in Paris?’
‘Yes, but quite a lot’s happened since then—’
‘Tell me about it!’
‘What’re you angry about now?’ I exclaim. ‘Eddie coming back home? He had an accident —’
‘Yeah, trying to put up the blind! Did you honestly think he’d be capable?’
‘What? You mean you’re actually blaming me for this? Like not giving him the proper facts-of-life talk, remember you blamed me for that too—’
‘I did not!’
‘Frank, I had to beg you to tell him anything,’ I protest. ‘Like how to wash his willy properly. How to take proper care of it—’
‘I told you at the time it’s pretty basic,’ he snaps. ‘It’s not a pet. It doesn’t need training or taking out for walks—’
‘Okay, fine! But he still needed to know stuff and that was your job. To explain it all to him. Because, in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t have a penis—’ I break off abruptly as Thelma Campbell from the National History Society approaches with her bichon frise. A stately six-footer with tightly-set pewter curls, Thelma arranges her expression into a pert smile.
‘Morning, Carly.’
‘Morning, Thelma.’
Dammit, now she too is stopping to chat. This is small-town life. Everyone knows – and observes – everything. ‘Has that book I ordered come in yet?’ she asks. ‘The one about migratory birds, with the QR codes so we can listen—’
‘Er, I think so, I’ll check—’
‘It has the sound of every native bird of Britain,’ she announces to Frank, who manages to form an expression of wonder.
‘Wow,’ he murmurs.
She nods proudly, as if she had compiled all the bird sounds herself. Then she’s off and, without saying goodbye to Frank, I turn away from the seafront and storm off to work.