Chapter 2
Several days later, and I’m at home while my friend Julie bustles about with a duster in her hand – in and out of different rooms – and I’ve given up telling her to sit down and just have a chat with me.
‘Where’s Dot?’ she asks.
‘Back in Portsmouth for a few days,’ I say.
Julie sits down at last, but it’s just a perch on the edge of the sofa, and she keeps the duster in her hand as if to prove that she’s only stopping for a minute. ‘Did you consider moving down there, instead of her coming here? I mean, what with her having all that family and you…’
‘Having no one?’ I ask.
‘No!’ She taps me on the knee with her non-duster hand. ‘I’m delighted you’ve settled here, of course. But was it something you went back and forth on?’
Julie came into my life a few months ago, as a carer, something Arthur had set up for after his death.
He’d paid for her to come for three months, and in that time I went from being extremely sceptical to viewing her as a true friend, and now she just comes to visit, in between her other caring jobs.
She’s always putting a wash on or getting me some lunch ready, and I’m always telling her she doesn’t have to. But she says it’s force of habit.
I think about the question she’s asked, about whether I considered moving to Portsmouth to be with Dot.
Two of her three sons live there, and her two grandchildren.
But Broughton is where we met, where we’re both from, where I’ve lived all my life.
Yes, I would have gone there to be with her, but it would have been a wrench to leave Julie and Erin and the other friends I’ve made recently.
It was Dot who said she was ready for a change though, so here we are.
‘No,’ I tell Julie. ‘I didn’t want to move, really, and Dot said she was happy to come here. And it all happened so quickly, as you know.’
‘Well, it saves me the drive to Portsmouth to give you a hand with things, so I’m not complaining.’
Erin comes into the room and I’d almost forgotten she was here.
Usually, she plays music in her bedroom and it drifts down the stairs, a constant and welcome reminder that there’s someone else here.
But lately she seems to have got serious about her studying and the music has gone.
I hope it will come back at some point. I never knew any of the songs but I liked the way she’d play something and then sing it around the place for the next couple of days.
‘Hey Julie,’ she says.
Julie smiles and waves her duster, and then coughs and wafts the dust away.
She’ll start dusting again in a minute to catch it.
They haven’t had the smoothest of rides, these two.
Julie worried that Erin was taking advantage when she first came to stay with me because her parents couldn’t accept that she’s gay.
But Erin needed somewhere to go, and I had the space.
Now they get on just fine. I think maybe they’ll never be best friends, but they’re two of my best friends, and they like one another, so that’s good enough.
‘How’s the revision going?’ Julie asks.
Erin holds out a hand and tilts it this way and that. ‘So-so. You know.’
‘I left school at sixteen,’ Julie says. ‘Didn’t even think about staying on. And uni? It just wasn’t for the likes of me.’
‘Why not?’ Erin asks, sitting down and folding her legs underneath her. She bites into an apple, and I think she’s looking pale, that I should get her out for a walk every now and again.
‘It’s just how things were. At school, unless you were really bright, they just assumed you’d be leaving and most of us did. I was in a hurry to start earning money, anyway. I thought I knew it all. What was it like in your day, Mabel?’
I think about school. I can still smell it. Polished floors and starched shirts and vegetables boiled too long.
‘I couldn’t wait to get out of there either,’ I say. ‘Like you say, Julie, continuing in education wasn’t really a consideration, except for the chosen few.’
‘My parents didn’t go to uni,’ Erin says.
Julie and I are quiet, because she doesn’t often talk about her family.
‘My sister didn’t either. I guess because she had her baby so young. So I’ll be the first. And it’s strange that they’re not really involved in the process. Won’t be dropping me off and all that.’
It’s a big thing she’s doing, going it alone. For the hundredth time, I wonder why her parents are behaving this way. I worry about her, too, out in the world alone for the first time. I hope she’s ready.
‘We can drop you off, can’t we, Mabel? As long as you don’t mind being seen with two old ladies.’
I’m touched that Julie’s jumped in with this offer, and I can see that Erin is too.
‘We can,’ I say. ‘Of course we can. And you’re a spring chicken compared to me, Julie!’
‘There’s nothing in it to Erin, though. Old is old.’
Erin laughs. ‘Well, let’s get the exams out of the way first. I might not even make it.’
And with that, she’s gone, back up the stairs. I hear them creak, one near the bottom and one right at the top, hear the soft thud of her door closing. I was going to say that I know she’ll make it, but it’s too late.
‘She’s working hard,’ Julie says.
‘Yes.’
It’s not so long ago that I thought Erin was working too many shifts at the little supermarket in town and spending too much time with her on-off girlfriend, Hannah.
It’s like something’s switched in the last few weeks.
When Hannah comes round these days, they study together.
And she’s cut her shifts back, too. It means a lot to her, getting into university. It means a lot to me, too.
‘She’s got it all ahead, hasn’t she?’ I say.
‘All of what?’ Julie asks.
‘Just everything. Love and friendship and career and… everything. There’s no telling where she’ll be in ten years’ time. And I hope she makes the most of every minute.’
‘She won’t, though,’ Julie says.
I’m not sure what she means at first and I give her a questioning look.
‘You just don’t, when you’re in it,’ Julie says.
‘It’s only when you’re looking back that you see how lucky you were, or how happy.
I didn’t cherish every moment with my sister, for example.
Sometimes she was a pain in the arse, and I was arguing with her about who a certain top belonged to, or what we should watch on TV.
But now? If I had her back? I would know to just hold her tight, and love her. ’
We’re quiet, then, and I know we’re both thinking about the people we’ve lost. Now that Dot’s on the scene, I find I’m not thinking of Arthur quite so much, but I have my moments.
Standing in the kitchen, remembering him at the table with his crossword.
At the bathroom sink, thinking of the way he would always stand beside me as we brushed our teeth.
I didn’t love him the way I should have done, but a long marriage is a long marriage, and there are things you miss for a long time.
‘I forgot to say,’ Julie says, eventually, ‘Patty’s invited us round tomorrow.’
Patty’s an American dancing teacher who Julie introduced me to. She’s part of our little group, along with her neighbour Kirsty, who’s very glamorous and has a partner called Ben and a baby called Dotty.
‘Lovely,’ I say. ‘Tea and cake? Shall we whip up some scones? And shall I ask Erin too? Reassemble the group?’
‘If she has time, but don’t worry if she’s studying.’
My mobile telephone rings then, and it’s Dot. I used to keep it tucked away in a drawer, and I still do a lot of the time, but when Dot’s away, I keep it to hand.
‘Dot, how are things?’
‘Oh Mabel, it’s so good to hear your voice.’
I feel myself light up at that. Because it’s always such a pleasure to hear hers, and it’s wonderful to know she feels the same way.
‘I hope nothing’s wrong,’ I say.
‘No, nothing’s wrong. I just miss you. And I’ve been thinking about the way we left things. You know, after you asked me—’
Dot said yes to my proposal, initially, but then when I started talking about dates, she seemed overwhelmed, so I’ve been wondering whether it was really a yes after all, or whether it’s going to turn into a no.
‘Yes?’ I ask, prompting her to go on.
‘I want to marry you more than anything in the world,’ she says, and it feels like a good start even though I can sense that there’s a ‘but’ coming. ‘But there’s so much you don’t know about me, and so much I don’t know about you. I want us to take our time, Mabel.’
I laugh, then, because we are eighty-six and we were apart for more than sixty years. If that’s not taking our time, I don’t know what is.
‘Can you give me that, Mabel? A bit of time?’
I nod my head, because I would give her anything. But then I realise she’s on the telephone and not in the room. ‘Yes, Dot. Of course I can. And listen, I want to know everything about you, too. Let’s work on it, when you’re back.’
We end the call shortly afterwards and Julie looks like she has questions, but she doesn’t ask them and I don’t encourage her to.
Later, when I’m in bed, the sheet feels cold beside me.
Empty without Dot now. I try to imagine what she might be holding back.
Is it possible that she doesn’t believe in marriage between two women?
Or that she thinks we’re too old to take that step?
I fall asleep fretting, and wake up wishing she was home.