Chapter 26 #2
“You?”
“Don’t sound quite so surprised. I can be fairly capable, on occasion.” Claire spoke lightly.
“No, sorry. I didn’t mean . . .” Rachel sighed. “Look, you’d better come in.”
The house was far messier than it had been when Claire had come last week; Rachel led her into the kitchen, which was filled with dirty dishes, and the smell of grease and old fried food hung in the air.
“Sorry,” Rachel said as she shrugged at the disaster zone. “I haven’t had time . . .”
“I have time.”
Rachel simply stared. “Sorry, what?”
“I have time,” Claire said again, her voice firm. “You look shattered. Why don’t you go in the sitting room and have a moment to relax and I’ll clean up in here? I’ll make you a cup of tea while I’m at it and keep an eye on Nathan.”
“But . . .” Rachel blinked, looking completely flummoxed. Was it so hard to believe she could manage to tidy a room and boil a kettle?
“I happen to like tidying up.” Gently Claire shooed her towards the sitting room. “Go on. Can your mum manage without you for a few minutes?” She hadn’t heard anything from the closed dining room door, so maybe Janice was asleep.
“Lily’s sitting with her.”
“That’s all right, then. I’ll come in with your tea in just a few minutes.”
“That okay, Nath?” Rachel asked, and Claire gave him a bright smile. Children made her nervous.
Predictably, his lip wobbled. “Ray-Ray . . .”
“It looks like you’ve been doing some coloring,” Claire tried.
She reached for the cheap coloring book that had been left open on the kitchen table, a half-scribbled picture of Thomas the Tank Engine obscured by a coffee ring.
“Can you do some with me? And perhaps I can find you a biscuit.” Claire pulled out a chair and patted the seat, and Rachel tiptoed to the sitting room while she helped Nathan sit down.
It was surprisingly cozy and cheerful, cleaning the Campbells’ tiny kitchen while Nathan colored and the kettle boiled. It didn’t take long to rinse and stack the dishes in the dishwasher and then spritz the cleaning surfaces and give the cooker a good wipe down.
She found a somewhat stale digestive for Nathan, who munched it as he colored, only looking up when the kettle whistled.
“What’s your name?”
Claire laughed. “Claire,” she said. “And I know you’re Nathan.” He looked surprised but pleased by this, and Claire brewed two cups of tea and carried them into the sitting room, Nathan scrambling off his seat to follow her.
Rachel was sitting on the sofa, her feet propped up on the coffee table, her eyes closed. She barely opened them as Claire came in and tidied a few magazines away to make room for their cups.
“Here we are. You look like you’re about to doze off.”
“I think I just did.” Rachel straightened with a yawn and took her cup of tea. “Thank you, Claire.”
“I made one for myself. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not.”
Nathan settled on a corner of the sofa with his coloring book, and Rachel and Claire both sipped their tea in surprisingly peaceful silence.
“How did this morning go?” Claire finally asked. “With your mum?”
Rachel grimaced. “Hard. We really need a wheelchair, but there’s none available at the moment.
Bloody NHS.” She glanced worriedly at Nathan, but he seemed oblivious.
“I don’t know what we would have done without Andrew.
He helped me carry Mum inside.” She closed her eyes briefly.
“Not something I want to ever have to do again, in all honesty.”
“I can imagine.” Although she wasn’t sure she could. Janice Campbell was a big woman.
“Mum looked so miserable,” Rachel continued, her voice catching.
“I’m sure her back is absolutely killing her, although of course she can’t say.
She’s on a million different meds now. I’ll never get them straight, and they all cost a mint.
” She sighed and shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t mean to moan. ”
“You have every right to moan, Rachel. It all sounds pretty awful.”
“It is.”
“Will your mum—will she improve? In time?”
“There’s no saying. With rehab, maybe a little. But . . .” Rachel paused, her face contorting a little before she took a measured breath. “She’s only fifty-one. She could live like this for God knows how long.”
Which meant Rachel could live like this for God knew how long. It was a life sentence, and a very tough one.
“I’m sorry,” Claire said quietly. “Are Lily and Meghan helping?”
“Meghan disappeared this morning and hasn’t been back.” Rachel glanced again at Nathan before giving Claire a pointed look. “I don’t know when she will be.”
“You mean . . . ?”
This time she looked pointedly at Nathan. “I don’t know.”
“Look, let me help—”
Rachel raised her half-drunk cup of tea. “You already have.”
“I mean really help. Properly. How on earth are you going to cope otherwise?”
Rachel’s face took on a pinched look. “Trust me, Claire, I managed fine before you came along.”
“I know you did. Of course you did. But I want to help, and I have some time.”
“That’s what Andrew said.”
Claire jerked back a bit in surprise. “What?”
“He said I should ask you to help. But you went ahead and asked me.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, let me help, then.”
“Doing what? Changing my mother’s nappy? Wiping the spittle from her chin?” Her voice rang out, and Claire drew back, shocked, and then even more shocked when Rachel’s face crumpled and she started to cry.
“Rachel . . .”
“Don’t.” Rachel held her hands up to her face as she drew in several shuddering breaths. “Honestly. Please don’t.”
Don’t what? Help her? Comfort her? Claire saw Nathan looking like he was about to cry too, and quickly she scooped him up into her arms. “Back into the kitchen, I think. How about another digestive?”
“Ray-Ray . . .” he began, but he didn’t protest as Claire deposited him in a kitchen chair and thrust another digestive into his grubby hands.
Then, for lack of anything better to do, she made Rachel another cup of tea. By the time she brought it into the sitting room, Rachel had gotten control of herself. Claire handed her the tea and Rachel took it, bringing the cup up to let the steam hit her face.
“Sorry about that,” she said, her gaze on the tea.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Rachel. Life is hard.”
Rachel just shook her head and then took a sip of tea. Claire perched on the edge of a chair, half listening for Nathan.
“Thank you,” Rachel finally said. “I could use your help. If you wouldn’t mind cleaning.”
“Cleaning? You mean, for your housekeeping business?” Rachel nodded, and relief made Claire almost buoyant. “Absolutely. Cleaning is actually something I can do.”
Rachel smiled sadly. “You can do a lot of things, Claire.”
“Well, I’m adding to my repertoire every day. Just tell me when and where. I have Tuesdays free, and on other days I’m finished at the shop at four. I like cleaning, actually.”
“I have noticed that I haven’t had to do much up at Four Gables,” Rachel said, and then gave her a proper smile. “Okay, then. Thank you. I can shift some of my jobs to Tuesday and you can start then, and try to tackle Henry Price’s horrible loo.”