Chapter one #2
I dragged my attention across the road, towards the Wild Dog Café, and my lemon tart. But there was a crowd on the pavement between it and me, and I was forced to stop my manic walking.
Two paramedics in green overalls were tending to someone hidden by three other people, one in a NatWest blouse, who was shielding the patient from view.
Passers-by stepped around the incident with exaggerated care, tilting their heads discreetly to see what was going on while making sure not to catch anyone’s eye and get involved.
I stopped, not sure whether to step into the road to get past, or edge by on the pavement.
I hoped it wasn’t anything serious. One paramedic moved aside and I caught sight of a bare foot, pale and knobbly, and close by, a red low-heeled shoe, lying on its side on the pavement.
Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. I wondered what it was – an accident? A mugging? No, that was unthinkable.
Then I heard the voice.
‘I’m absolutely fine, this is so silly, please, I’m fine . . .’
It was unmistakable: the cut-glass determination, with just a touch of iron under the sweetness. The voice of an old-school newsreader, or a head teacher.
It was Martine.
I hesitated, pretending to make room for passers-by coming from the other direction. Should I go? Was this a sign to turn round and head back to the car? I shouldn’t really be stopping, not with a client call at three p.m. and the dog waiting at home.
But it was Martine.
‘Shall we try to get on our feet then, bab?’ inquired a paramedic.
I winced. I could have warned him that tone wasn’t going to go down well, and it didn’t.
‘Please don’t call me bab, young man.’
‘Seems to be OK cognitively,’ muttered his colleague.
I watched as the crowd parted and the first paramedic scooped Martine Henderson up, setting her on the nearby bench as if she weighed nothing.
Which maybe she didn’t. Martine had always been slender, but her ankles were startlingly thin, and the hair that had been the colour of the palest champagne the last time I’d seen her was now white in thick streaks.
She looked fragile, not an adjective I had ever thought I’d apply to a woman with Martine’s very definite presence.
‘You’re very kind but there’s no need to make such a fuss,’ she was saying, brushing invisible dust off her summer dress as the paramedic replaced her shoe. She stretched out her foot as if men placed shoes on her feet every day. Like Cinderella. ‘I simply lost my balance on the— Oh.’
I took an involuntary step backwards.
She’d spotted me standing in the gap between the paramedics and the bank teller. Martine frowned then blinked like someone seeing a ghost: startled, but unsure whether she’d really seen what she thought she’d seen. And unwilling to draw attention to her mistake, if it was a mistake.
I froze. Needless to say, I had imagined various conversations I’d have with Martine if we met again, most of which were designed to be relayed to Fraser: basic message – my life is amazing but I’m open to a reunion.
But now, all I could think of was my outfit.
Any doubt vanished, and I knew it was the exact opposite of the blue Anthropologie dress I’d just given away.
It was the elasticated loungewear of defeat.
The NatWest lady followed Martine’s gaze, saw me standing there, and said, with audible relief, ‘Oh, look! Is this a friend?’
Now the paramedics turned too. The weight of responsibility shifted palpably from them on to me.
‘Is that . . . Beth?’ said Martine.
‘Yes,’ I said, wincing at the uncertainty in her voice. OK, so I had put on some weight in the past few years but surely not a transformative amount.
Before Martine could formulate a response, the bank teller rushed over and patted me on the arm, drawing me into the circle, so she could leave.
‘Wonderful, I’ll leave you in the capable hands of the paramedics and your friend here.
Sorry, we’re so short-staffed today! I’m glad you’re feeling better, Mrs Henderson!
’ She backed away rapidly, then turned and sprinted up the steps.
The radio inside the ambulance beeped and crackled.
‘So, bab, I mean . . .’ The paramedic couldn’t think of another term of endearment that wouldn’t get him into trouble.
‘Mrs Henderson,’ repeated Martine.
‘Do you want to hop into the ambulance and we’ll whisk you up to A and E and get you checked over?’
‘For heaven’s sake. I’m not hopping anywhere and I do not want to be whisked.’
‘You’ve had a nasty fall,’ reasoned the other. ‘You could have concussion.’
‘I wasn’t unconscious. I would remember being concussed!’
‘You wouldn’t,’ he said, ‘that’s the point.’
Martine glared up from the bench. ‘I am fine.’
‘With the best will in the world . . .’ The radio on his shoulder crackled; another call, this one urgent. The paramedic pulled his colleague to one side and muttered in his ear. I thought I heard the word ‘crash’.
The bab paramedic turned to me. ‘Would you be able to run her up to A and E? We’d take her in now, but if she doesn’t want to go .
. .’ He gestured to the radio. ‘We were on our way to another job when we got flagged down to take a look at her. To be honest, you’re going to get her seen quicker if you just nip up in the car. ’
‘I don’t need to go to hospital!’ interjected Martine. ‘Do stop talking about me as if I’m a million years old, I’m here and I can hear you.’
The paramedic exhaled. ‘We’re just trying to make sure you’re safe.’ He dropped his voice and muttered to me, ‘Can you make sure she’s not on her own for twenty-four hours? Keep her quiet, any signs of dizziness, loss of balance, deafness, vomiting, bring her up to A and E.’
‘But I’m not—’ I started.
The radio crackled again, and this time the despatcher sounded stressed.
‘Please!’ said Martine. ‘Get on your way to someone who needs your help. I insist.’ She had her handbag open on her lap and was searching inside it. She flapped her other hand dismissively. ‘Beth can look after me.’
‘If you’re sure . . .’
‘I’m positive. Now you hop it!’
The paramedics exchanged looks, then packed up their equipment at lightning speed and vanished in a flurry of thanks and apologies and walkie-talkie jargon, leaving me standing awkwardly on the pavement by the bench, wondering how this had happened.
‘So, Beth!’ Martine looked me up and down, and I braced herself for the comment about how much I’d changed since we’d last seen each other. Or something about Fraser. Or something about my outfit. From the expression on her face, she was clearly having trouble deciding on the right thing to say.
I had never actually said goodbye to Martine. One moment I was her son’s long-term girlfriend, a fixture at Christmas and birthdays, the next I was . . . gone.
‘Would you like me to give you a lift home?’ I asked.
‘Goodness, no – no need for that. I’m sure I can find a taxi.’ Martine straightened her shoulders and attempted to stand up, but in doing so, pain rippled across her face, and I reached out instinctively to steady her.
The cardigan was deceptive; under the cashmere Martine’s upper arms were so thin my hands went right round them. She weighed almost nothing.
I couldn’t stop myself. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go to A and E?’
‘No! I do not! I wish people would stop behaving as if I’m incapable of making decisions for myself!’ Martine snapped.
‘Sorry! I’m sorry!!’
She sank down on the bench, closed her eyes and grasped her handbag.
The delicate skin on her eyelids flickered as she took two, three deep breaths, gathering herself together.
My gaze ran cautiously across her face, checking the familiar against the new in the same way I’d assessed the high street; despite the ugly flush of embarrassment and stress, Martine’s complexion was soft and pale, still like double cream.
The cheekbones were still smoothly defined, over-plucked brown eyebrows arched over her deep eye sockets.
When I’d first met her, she’d already worn her crow’s feet proudly, confident that her energy was that of a much younger woman, and they didn’t seem much deeper now; her only gesture towards make-up was a slash of deep raspberry lipstick, right now temporarily faded to a faint rosehip.
It was a stylistic flourish I’d tried, and failed, to copy over the years.
My own round face needed more skilful colouring-in.
Unlike Martine, I had no hollows or shadows, just apples.
I felt oddly intrusive, being allowed to observe her like this; it was such a rare moment of vulnerability. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Fraser’s mother silent for so long, let alone with her eyes closed.
Then Martine’s blue eyes snapped open, and in an instant, there was the woman I remembered: the self-possessed matriarch, born wearing a double string of pearls.
‘What a ridiculous fuss about nothing,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry to put you out, Beth.’
‘I was about to go to the Wild Dog Café for a lemon tart,’ I said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘I would. But I’d like to go home, if you’d be so kind,’ she said, with a sweet smile that was half-apology, half-request. ‘Can you remember where it is?’
‘I think so,’ I said.
How could I forget?
Rather than walk Martine back across town, I left her on the bench and hurried back to the car, which was parked in Montague Road, where Fraser and I had once looked at a flat, before he told me he didn’t think living in the same town as his parents was a good idea and then refused to discuss it further, and eventually denied ever saying it.
In the time it took to drive back to where Martine was waiting on the high street, I redid my make-up with whatever I could find in my handbag, and dragged out a red scarf from under the seat which I threw on to break up the apologetic beige of my outfit.