Chapter eleven #2
I tried the door, and it was open; she hadn’t gone out.
I hesitated, unsure as to whether I should let myself in.
I hadn’t been inside since I’d arrived – and I felt that if Martine wanted my company, she’d have asked – but on the other hand, what if she’d fallen?
She’d obviously embarked on some kind of spring-cleaning mission, and if she’d dragged those bin bags down the stairs herself, she could have hurt herself.
‘Martine!’ I called, louder this time, and rattled the letterbox.
Silence.
I sat back on my heels, debating the polite vs responsible options, then, just as I was about to let myself in, I heard a door open inside the house.
Faint music drifted out. I didn’t recognise the song but it had a Motown-ish beat, not what I’d have expected – Ray and Martine were Classic FM to the core.
I peered through the letterbox in time to see Martine sashaying down the hall with a box, strutting along in a pair of gold slippers, exactly the kind that Jackie worried she’d fall down the stairs wearing.
She was singing the song I didn’t recognise but, unlike me, she knew all the words.
Relieved, I rattled the letterbox to get her attention. ‘Martine? It’s me, Beth!’
She stopped, looking round, and nearly dropped the box. ‘Beth!’
‘Sorry,’ I said, through the flap, ‘I didn’t mean to startle you, I’ve got a delivery.’
She crouched down to my level, much more easily than I had. ‘Goodness, are you all right down there?’
Not really. My knees were killing me, and I struggled awkwardly to my feet, just as she opened the door.
‘For you!’ I presented her with the bouquet. ‘They’re not from me, sorry. The courier left them.’
‘How lovely! I wonder who they’re from?’ Her eyes were bright, but when she opened the card, I thought her delight dimmed a little. ‘Oh. They’re from Fraser.’
I feigned surprise. ‘How thoughtful of him!’
‘Mmm. He sends a bunch every month, instead of coming to see me. I’d rather have no flowers and an hour of his time, but . . .’ Martine sighed. ‘I suppose it’s thoughtful, yes. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?’
‘If I’m not interrupting?’ I looked around the hall.
‘Not at all! In fact, I was going to ask a favour – if you could take some of these things to the charity shop, next time you’re in town, I’d be terribly grateful.’
Now I was inside, I could see there were more bags stacked behind the others; Martine must have been having a real sort-out. ‘Any particular charity shop?’
‘St Michael’s Hospice, please,’ she said decisively. ‘They have discerning shoppers.’ She waved away my offer of help and waltzed off to the kitchen to make the tea.
Immediately I slid into the sitting room like a secret agent, eyes peeled for clues to Fraser’s new life.
I’d been longing for a chance to snoop, starting with a closer look at those photos on the piano, but the piano lid was bare, the photographs stacked unceremoniously into boxes. Three boxes, all full.
I glanced towards the kitchen, then flipped through the pile. Graduations, holidays, Jackie, the Dents, Heather and her cello, more Heather, more Dents. Where was Fraser?
There. I stopped, and so did my heart. It was his graduation photo, closer to the Fraser I’d first met: sun-streaked blond hair flopping into his eyes, the ‘yeah, yeah, whatever, graduation photo’ half-smile, the gangling almost-a-man.
It sent memories blurring across the back of my mind, a fast-forward rush of parties and dates and sex and IKEA trips where we’d bought our first bookshelves and put them together badly, and laughed about it.
Something inside me reached, yearning, for the past. Why had I derailed something so perfect? By being impatient?
‘Beth, would you mind taking this for me?’
I stood up, quickly, before Martine entered the room and caught me snooping. She hadn’t noticed me crouching down, being too busy concentrating on not dropping the tray or losing a slipper. The slippers were stylish but probably not ideal from a health and safety point of view.
I took the tray from her, setting it down on the coffee table. She’d put out the kitchen mugs, not visitor’s china, which was, I supposed, a compliment of sorts. ‘Are you having the piano tuned?’
‘No, I’ve decided to donate it to the school. It’s ridiculous, having a baby grand sitting here doing nothing. Someone should be benefitting.’
‘Are you sure?’ Fraser had told me Martine was an accomplished pianist, though I’d never heard her play. ‘You don’t want to play it yourself?’
Martine shook her head. ‘I don’t think I could anymore. Anyway, someone’s coming to have a look this week.’
‘But where will you put the family photographs?’ I was only half joking.
She waved a hand, a gesture I recognised from Fraser as much as her. It was funny how many of Martine’s mannerisms she’d passed on to her children. ‘I’ll find somewhere. Anyway, I know what they all look like by now.’
‘She’s doing what with the baby grand?’
Jackie’s reaction was reassuring, given how much I’d agonised over whether or not to grass Martine up. It was only when I took the charity shop bags and spotted the lovingly handmade ‘Grandma’ mugs in there that I’d decided that maybe she needed to know the extent of Martine’s spring-cleaning.
‘She’s donating it to the school.’
‘But it’s a family heirloom! Grandpa gave her that piano – it was a wedding present! Oh my God. Did she say when this was happening?’
‘No, just that someone was coming round this week to have a look.’
‘Right. I’ll find a reason to drop by asap. If she doesn’t want the piano for whatever reason, I’ll take it.’ She sighed. ‘Thanks for letting me know, Beth. I owe you a big favour.’
Although I wouldn’t say I’d been particularly close to Fraser’s big sister in the past, Jackie had done me quite a few favours over the years.
She was the sort to spot the shy know-no-ones at a party (i.e.
, me) and drag them over to another awkward guest, matching them up like odd socks.
Three of my longest-standing clients were friends of friends that Jackie had sent my way, not long after I started my own list. I’d never managed to return any of the kindnesses Jackie had done me, but she had asked me to keep an eye on Martine, so . . . I was.
‘Maybe she’s rethinking downsizing?’ I told her about the charity bags, safely in the boot of my car. ‘Maybe visiting Rosemount has made her realise it’s not as bad as she’d heard? The new manager, Lewis, is going through the place like a dose of salts, from what I can see.’
‘Nope!’ Jackie let out a mirthless laugh. ‘Quite the opposite. I suggested another visit, now she’d met the manager, and Mum shut that right down. She’s very happy you’re volunteering with the old folk, as she calls them, but there’s no way she’s going back, thank you very much.’
‘Oh.’
She sighed heavily. ‘No, there’s a picture starting to build up here. First the funny business with the party, then the bench, now this. Look, Beth, do you mind me sharing this with you? It’s just that you know Mum, and you’re seeing her every day at the moment.’
‘No, not at all.’ Did it make me a terrible person that I was actually quite excited to be included in Henderson family chat? Probably. Oh well.
‘So. Mum’s really not been herself lately. After Dad died, we decided – I mean, the four of us siblings and Mum – that we’d donate a memorial bench in the park in his name, and a prize at the sixth-form college. I knew it was what he’d have wanted, he hinted at it a few times.’
Yes, I could absolutely see that. The Raymond Henderson Prize for Business Studies and/or Golf.
‘Obviously,’ Jackie continued, ‘we didn’t want to do anything while emotions were still raw, but I felt now we’re ready to get the ball rolling.
So last weekend I suggested Mum and I had a look at some benches, and she flatly refused to talk about it.
Not now, not ever. Denied she’d ever agreed to such a thing. ’
‘Well, grief doesn’t follow a timetable, does it?’ I said carefully. ‘You can think you’re fine one day, then you hear a song, or smell something and . . .’
Even now, I thought of my own mum every time my teaspoon clinked in the brown sugar jar I’d taken when I cleared her bedsit; I thought of Dad on the rare occasions I smelled that stale-beer-and-carpets pub smell.
(Pubs had changed a lot since I was a child, thankfully.) I didn’t cry anymore, but I couldn’t stop my brain flipping up the memories.
The months Ray had been gone were nothing, compared to the fifty-something years he and Martine had lived together.
‘Absolutely, but I don’t think that’s it, though.
I’ve watched her like a hawk since Dad died.
I was there a lot in the early days, I was so worried about how she’d cope.
Not just physically, with the house, but mentally.
I mean, they were each other’s first and only love.
Can you imagine literally living your whole life with one person? ’
‘It’s so rare. They were incredibly lucky to have that.’
‘Right? So I was super-careful about her feelings, and we’d got to the point where she was still sad, but she was happy to talk about him, about happier times.
But then last week, when I brought up the memorial, she sounded almost angry, not sad.
I almost wondered if she’d forgotten what we’d discussed, but that would point to .
. .’ She trailed off. ‘Well, it’s extremely out of character, put it like that. ’
I knew what she was reluctant to say aloud. ‘Are you worried she’s showing signs of dementia?’
There was a pause. ‘Yes. Perry’s dad had Alzheimer’s, and out-of-character behaviour was one of the first clues.
I don’t want to be the one pointing the finger, making out Mum’s heading that way.
And I don’t want her to be heading that way!
But if she’s started forgetting entire conversations, finding herself in strange places, getting rid of things she loves, then maybe we need to help.
Have you noticed anything unusual in her behaviour? ’
‘Nothing that would ring alarm bells,’ I said. ‘I speak to her on the phone every night, and she sounds as sharp as ever.’
‘At night?’ Jackie leaped on that. ‘What time?’
‘Usually between ten and eleven.’ Up to midnight. Although I didn’t say that.
‘Hmm. That’s late for her. She’s normally in bed by ten. What sort of things does she say, when she calls?’
It wasn’t so much the conversation, as the call itself, but I didn’t quite know how to explain to Jackie.
I’d had similar brief – but heartfelt – ‘You all right? I’m all right’ midnight check-ins with Ash, meeting by the yellow light of the fridge door in the darker days of the heartbreak wilderness months.
Martine was more eloquent but I think the intention, from her end anyway, was the same.
‘Anything and everything. She’s volunteered my services up at Rosemount, so she wants updates about that, and she’s chivvying me about my writing. She’s just left me a stack of fiction guides,’ I added. ‘I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a test.’
Jackie sounded relieved. ‘OK, that sounds more like Mum.’
‘What did you mean, the funny business about the party?’ I asked. ‘Earlier?’
‘Oh! Long story short, it would have been their emerald wedding anniversary next month. Fifty-five years. Dad was planning a surprise party, with as many old friends as were still kicking around. Obviously, he didn’t go further than save the dates, but we – the four of us – decided we’d go ahead and have a small family do, so Mum wouldn’t have to face the day on her own.
Just afternoon tea in the garden, champagne, cakes, very low-key. ’
‘Sounds lovely,’ I said.
‘I know, she loves an afternoon tea. Anyway, I thought I’d tell Mum ahead of time, give her something to look forward to, and she said . . .’ Jackie paused, as if she still couldn’t believe it. ‘She said, “Oh, you don’t need to make a fuss.”’
‘Really?’ Even I knew Martine lived for family parties – parties of any kind. They were the sort of family who owned wine coolers, cake stands, a huge glass punch bowl with matching cups, and a fish kettle. I guessed it came with having access to an actual wine cellar.
‘I said, Mum, it’s hardly making a fuss, we want to be there! Cara’s already booked tickets, even Fraser’s requested annual leave.’ She let out an emphatic breath. ‘He’s staying with us, just the one night, obviously.’
‘Mm-hmm.’ So Fraser was coming – on his own? A delicious detail tucked away to examine later. ‘Do you think, maybe, it’s still too soon? Is she worried about breaking down in front of the grandchildren?’
‘Perhaps. That’s what Perry said. Maybe I’m finding symptoms, now I’m looking for them. But then Mum’s always going on about how Cara’s little boy’s going to grow up with an American accent and why doesn’t she come home more often? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘When is it, the anniversary?’
‘June 14th. You’ll pop in, won’t you? For a bit of cake?’ She paused. ‘You and Fraser . . . you’re not . . . I mean, not being nosy, oh dear!’ An awkward laugh. ‘Maybe I should have asked before now. Sorry.’
‘No, we’re fine, honestly. It was pretty amicable.’ My pulse was already racing at the promise of a legitimate reason to see Fraser. ‘I can’t say we’ve been in touch much since, but there was no unpleasantness, no one else involved. We just wanted different things.’
‘Oh, good.’ Jackie sounded relieved. ‘Good.’
‘Will he be bringing someone?’ I held my breath, my heart balancing on the edge of a cliff.
‘I don’t know. I’ll be honest with you, we barely hear from Fraser either. Bothers Mum more than me, but she always makes some excuse for him. Work or whatnot. I sometimes think Fraser’s working for MI5. Except they’d probably give him a better cover story!’
I think we were both glad to end a tricky conversation on a genuine laugh, and I promised Jackie I’d keep an eye on any other furniture making its way out of the house. In return, she said she’d deal with the bags of charity donations in my car boot.
I hung up, feeling sunnier. Not just because I’d finally repaid some of Jackie’s kindness, but I had more motivation than ever to get back into my grey trouser suit. The party was in a month’s time.
I found my fitness app, and upped my additional daily steps to ten thousand.