Chapter nineteen #2
‘But take it from me,’ Stan added, leaning forward to tap the table for emphasis, ‘I could have given the thirty-year-old me some crackin’ advice, but would I have listened?
Would I heck as like.’ He sat back with his arms crossed, and smiled the smile of a man with few regrets.
His tan, still deep golden twenty years after returning from the Costa del Sol, gave the lounge a welcome air of glitz.
Lewis felt an ungrudging admiration for Stan, even if he had just told him a few things Lewis thought he’d better forget, for the sake of Stan’s families, both of whom visited twice a month.
‘So, what about general advice?’ he said.
Stan gave him a long look, and when he spoke, his voice had lost its previous joking tone. ‘I’d say to you that you only regret the things you don’t do, not the things you do.’
‘What? After everything you’ve just told me about Lorraine? And Cherise? And the boot full of duty free—’
‘Ah-ah!’ Stan tapped his nose. ‘What happens in Story time, stays in Story time.’
‘That’s the exact opposite of what Life Story work’s about, Stan.’
‘You know what I mean.’ He winked. ‘In my experience, you know in your gut when you should have taken a chance. Then when you look back on it, you’re not just thinking about what could’ve been, you’re kicking yourself for not being braver. Double bubble.’
Lewis nodded. ‘If you could go back in time, and say something to anyone, what would it be?’
Stan’s expression suddenly crumpled. ‘I would tell . . .’ His voice cracked. ‘Sorry, got a bit emotional there. I would tell a special someone that . . .’
‘That what?’ Lewis leaned forward. Was this going to be the advice he needed?
There was a knock on the door, and Pam put her head round.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said, ‘but the electrician’s here? To do the call bell testing?’
‘Terrific. Could you show him where he needs to go, please?’
She looked uneasy. ‘I don’t really know what . . .’
Lewis checked his watch. The electrician was ten minutes early but this felt like a good moment to give Pam some additional responsibility.
Plus he was enjoying this chat with Stan.
Any minute now, he felt, Stan would deliver the key advice, like a Brummie Dalai Lama.
‘There’s a file on my desk. The checklist, his quote, my notes, house policy and so on.
You take the lead, and I’ll catch up with him before he goes? ’
‘Am I authorised to do that?’
‘I trust your judgement, Pam.’
‘OK,’ she said, and retreated.
‘Thank you, Pam!’ Lewis turned back to Stan. ‘Now, where were we? If you could tell anyone anything?’
Stan sat back in his chair, more himself again.
‘I would tell anyone I ever loved, that I loved them. Because you just don’t know if there’s a double-decker bus coming round the corner, know what I’m saying?
And,’ he added, just in case Lewis hadn’t got his point, ‘by double-decker bus, I mean another bloke, or cancer, or . . . an actual double-decker bus.’
Lewis nodded. ‘That’s good advice, Stan. Very wise advice.’
‘But will you take it?’ Stan laughed. ‘Will you heck as like.’
Lewis rushed back from Stan’s rooms in time to see Beth and Tomsk in the reception, signing the visitors’ book. Beth was getting a pass for herself, and an official pet visitor rosette (Pam’s idea) to clip on to Tomsk’s harness.
As she chatted with Wendy, the receptionist, Lewis allowed himself a moment inside the contentment that settled over him whenever he saw Beth.
No longer than that; he didn’t want to feel like a weirdo.
But long enough to note the way her cheeks dimpled, like little hallmarks of authenticity, when she smiled; the unconscious way she pushed escaping strands of blond hair behind her ear, revealing the marble curve of her lovely neck.
Every time he saw her there was something new to notice and tuck away.
Just ask her out for a drink, urged Stan’s gruff voice in his head. What’s the worst thing she can say? No? It’s not like you haven’t heard that before.
Lewis hadn’t heard it that often before, not often enough to know how to brush it off so neither of them were embarrassed, the way men like Stan could. But he had to try.
He took a half-step backwards, then set off briskly, as if he’d just marched down the nearby corridor.
‘Beth!’ he said, ‘what a nice surprise! And Tomsk! Hello there!’
‘Hello, Lewis!’ She’d been bending down to fix the rosette properly, and stood up with a smile, unfolding herself. Today, instead of her usual soft draped clothes, she was wearing leggings and a sweatshirt, despite the sunshine outside.
‘Off to the gym?’ It was, Lewis thought, a stupid thing to say but it was the first thing that had come into his head, and he was trying to keep his dog anxiety at bay with deep breaths, in and out, while trying not to look at the dog, although the dog was looking at him, waiting for the customary fuss.
‘Yes, I’m on a bit of a health kick.’ Beth looked as if she didn’t want to talk about it. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
‘You’re breathing quite oddly.’
‘Hay fever,’ said Lewis.
She gave him a funny look. ‘Wendy, can I get the key for the memory box, please?’
‘Of course.’ Wendy beetled her brows at Lewis – what for, he didn’t know.
‘So, any more mystery deposits in there?’ Lewis asked, as Beth opened the box and sorted through the contents.
Wendy had turned her attention to the dog – ‘Oooh, who’s a good boy? Is it Tomsk? Is it my friend Tomsk? I think it is!’ and so on – although the dog’s attention remained fixed unsettlingly on Lewis, through its flopping veil of fringe.
He knows, thought Lewis. He knows we’re in competition for Beth’s attention.
Beth was examining a brown A4 envelope. ‘Just this. Wendy, can I give you these, please?’ She handed over the parish magazine, two hospital appointment letters and a crisp packet.
‘Sorry, some residents do like to post things,’ sighed Wendy. ‘I try to stop them but I’m not here all the time.’
‘So there’s no way of knowing who’s dropping things off? No cameras?’
‘Not there. We’ve got one on reception but it misses that spot.’
Beth looked thoughtful, and Lewis seized his moment.
‘Have you got time for a cup of tea before your session or are you in a rush? I think Pam’s made biscuits?’
She turned, with a rueful shake of the head that went straight to Lewis’s heart. ‘I wish! But I’m trying to be good at the moment.’
‘Viennese whirls,’ confirmed Wendy. ‘Melt in the mouth.’
‘Don’t tempt me!’ Beth held up her hand in self-protection. ‘But you can walk me down to the Horrobins,’ she added.
‘I think I have time for that,’ said Lewis.
Did Wendy just roll her eyes?
‘Hay fever,’ she said, before he asked.
The minute walk to the Horrobins’ apartment was another conversational challenge, and Lewis’s mind went blank again.
‘Good weekend?’ he asked, a bland opener, he knew. So bland. But what did Beth do when she wasn’t here?
‘Lovely, thank you. Martine – Mrs Henderson, remember? – had a party in her garden. She has a perfect garden for summer parties, lots of nooks with honeysuckle and lilacs, and a swing.’
‘I’ve been meaning to ask,’ said Lewis, ‘when we met, she said you were her lodger, but it sounded as if there was more to it than that?’
‘Yes, it’s a bit more than that.’ Beth smiled, and it was a different kind of smile to the ones Lewis had seen so far; it had a soft, secretive feel, as if she was thinking of something else.
It set off a frisson at the back of his mind.
A fox on the road, locking eyes with his.
‘I was in a relationship with her son Fraser for a long time.’
No.
‘Ah.’ Heart plunging, Lewis clung to the word was. Was in a relationship.
The contented smile was still playing on Beth’s lips. ‘But I’ve stayed in touch with the family. The party was for Martine and Ray’s anniversary – he died last year, sadly. Such a nice man.’
‘Had they been married a long time, Martine and Ray?’ said Lewis, who didn’t particularly want to know much about Ray but definitely didn’t want to know more about Fraser.
‘Over fifty years.’
‘Childhood sweethearts?’
‘Yes. I suppose so.’ The smile faded from Beth’s face, and her eyes flicked to one side, then she said brightly, ‘Yes, so it was great to catch up with Fraser again. It’s funny, isn’t it, how some people you don’t see for ages, then when you do, it’s as if you only saw them yesterday?
But then I always thought that when the time was right we’d come back into each other’s lives. ’
This time, a darker cloud went across Lewis’s stricken heart. A bigger fox on the road.
‘It’s like Minnie Little said to me last week,’ Beth went on, unaware of the freezing effect her words were having on Lewis’s soul. ‘What’s meant for you won’t go past you.’
Minnie had a saying for every occasion, in Lewis’s experience. All of them trite, and most of them in direct contradiction of another.
They were nearly at the Horrobins’ door, and Lewis was running out of time to ask Beth out in the casual, non-face-to-face way he’d decided would be best.
Management training had drilled into Lewis the importance of only asking questions that you already knew the answer to; ten minutes ago he’d just been unsure of the best way to frame it, but now every instinct was telling him not to ask the question at all, when the answer was staring him in the face.
‘Beth . . .’
She was bending down to adjust Tomsk’s harness. Tomsk himself seemed to be giving him a pitying look.
Come on, Lewis, don’t be pitied by a dog.
‘I was wondering if . . .’
Beth looked up, her face still dreamy in that way he hadn’t seen before, and Lewis’s courage failed him at the last minute.
Suddenly he knew exactly what Stan had meant by the double bubble of regret.
It was his lack of nerve standing between him and a date with Beth, not just this Fraser, and he regretted that as much as the lost opportunity.