Chapter Thirty-Eight
Grace opened the white gate and walked the few steps to Annie’s front door hoping arriving unannounced was the right thing to do.
Annie’s replies to her messages had returned to normal, always ending with an exclamation mark and a kiss, but she wasn’t imparting any other information other than that she was fine.
If she really was fine, she wouldn’t mind Grace popping around, would she? She knocked.
Annie’s smile appeared forced when she opened the door. ‘Grace, I wasn’t expecting you.’
‘I’ve brought the interviews for you to look at,’ said Grace, holding her laptop up. ‘Jude and Jasmine have finished editing, but they want to make sure everyone’s happy with them before they’re uploaded onto all the various social media platforms people use these days.’
‘But I didn’t do an interview.’ Annie’s fingers raked through her hair. The brown-grey roots were darker than usual.
‘But you still feature in the shots, so it’s only right you give the go-ahead before they go live, as they say. I can show you, if you’ve got a minute?’
Annie’s shoulders dropped as if giving in. ‘All right, thanks, come in. Excuse the mess.’
Grace stepped over the threshold directly into a bright sitting room with a claret sofa against a wall to the right under a pretty print of a ballerina in a gold frame.
She couldn’t see any mess, and wondered if that was something people automatically said when they invited new people into their homes.
She reassessed when she thought of Rosie’s house.
It was always peppered with piles of laundry and random ephemera and she rarely apologized for the untidiness.
Or maybe she did to people who weren’t her mother.
‘Cuppa?’
‘Yes please.’ They went through a door to a kitchen diner which spanned the back of the house and looked out onto a neat courtyard garden. A small, white table and chairs sat in the middle and pots of various sizes overflowed with lupins, primroses and pink hydrangeas.
‘That’s so pretty,’ said Grace.
‘Thanks.’ Annie barely glanced outside.
The Annie Grace was accustomed to would have opened the back door and showed Grace every bright flower. Certain now that Annie needed support, Grace put the laptop on the table. ‘Jude transferred the files onto here for me. I think they’ve done a great job.’
‘Oh, that’s good. He’s a treasure, that boy.’
‘He is.’ Grace remembered the way Jasmine looked at him when he left book club and her heart twisted. How she wished he could see himself as other people saw him. ‘I think Jasmine is quite sweet on him.’ She laughed. ‘That sounds so old-fashioned, doesn’t it?’
‘She’s only human,’ said Annie over the sound of the boiling kettle. ‘He’s a catch, that one. Do you think he likes her back?’
‘Yes, not that he’s going to do anything about it.’
‘Why not?’
Grace pinched her lips, wondering how much to disclose. ‘People are complicated, aren’t they?’
Annie turned and nodded, then went back to stirring milk into the tea. ‘You can say that again.’
‘Jude thinks his ADHD makes him a liability. He says Jasmine is too good to be lumbered with him.’
Annie turned sharply. ‘He said that?’
‘Words to that effect.’
Annie brought the drinks to the table and sat. ‘I hope you told him that’s rubbish.’
‘I tried. I told him Frank and I were perfectly happy, and he had the same condition as Jude.’ She sipped her tea. ‘How are you and Jack doing now?’ She hoped the segue wasn’t too clunky.
Annie stood and closed the door between the rooms. ‘A little bit better, I think. I got the doctor to call here. Jack wasn’t happy, but’ – she blew out her lips – ‘he’d got to the stage where he wasn’t washing or brushing his teeth, and I was at my wit’s end.
Turns out this low mood is catching. If you live with someone with it long enough, it jumps to you.
Who knew?’ She smiled, but Grace could tell by her watery eyes she was trying to make light of something serious.
‘It’s got so I don’t want to leave the house now either. ’
‘Is that why you didn’t come to book club? We missed you.’
Annie ran her finger around the rim of her mug.
‘Yeah. I couldn’t face you all. I know you’d all offer to help.
And I’m sorry I messaged Crush and not you.
I thought that you might not believe me, knowing what you know …
’ She looked up with a sad smile. ‘And I do appreciate your messages, honestly.’ She sighed.
‘But I couldn’t bear the pity. It’s bad enough it’s come to this, without everyone knowing about it.
Looks like I’ll have to get a second job to keep us going, so I won’t be able to come anyway when I’m working evenings as well.
I think it’s best I just quietly bow out. ’
Grace couldn’t imagine book club continuing without Annie. She was a big part of what made it so special. She couldn’t exactly say that, and add guilt into this already awful situation. ‘What did the doctor say?’
‘She was lovely. Really kind. She’s prescribed some anti-depressants and he’s taking them, which is good, but they take a while to kick in, apparently.
He’s on a waiting list for some talking therapy, but God knows how long that will take.
The doctor said that, if money was no object, she thinks he’d benefit from a stay in a residential place that specializes in depression, you know, like the ones celebs go to? ’
Grace nodded.
‘But that’s out of the question. The NHS can’t run to it, and we certainly can’t. It’s all I can do to keep on top of the bills now. It’s a shame because I almost managed to get a sign of life out of him yesterday when I suggested a course I found that I thought would suit him.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s an NVQ in teaching carpentry. He’d need level three, but I think he’d be brilliant at it.
He’s dead good with kids, and his age wouldn’t be a problem, from what I’ve read.
I can imagine him in front of a room full of would-be carpenters, all gazing up at him, being dead impressed with his skills.
’ She tapped her hand on the table. ‘He made this from scratch.’
Grace viewed the table afresh, noting the turn of the legs and expert bevelling. ‘Wow.’
‘And all those shelves.’ Annie pointed at the painted shelves, all different lengths and at various heights, holding books, photographs and trailing plants.
‘He’s talented.’
‘He is,’ said Annie. ‘He’s talented and kind, and thoughtful.
’ The last words were hiccupped through sobs.
‘He’s a good man, Grace, and I think that’s why the world looks so bleak to him at the moment.
His moral compass is so strong, and it’s painful for him to see the world in such a state.
The crisis in the Middle East, the children starving – he just can’t comprehend why people keep hurting each other.
He can’t seem to stop doom-scrolling, and I’m sure that adds to it.
He’d help anyone, honestly, that’s why I think he’d make such a wonderful teacher.
But I hardly recognize him now. He’s a shell of himself, and I can’t bear it. ’
She stood and took a piece of kitchen roll from the worktop, blew her nose then dropped it in a pedal bin in the corner. ‘I wish I knew what to do to help him.’
‘You say he’d help anyone? That’s the kind of man he is?’ said Grace.
‘Yes. Ask anyone. All the old ladies around here love him. He’s always fixing things for them, and if he thinks they’re lonely, he pops in for a cuppa. He’s always been like that.’
‘And I know for a fact you’d help anyone in need. You helped me.’
Annie took another piece of kitchen roll and dabbed her eyes. ‘I try.’
‘So, would you do me a favour, and let me try to give you some support?’ Annie opened her mouth to speak but Grace held up her hand. ‘It’s hard to see someone you care about suffer, isn’t it?’
Annie nodded.
‘Having you in my life has changed things for me, Annie. When I realized I was leaning on Rosie too much, I tried to handle my grief on my own, and I was failing. I couldn’t move forwards because I was alone without Frank, and that loneliness was the only thing filling my days.
It consumed me and …’ Tears filled her eyes then.
‘It was only when I met you and the others at book club that my life truly started again.’ She took Annie’s hand in hers.
‘If you let me try to repay that kindness, it would be my honour to try to return some of the happiness you and the others have given to me.’
Annie squeezed her hand. ‘I don’t know that there is anything anyone can do, short of winning the lottery so I can get Jack the help he needs.’
‘Let me speak to the others, please. Let me put it to the hive mind, as they say on the quiz shows. If nothing else, you’ll have more friends at your back to shore you up, and I’ve found that’s something you can’t put a price on.’
‘I don’t know …’
‘Please. For me.’
‘Okay,’ said Annie, through fresh tears. ‘If you don’t think I’ll be too much of a burden.’
‘Friends like you are never a burden,’ said Grace.
‘And good friendships share life’s load between them.
’ She thought back over the previous year, when loneliness was so heavy it was crushing her.
This lovely woman had helped lift that weight from her back and allowed her to raise her face to the sun again.
She deserved for someone to do the same for her.