Chapter Eight
Abbey
I ordered an Uber, and he held me for the two minutes it took to arrive. He opened the door for me, and I turned to press one last kiss to him.
‘You should go back to your party,’ I said into his cheek.
‘And miss the opportunity to meet the great Iris Cavendish? Not a chance on this earth. In the cab, Abbey.’
I didn’t have the energy to fight the situation. I wanted him to want to come. I wanted Gran to meet him. I lifted my dress, sliding along to the far seat, and he hopped in after me, folding his long legs into the compact car.
The call from the nursing home had been to let me know she had fallen.
This was the third one this year. Previously, we’d had success with rehabilitation, but at the moment she didn’t have the energy to get through a two or three-hour program.
We had arranged for a private physio to visit her once a week, but when I had called to check in on how she was progressing, the physio had said she wasn’t making any gains.
Tonight’s was the good kind of fall apparently: what they call an ‘assisted fall’.
She’d had her back to a cupboard when she’d gone, so she had slid down it and then called out to them from the floor.
Though she was sore and bruised, she had not hit her head.
My hand was on my throat searching for my pendant and he reached across to me, taking my hand in his and giving it a comforting, warm squeeze.
We arrived at Iris’s nursing home a little after ten.
Ashford House was a beautiful Victorian mansion in Randwick, an affluent area, where it was leafy and green.
Iris had lived in nearby Paddington for most of my life, so she was familiar with the area.
The house had been converted into an attractive-looking nursing home in the last ten years and housed forty or so residents.
Iris had been here for three years. Though I had offered for her to live with me when she’d decided she could no longer live alone, she had refused, saying she would kill Peter in a fortnight.
The amount of money she paid to live there was a king’s ransom. It had eaten most of the money from the sale of her Paddington townhouse.
We were let into the locked foyer by a nurse, and I stopped at the base of the stairs, leaning on Nick to remove my slingbacks.
I picked up the skirt of my dress and ran up the stairs.
At the top of them, he removed his jacket, leaving him in a waistcoat and a gleaming white buttoned shirt.
He had removed his tie in the car and looking at him in the light I stared at his throat for, well, too long.
Iris’s room was at the far end of a long corridor.
It was the best room in the place because it had a corner window that dappled light spilled into during the day.
Three years ago, when she had still been able to see the print, she could read her books by it.
We eventually switched her to digital and audiobooks as her eyesight had worsened.
I was a little apprehensive as I entered her room.
She did not enjoy being fussed over and preferred Kate to me in these kinds of situations because Kate was all level-headed and I would become emotional.
That Kate was not here told me that whatever had hap-pened to Gran, medically at least, Kate was not worried about her.
Iris was on her bed, her covers pulled to her waist, her beautiful pale face against a perfect white pillowcase.
I could not see a single injury on her. She looked as if she was lying in state, like a queen, her long white hair that she refused to cut spread out onto her pillows in soft shiny waves.
Her pale-blue nightgown, tied with a ribbon at her neck, had a ruffled collar and ruffled cap sleeves, which somehow added to her queenliness.
Lionel was beside her on a chair, holding her hand.
His soft brown eyes crinkled to greet me as I walked into the room, Nick close behind me.
Lionel stood and reached for my hand. His was clean, dry and warm and felt like paper, the soft and cherished kind.
He was a love letter, creased and treasured.
He was dressed in clean, brown-checked flannelette pyjamas and a navy-blue dressing gown.
‘You look fabulous, Abbey,’ Lionel whispered.
‘Abigail Louise Cavendish.’ Iris’s voice rang out strong, like that of a Shakespearean thespian. ‘If you are going to bring gorgeous men into my room, I would appreciate you calling ahead. I might have liked to have put a little colour on my lips.’
A relieved sigh escaped my mouth. Clearly, the fall hadn’t dampened her spirit.
‘Gran, Lionel, this is Nicholas Northby. He’s my uh … well … he and I met on holiday, and he is my, erm … boss?’ Nick raised a dark eyebrow at me. ‘Nick, my grandmother, Iris and her uh …’ I searched for a word to describe Gran and Lionel’s relationship. ‘Friend … Lionel.’
Fuck me, but life is complicated.
Gran extended an elegant arm to Nick, who astonished me by bowing over her hand and kissing it with a courtly flourish.
‘Mrs Cavendish. Lionel.’ He shook Lionel’s hand.
‘It surprised us all enormously that Abbey took a lover on holiday. And then I was quite confused, thinking he was Maldivian,’ my grandmother said, raising a gorgeous flush on Nick’s cheeks.
‘Of course, England is lovely. I myself have had two English husbands. My Harry was English. He had very gracious manners. I was quite swept up with him. I can see why my granddaughter likes you and, of course, that is a very nice dress.’
‘It is nice to meet you too, Mrs Cavendish. I have heard a great deal about you.’
Gran gave Nick an assessing stare. ‘Abigail, did you take my advice this evening?’
‘No, Gran.’
‘Hmm, well, the night is still young, I suppose.’
‘Gran, are you okay? The nurses said you had a fall.’
‘I didn’t fall.’
‘Iris, you did, remember? About an hour ago, dearest,’ Lionel said gently.
‘Oh, well, I just wanted tea, dear. I just wanted to make tea.’
‘Gran, if you use your buzzer they will bring you tea.’
‘Nicholas.’ Nick took her hand again. ‘Tell me about you, young man. I am exceedingly pleased to see colour in Abbey’s cheeks. I don’t suppose she has spoken to you about Peter. Abbey turned herself into a brown little mouse to match him. Boring, you were, for a bit, Abbey.’
I chose to ignore the mouse jibe.
‘Now her colours are back. She is a Cavendish again. Full of spirit. And once a woman finds her spirit again in her forties, well, we become thoroughly unmanageable, but magic.’
‘I’ve always found Abbey very colourful,’ Nick said.
It made me grin and my chest swell with pride.
I had thought that being ‘beige’, as Gran called it, was what the perfect mother looked like, what the perfect wife looked like.
I had been kind, likeable, easygoing, falsely happy.
I did not flirt and had fun moderately. I spent years gushing about how happy my life was.
Ignoring the big question in my head: Is this it?
‘Yes. That is pleasing,’ Gran said knowingly. She smiled, but then she closed her eyes for a few minutes.
God, I found it hard to imagine that she might not be here forever. And when someone was this much of a person, so vibrant, so big, what kind of void did that leave in the world? I felt the sadness travel from my face into my gut. Nick reached out and tucked me into him.
We stood for a minute more.
‘Well, get out dears. I’m exhausted.’ She said this without opening her eyes and I almost laughed.
Nick moved towards the door, leaving me to say goodbye.
‘Oh, and Nicholas darling.’ Nick stopped as she spoke.
‘There is a live model art class here on Tuesdays. I don’t wish to speak for all the ladies, but I have just noticed your pleasing assets at the back there, dear.
Puts me in mind of a ripe apricot. You would be welcome.
They pay thirty dollars per hour for the models, dearest.’
I saw heat rise in his cheeks once more and I could not help but give him a challenging, amused smile.
‘Oh, um, well, I’ll think on that. Thank you, Mrs Cavendish.’
I snorted, unable to contain my laughter. The idea of women in their eighties and nineties painting a naked Nick was absolutely priceless.
I bent over my grandmother, kissing her head. ‘You are incorrigible.’
‘That man is lovely, but Abbey, hold on to your spirit. Guard it. Don’t let men take it, Abigail. It is too precious,’ she whispered to me. ‘You are worth it. Know that within yourself.’
I felt tears in my eyes and then got them under control. When I stood, my shoulders were set ever so slightly squarer, for – as usual – it was exactly what I had needed to hear.
***
He ordered the car and put in my address.
It was a short wait, and I shivered a little in the night.
He noticed straight away, draping his coat around my shoulders and pulling me into his body heat.
He was such a gentleman. I was completely overcome with him, and my heart sang at having him close like this.
‘So you going to take Gran up on that modelling job?’
He chuckled, a lovely soft sound. ‘I think I’m in love with her.’
‘There isn’t a man in the world who is not susceptible to her charms. Not even the great Nick Northby.’
‘Abbey …’ Nick started.
I met his eyes and my heart gave a shuddering lurch. I was in over my head here. I wanted to make very bad decisions with him. I wanted to show him all of my colours.
‘Did you want to come to mine for wine?’ I said.
He swallowed. ‘Certainly. Yes.’
There was a tension in the car. We did not touch each other. Occasionally, his dark eyes glittered at me, making my heart pound.
He got out of the car at my house and then helped me out. My dress slid, and the slit revealed my entire leg as I climbed out and he reacted by moistening his lips and inclining his head. The minute I closed the cab door, his lips launched at me.