Chapter 30 #2
‘Ah, don’t worry about me, I’m fine.’ He flapped a hand as if swatting away a fly.
‘You’ve just heard all about me …’
‘Yeah, but …’
‘Come on.’ Phyllida waggled her finger at him. ‘It’s good to get it off your chest, isn’t that right, Gemma?’
Nick glanced at them all as if assessing whether to air his woes. ‘Okay, so, I’ve broken up with my girlfriend. Or rather she broke up with me. She took the dog and I haven’t heard from her since.’
‘The dog as well! Aren’t we a right bunch?’ Phyllida said, dabbing her eyes with a handful of tissues.
‘New club name: the Lost Souls of the River Thames,’ Laila said drily.
‘That’s depressing,’ Nick said.
‘It was meant to be funny.’
‘It would be if it wasn’t true.’
‘Sorry.’ Laila made an apologetic face. ‘But look on the bright side, we’re all in it together.’
‘Exactly,’ agreed Gemma. ‘If we can’t help each other, what’s the point of The Mudlarkers’ Club in the first place?’ It still amazed Gemma how much she’d embraced the collegial nature of the group.
Phyllida stood up. ‘Come on, group hug.’
‘Group hug?’ Nick said, looking uncertain.
‘It’s better than a group cry,’ Phyllida said, wrangling them together with her arms open wide.
‘Okay, then …’ Nick stood up and positioned himself as if he thought a group hug meant doing a rugby scrum.
They formed a circle together, awkwardly, as if no one was quite sure how close they should get to one another.
Nick caught Gemma’s eye. A zing of something she couldn’t immediately put her finger on went through her.
He smiled. Had he felt it too? She had to look away, even though, she realised disconcertingly, that she’d have rather kept looking at him.
Suddenly, he pulled away as if he’d reached his time limit for hugging. ‘Okay, Phyll, how are you feeling now?’
Phyllida sighed and pressed her palms together.
‘You people are marvellous. I can’t tell you how ashamed I am, but already you’ve made me feel like I can deal with it and there is help available.
When I get home, I’ll sit Robert down and tell him we need to have a proper conversation about it.
No more arguing and sleeping in different rooms.’
‘We really don’t mind if you want to go back home now,’ Gemma said.
‘But I want to stay and finish the job. You help me, I help you. But I will check in with Robert.’
‘Yes, go and call him. We’ll get started on the bedrooms.’
Phyllida pressed her husband’s number as she went up to the top deck.
By the time, she returned, they’d finished one bedroom and were about to start on the other.
‘Sorry, Robert didn’t want me to go.’ Phyllida sighed as if feeling guilty for hanging up on her husband.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ Laila said. ‘Why don’t you do a video call with him and show him what we’re doing? I’ve been doing that with Gramps.’
‘You have?’ Nick said impressed.
‘Gramps loves it. Makes him feel less lonely. And it doesn’t matter what you’re doing either.
The other day, Gramps watched me getting ready to go out.
It actually got annoying, because he started grilling me about who I was meeting and made a rude comment about the new cartilage piercings I got the other day.
’ She turned her head to show them an embellished ear.
‘He called me a metal detectorist’s dream. ’
Nick snorted.
‘Trust you to find that funny,’ Laila said, but she was smiling so Gemma knew that she wasn’t offended.
‘I love that idea, Laila,’ Gemma said. Then to Phyllida, ‘What do you think? Do you want to do a video call with Robert? We could all say hi and wish him a speedy recovery as if you’ve told us that he’s been unwell. There’s no need for him to know that we know what’s happened.’
‘I guess it would cheer him up.’
‘Exactly. He’ll be able to see you and you can keep an eye on him.’
So, that’s what they did. Phyllida’s husband was flummoxed at first by an unexpected video call with a group of people he had never met. But he soon warmed to the idea and muted the television show he’d been watching to focus on them – and hand out the occasional piece of tidying-up advice.
‘This is like reality TV,’ he joked at one point when Nick and Laila were debating what to do with the newspapers.
Nick was trying to persuade Laila that they should all go.
But Laila was worried about Timothy’s reaction.
In the end, they settled on keeping the last two weeks’ worth and chucking the rest.
When they’d finished, and Laila had gone outside to pick some wildflowers and put them in an empty jar on the now clutter-free dining table, they congratulated each other for a job well done.
Phyllida assured them that Robert would have joined in as well because he was a high-five kind of a guy, except he’d fallen asleep.
Just then, phones beeped and dinged and sang and cooed. Timothy had messaged on the group chat.
‘Yay!’ Laila exclaimed (trust Laila to be the first one to her phone). ‘The doctor says Gramps can come home tomorrow.’
‘Fantastic!’ Nick said.
‘But we haven’t organised an emergency bracelet,’ Laila cried. ‘I don’t even know how you get one and what they cost.’
‘And Timothy needs to agree to wear one first,’ Gemma said.
Laila pressed her temples. ‘Aargh, it’s so stressful!’
‘It’s okay, Laila, don’t worry,’ Phyllida said.
‘Yeah, one thing at a time,’ Nick said. ‘Timothy will be much safer here after today’s clean-up.’
‘Why don’t I call Jodie and discuss it with her?’ Gemma suggested. ‘It’ll be up to her and, of course, Timothy, whether he gets one or not. We can seed the idea to him.’
‘Hang on, let’s do a quick bit of research,’ Nick said, going into journalist mode.
His phone came out and he began googling.
No one spoke. After a few minutes, Nick enlightened them.
‘Right, so there are several places where you can get medical emergency bracelets. The NHS for starters. They come with GPS tracking, twenty-four-hour monitoring and will detect hard falls. Best of all, you can get next day delivery so there won’t be a long wait time.
That sounds perfect, don’t you think? I reckon that if you have a chat with Jodie, Gemma, and then you and Laila gently introduce the idea to Timothy.
What do you say?’ He looked at them expectantly.
Gemma glanced at Laila who nodded.
‘We could do it in the car when we go and pick him up,’ Gemma suggested, until she remembered about his daughter. ‘But what about Jodie? She’ll want to get him, won’t she?’
‘I’ve already told her I’m going to do it,’ Laila said defiantly. ‘She can visit later.’
Gemma felt bad depriving Timothy’s daughter of the task. ‘Look, I know you probably don’t want any advice, but for what it’s worth, I think you should end your stand-off and make up with Jodie. Do it for your grandfather, if no one else.’
Gemma could tell Laila was thinking it over, but she didn’t respond. She was picking her nails instead.
‘I think that’s a very good idea,’ Phyllida said. ‘Oooh, and I’ve got another one. Why don’t we surprise him by being on the boat when he returns?’
‘I like it. I can bring balloons and cake,’ Nick got excited.
‘What can I do? You lot have to-do lists and I don’t,’ Phyllida said, as if they’d intentionally left her out, which wasn’t the case at all.
‘You’ve got enough going on, Phyll,’ Nick said. ‘You don’t even have to come tomorrow, if you don’t want to.’
‘But I do! I’ll see how Robert is and make a call in the morning.’
‘Great, Phyll, we’ll wait for a call from you tomorrow. Okay, are we clear on our tasks?’ Nick said.
They all nodded.
‘And Laila? You good?’
‘Uh-huh.’ She chewed a nail, looking coy. ‘Just … you know, thanks. For everything.’
As they said their goodbyes at the gate to the towpath, Gemma got a sense that today had been so much more than a clean-up job. It seemed to have cemented their relationships as friends and confidantes in a way she had never thought a niche group of history lovers could ever be.
She just hoped Timothy wouldn’t be upset and accuse them of unnecessary meddling.