Chapter 35
ELIZA
Eliza smiled at a group of young women piling into The Niterie.
It was a quarter to nine and almost time for her break.
They smiled back with recognition. Eliza pulled some dance moves and they laughed, in a nice way.
A couple of customers, over the weeks, had said they wished their grans had more gusto, but Eliza never judged.
Who knew what those older women’s life experiences were?
They might have had health problems, been beaten down by challenges, or simply have reached a place in life where calm and quiet gave them peace.
Howard had never been able to accept people for being different.
If they weren’t like him, they had to have something wrong with them.
A trio of lads came in next. She hadn’t seen them before. Their eyes bulged when they saw her. Eliza experienced this nightly. For some it was as if grey hair and wrinkles were directly linked to your IQ.
‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘ID, please.’
They smirked at one another and held them up. A lad with blonde curly hair yawned and looked bored.
It wasn’t a natural yawn. She took his ID and studied it closely. Eliza adjusted her glasses. The font was odd. She bent the card and the laminate peeled away at the edges. She put it firmly in her pocket.
‘Hey! Give that back,’ he said, very alert now.
‘Certainly. But let me ring the police first. Or, instead, you could simply leave with a warning that we take fake IDs very seriously at The Niterie. I get you want to dance, you want to drink with your friends, I’m the same myself – I may look a hundred, but some days I’m only twenty inside.
But presumably you also want a bright future ahead of you.
No employer’s going to be impressed with a police record. Come back when you’re legal, son.’
He scowled but not with his eyes. The two of them nodded at each other.
‘Nicely played,’ said Jules, who’d appeared to take over as the trio left.
‘I used to borrow my mum’s make-up to make myself look older – before I met my husband. I’d take it in my handbag to a school dance and put it on in the loos first.’
‘I put on a French accent once, to get into a bar after school. Reckoned it would make me sound old and sophisticated. Ooh-la-la!’ Jules said, red pigtails swinging as she shook her head at the memory.
‘Au revoir, then,’ said Eliza, grinning, leaving for her break. Jules stuck her tongue out.
Eliza walked past tables of people sharing fishbowl cocktails, past the busy bar, with R his daughter was getting married.
Carrie’s neighbours were nice. But now she had so many other things as well, like Boo!
They happily shared the duvet at night and he increasingly talked to her with his meows.
She chatted back. It reminded her of what a good listener Socks had been.
She’d checked in on Tom the builder again today, back in Bramhall. She’d taken pastries and they had sat down over coffee. Both had ended up talking more freely about his damaging childhood and her damaging marriage.
All these years, she’d kept Howard’s abuse a secret, as if she were the one to blame, even though, since she’d left him, Eliza had realised that wasn’t the case.
As her stomach rumbled, she went into the staff room and straight for the fridge.
Jules had brought her some leftover salad with pine nuts and maple syrup dressing.
Eliza’s ham and tomato sandwich on brown bread, with a low-fat spread that she used now, would do for a snack later if she was hungry.
Coincidentally, she’d brought in something for Jules.
She hoped her colleague who, where possible, only ate fruit and vegetables that were in season, would appreciate a small bunch of flowers that bloomed naturally in the UK in June.
Sure enough, she’d been delighted with the peonies, sweet peas and poppies.
Eliza put the salad on the table and flicked the kettle on.
Jez was manning the dance floor all night.
Word on the street was that drug dealing in clubs was on the rise in the Greater Manchester area.
Taking illegal drugs in the hot weather was even more dangerous.
Jez felt a responsibility for his young punters – and didn’t want to lose his licence.
But she worried that he was avoiding her, after their kiss.
He’d sensed something was wrong and pressed her to tell him. She’d taken a deep breath and told him the truth, but didn’t feel apprehensive, not in the way she used to when Howard had asked Eliza to share her thoughts.
Jez’s response? ‘Take my hand,’ he’d said and led her to the room past the staff room, the storage cupboard where they kept the cleaning products. He’d closed the door behind them and Eliza had realised how safe she felt with him.
What a kisser! She’d giggled as they’d left the closet, feeling more frivolous than she probably ever had. If only Mrs Howard Fletcher had been able to see into the future and realise there was always hope.
She made a mug of tea, sat down and took her phone out of her back pocket. An email notification. Oh, how lovely, from Carrie!
From her granddaughter.
Tears welled in her eyes. She’d waited twenty-six years to be able to even think those words in such a personal way. It was a dream that life could ever get this good. She was about to read the email when the staff room door swung open. Jez came in, his arm around a young woman.
‘Eliza… I’ve assessed her, drugs for sure…
She’s not feeling well, is dizzy, shaking and slurring.
She said something about chest pain. I’ve called an ambulance.
Can you look after her? I’m going back to speak to her friends, to find out what she’s taken.
I thought it best to bring her somewhere quiet – the chillout room is busy and it’s too hot where people are dancing. ’
‘Of course.’ Eliza led the woman to the table and sat her down. The door closed behind Jez as he left and she fetched a glass of cold water.
‘Have a drink, love,’ she said gently. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Sick. Gonna be sick.’
Eliza fetched the washing up bowl and put it on the table, sitting down on the chair next to her.
Tears ran down the woman’s face. ‘Going to get into so much trouble, shilly me, shtupid me…’
Eliza slipped an arm around her shoulders. ‘Focus on your breathing, that’ll calm you down. It’s going to be all right.’
The woman’s eyes were closed now and her head lolled as she leant it against Eliza’s shoulder.
Oh. Eliza had never been in this position before, not since Mel had been a teen, comforting a young person at such close quarters.
She’d listened to the woes of her own staff members, helping out where possible regarding unreasonable landlords or headaches that wouldn’t clear up, but she’d not dealt with bad hangovers or tears after break-ups, the more raw stuff.
She patted the girl’s arm, wondering what sort of grandmother she would have been.
Could be now?
Was that such a fantastical dream?
An ambulance arrived. So did the police.
They questioned Jez and the young woman’s friends.
He looked exhausted by the time The Niterie closed.
Eliza offered to help cash up, but he pecked her on the cheek and said it was okay but how about breakfast together tomorrow morning?
She had to go into Flowers For One first thing, so they agreed a late brunch at one of Bramhall’s many cafés.
Boo was waiting patiently in the kitchen when she got back; perhaps he was able to recognise the sound of her car engine now.
She tentatively picked him up. He tensed at first but then relaxed and nudged her nose with his, purring loudly against her neck.
Eliza duly filled his cat bowl and then went into the lounge, flicked on a light and collapsed onto the sofa.
And breathe.
What a night. She hoped that young woman would be okay. Eliza retrieved her phone from her pocket and tapped on Carrie’s email, not having had time to read it before, what with the drugs episode.
Boo jumped up next to her as she read. Carrie was sorry about Howard and she clearly thought Eliza now had a relationship with her child and that the relationship had been simply damaged, that it hadn’t disintegrated.
If only that had been the case and Eliza had found the strength, back then, to keep in touch with Mel, even if it’d been secretly, without Howard knowing.
She exhaled. No point thinking back. It was the future that mattered.
Dimitrios and Carrie had kissed! Eliza read on.
Carrie hadn’t been able to trust people before because…
Eliza stopped stroking Boo with her free hand as Carrie’s hostility and loathing of her grandparents, particularly of her grandmother, jumped out of the email…
I’m so glad I never met them and never will. What a fake relationship that would be. Women, especially, are supposed to look out for one another. Imagine having to sit in the same room as someone who abandoned her daughter when she needed her most.
Carrie thought of her grandmother as toxic, as a betrayer of other women. Eliza bit on her fist. Who could blame her?
Eliza wanted to sob away her shame, her regrets, her anger at herself and Howard. However, a calm descended as she thought about the drugged-up girl tonight and how, in some small way, Eliza had helped her.
It would be selfish to expect to slot back into Carrie’s life as a relative.
Ever. She understood that very clearly now.
To be close was enough, even if Carrie didn’t know the truth.
Because it meant Eliza could still help with Carrie’s problems, with finances.
Whatever the challenges, she’d find a way to make up for not being there for Carrie in the past.
‘Because it’s not about me,’ she said to Boo, in a determined tone.
‘This is about Carrie and helping her find a happy life, now her mum is gone. I owe it to her. I owe it to Mel. If that means my true identity remains our little secret forever, and not just for the moment – so be it. Us Fletchers… no, us Woods women are strong, when the chips are down. Mel brought up a child single-handed, with no money, no support network. It took me too long, but I left Howard and then carved a new life for myself. I wasn’t ready to quietly head into retirement, not when I finally had the chance to fulfil dreams of my own.
And Carrie has taken decisive action after losing her mum and falling out with her friends; she’s taken control of her destiny. ’
Mel, Carrie, Eliza – the three of them, at different speeds, at different ages, through suffering different hardships, had become solid, independent, and fearless women. Desert marigolds surviving the worst conditions.
In the spirit of that, Eliza made a pact with herself.
Hard as it was, she would never, ever, tell Carrie who she really was.