The Switch

by Beth O'Leary

  Bee laughs. “There will be no honeytrap!” she says. “I’ll just … keep an eye on things.”

  I wish I could stay here and do the same. He’d never suspect it if I was the one investigating. Nobody ever thinks it’s the old lady.

  “Oh, good,” Bee says happily. “You must be starting to feel better. You’ve got your scheming face on.”

  21

  Leena

  I’m all geared up to head back to London the next morning, but when Yaz answers Martha’s phone she tells me—as kindly as a person can—that the two of them need a few weeks to get their shit together before anyone visits.

  “She’s even banned her own father from coming to stay,” Yaz says apologetically. “Sorry, Leena.”

  I hear Martha in the background. “Pass me the phone!” she says.

  “Hey!” I say. I’ve got the phone on speaker while I tidy Grandma’s kitchen, but I switch back to handheld. I need Martha’s voice to be nearer my face—that’s the closest I can get to hugging her. “Oh my God, how are you? How is baby Vanessa?”

  “Perfect. I know it’s a cliché to say that but I really think she is, Leena,” Martha says earnestly. “Though breastfeeding is a lot less Madonna-and-child than I was expecting. It hurts. She kind of … chomps.”

  I pull a face.

  “But the midwife says she’ll come and help me with my latching position and we’ll get it sorted in no time, won’t we, my beautiful baby?” This is presumably addressed to Vanessa, not to me. “And Yaz has found us a gorgeous flat in Clapham! Isn’t she amazing? But anyway, none of this is what I wanted to say, sweetheart, I wanted to say … Oh, I’m sorry not to invite you down. I love you, but—I’ve just got Yaz back, and…”

  “Don’t worry. I completely get it. You need your time with Vanessa.”

  “OK. Thank you, sweetheart. But that’s also not what I wanted to say. What did I want to say, Yaz?”

  God, this is like Martha after five glasses of wine and no sleep. Is this what people mean when they talk about “baby brain,” I wonder? But I’m smiling, because she’s so audibly happy, just buzzing with it. It’s so good to hear her and Yaz together again. I’ve always loved Yaz—when she’s around, Martha opens out, like one of those flowers you see on fast-forward on the telly. Yaz just needs to be around a bit more.

  “You wanted to tell her to stop her grandmother from going home,” Yaz says in the background.

  “Yes! Leena. Your grandmother can’t go home yet. It’s so good for her, being here in London. I’ve seen her every day this last month and honestly, the transformation—she’s blossoming. She’s smiling ten times more. Last week I walked in and she and Fitz were dancing together to ‘Good Vibrations.’”

  My spare hand goes to my heart. The image of Grandma and Fitz dancing together is almost as cute as the picture of baby Vanessa that Yaz just sent me.

  “You know she’s dating an actor? And she’s got us all turning the downstairs area of the building into this community space?” Martha continues.

  “Seriously? The area with the miscellaneously stained sofas?” And then, processing: “Is the actor called Tod? She won’t tell me a thing about her love life, it’s infuriating!”

  “You are her granddaughter, Leena. She’s not going to want to keep you up to speed on her sex life.”

  “Sex?” I say, pressing a hand to my chest. “Oh, my God, weird weird weird.”

  Martha laughs. “She’s having an amazing time here, and she’s working on this new project—a social club for elderly people in Shoreditch.”

  “There are elderly people in Shoreditch?”

  “Right? Who knew! Anyway, she’s only just getting it off the ground, and she’s so excited about it. You need to let her finish what she’s started.”

  I think of Basil, how he laughed about Grandma’s projects never going anywhere, and I feel suddenly and very fiercely proud of my grandmother. This project sounds amazing. I love that she’s not given up on the idea of making a difference, not even after decades of men like Basil and Grandpa Wade putting her down.

  “It’s talking to your mum that’s got her thinking she has to come home,” Martha says. “Something about an argument?”

  “Ah.”

  “Tell Eileen you’ll sort things with your mum and I bet she’ll stay here. And it’d be good for you too, sweetheart. Talking to your mum, I mean.”

  I pick up the cleaning cloth again and scrub hard at the hob. “Last time we talked it ended in this horrible fight.” I bite my lip. “I feel awful about it.”

  “Say that then,” Martha says gently. “Tell your mum that.”

  “When I’m with her, all the feelings, the memories of Carla dying—it’s like getting bloody bulldozed.”

  “Say that too,” Martha tells me. “Come on. You all need to start talking.”

  “Grandma’s been wanting me to talk to Mum about my feelings for months,” I admit.

  “And when is your grandmother ever wrong? We’ve all fallen madly in love with Eileen, you know, Fitz included,” Martha says. “I’m thinking about getting one of those wristbands people wore in the nineties, except mine’ll say, What Would Eileen Cotton Do?”

  * * *

  I take a long walk after Martha’s phone call, following a route I sometimes run. I notice so much more at this pace: how many greens there are here, all different; how beautifully those drystone walls are built, the stones slotted in like jigsaw pieces. How a sheep’s resting face looks kind of accusatory.

  Eventually, after ten unpleasant kilometers of thinking time, I call my mother from a tree stump beside a stream. It’s about the most restful and idyllic setting imaginable, which feels necessary for what promises to be an extremely difficult conversation.

  “Leena?”

  “Hi, Mum.”

  I close my eyes for a moment as the emotions come. It’s a bit easier this time, though, now I’m braced for them—they own me a little less.

  “Grandma wants to come back to Hamleigh.”

  “Leena, I’m so sorry,” Mum says quickly, “I didn’t tell her to—I really didn’t. I texted her yesterday evening and said she should stay in London, I promise you I did. I just had a moment of weakness when I called her, and she decided…”

  “It’s OK, Mum. I’m not angry.”

  There’s silence.

  “OK. I am angry.” I kick a stone with the toe of my running shoe so it skitters into the stream. “I guess you figured that out.”

  “We should have talked about all this properly sooner. I suppose I thought you’d come to understand, as time passed, but … I only supported Carla in what she chose, Leena. You know if she’d wanted to try another operation or round of chemotherapy or anything, I would have supported that too. But she didn’t want that, love.”

  My eyes begin to ache, a sure sign tears are coming. I suppose I know what she’s saying is true, really. It’s just …

  “It’s easier to be angry than sad, sometimes,” Mum says, and it’s exactly the thought I was trying to form, and so Mum-like of her to know it. “And it’s easier to be angry with me than with Carla, I imagine.”

  “Well,” I say, rather tearfully. “Carla’s dead, so I can’t yell at her.”

  “Really?” Mum says. “I do, sometimes.”

  That startles a wet half-laugh out of me.

  “I think she’d be a bit offended to think you were refusing to yell at her, just because she died,” Mum goes on mildly. “You know how big she was on treating everyone equally.”

  I laugh again. I watch a twig caught behind a rock, fluttering in the flow of the stream, and think of playing Pooh Sticks with Carla and Grandma as a child, how cross I’d feel if my stick got stuck.

  “I’m sorry for calling your grandma,” Mum says quietly. “It was just a wobble. Sometimes I feel very … alone.”

  I swallow. “You’re not alone, Ma.”

  “I’ll call her again,” Mum says after a while. “I’ll tell her to stay in
London. I’ll tell her I want you to stay and I won’t have it any other way.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I do want you to stay, you know, more than anything, actually. It wasn’t about that. It was just about needing—needing my mother.”

  I watch the water churn. “Yes,” I say. “Yes, I can understand that.”

  22

  Eileen

  I have to say, working with Fitz on the Silver Shoreditchers’ space is making me see the man in a whole new light. He’s working peculiar hours in his latest job—a concierge at some fancy hotel—but whenever he’s home, he’s down here painting something or hunched at his laptop reading about setting up charitable organizations on the Internet. He’s handling all the Silver Shoreditchers’ administration—he’s even made some posters for the club, with a little logo. It’s wonderful. I’ve been on him for weeks about being more proactive in his career ambitions, but, if I’m honest, I’m a little shocked he’s got all this in him.

  “There!” he says, standing back from where he’s just hung a large picture on the wall.

  “Wonderful,” I say. “The perfect finishing touch!”

  The picture is an enlarged black-and-white photograph of the building from the 1950s, when it still operated as a printworks. There’s a collection of people gathered outside, talking and smoking, their collars turned up against the wind. It’s a reminder that this place isn’t just a collection of individual homes, it’s one building too, with a history of its own.

  I smile, looking around the space we’ve created. It’s beautiful. There’s a rich red sofa facing those glorious windows, a long dining table pushed to the back of the space, and lots of small tables with charmingly mismatched chairs, ready and waiting to host dominoes and rummy.

  I’m so glad I’m here to see this. And I’m even gladder that the reason I didn’t go home early is because Marian asked me not to. Hearing her say how much she needed this time with Leena, just the two of them … it was like something heavy lifting off my chest.

  My phone rings. Fitz tracks it down and fishes it out of the side of the sofa. Betsy calling. Oh, damn, I meant to ring her. Until now I’ve called her every week—I just got rather distracted with all the renovating, and it slipped my mind.

  “Betsy, I’d just picked up my phone to call you, what a coincidence!” I say as I answer, pulling a face to myself.

  “Hello, Eileen, dear,” Betsy says. I frown. I am familiar enough with the tones of Betsy’s false cheerfulness to spot the signs of a bad day. I feel worse than ever for forgetting to check on her.

  “Are you well?” I ask carefully.

  “Oh, bearing up!” she says. “I’m calling because my grandson is down in London today!”

  “That’s lovely!”

  Betsy’s grandson is an inventor, always dreaming up ridiculous unnecessary contraptions, but he’s the one member of her family who stays in regular contact with her, so that puts him high up in my estimation. If she knows his whereabouts, he’s called her recently—that’s good. Now he just needs to get his mother to do the same.

  “And this is the grandson who invented the … the…” Oh, why did I start this sentence?

  Betsy leaves me to stew.

  “The hummus scoop,” she says, with great dignity. “Yes. He’s down in London for a meeting, he says, and I thought, gosh, what a happy coincidence, our Eileen is in London too! You two must meet for lunch.”

  I purse my lips. I have a feeling Betsy may have forgotten that London covers more than six hundred square miles and houses more than eight million people.

  “I’ve already told him to call you and set it up. I thought you might be lonely there, and it would be nice to have someone to talk to.”

  I don’t have the heart to tell her that I’m far from lonely. I was at the start, of course, but now I hardly have a moment alone, what with seeing Tod, planning the Silver Shoreditchers’ Club, gossiping with Letitia …

  “He’s dating too, you know,” Betsy says. “He might be able to give you some tips in that department.”

  I pause. “He’s dating?”

  “Yes! That’s what he calls it, anyway. He’s using all these funny things on his mobile phone,” Betsy says. “Perhaps he could tell you about them.”

  “Yes,” I say slowly, “yes, that would be marvelous. Remind me, Betsy … what’s he like, this grandson of yours? Relationship history? Hopes and dreams? Political views? Is he tall?”

  “Oh, well,” Betsy says. She sounds rather taken aback, but then the grandmother in her kicks in, and she can’t resist the opportunity. She talks nonstop for twenty-five minutes. It’s perfect. Exactly the sort of intelligence I’m after. And, even better: he sounds very promising indeed.

  “What a lovely man! How wonderful, Betsy,” I say, as she eventually runs out of breath. “And he’s going to call me?”

  “He is!” There’s a muffled sound behind Betsy. “I must go,” she says, and I hear her voice tighten. “Speak soon, Eileen! Do try and ring me soon, won’t you?”

  “I will,” I promise. “Take care.”

  Once I’ve ended the call, I open WhatsApp. I’m much better at using this phone now, thanks to Fitz’s tutelage; he peers approvingly over my shoulder as I navigate the screen. There’s a message waiting from someone I don’t know. Fitz leans across and shows me how to accept him to my contacts.

  Hi, Mrs. Cotton, it’s Betsy’s grandson here. I think she’s warned you about lunch! How is Nopi, one o’clock tomorrow? All the best, Mike.

  I choose Bee’s name before I reply to his message.

  Hello Bee. Would you be free for lunch tomorrow? Nopi, one fifteen? Love, Eileen xx

  * * *

  Mike is not only very tall but also encouragingly handsome, though he has Betsy’s nose—but he can’t help that. He’s got thick-rimmed glasses and brown hair that curls a little, and he’s dressed in a gray suit, as though he’s just come from a terribly important meeting. I try not to get too excited as we’re seated at a perfect table: big enough to squeeze on another diner and in full view of the road so I can see Bee when she … Yes! There she is. Marvelous.

  “Eileen?” she says, looking puzzled as she approaches the table.

  She looks at Mike. The penny drops. Her eyes narrow.

  “Bee!” I say, before she can start complaining. “Oh, Mike, I hope you don’t mind, I was supposed to meet my friend Bee for lunch today, so I invited her to join us.”

  Mike takes this with the calm demeanor of a man who is used to surprises. “Hello, I’m Mike,” he says, holding out his hand.

  “Bee,” Bee says, in her driest, flattest, most off-putting tone.

  “Well!” I say. “Isn’t this lovely? Mike, why don’t you start by telling Bee all about your education?”

  Mike looks rather perplexed. “Let me go and ask for another chair, first,” he says, gallantly standing and offering Bee his.

  “Thank you,” Bee says, and then, as soon as she’s seated, she hisses, “Eileen! You have no shame! You cornered that poor man into blind-dating me!”

  “Oh, nonsense, he doesn’t mind,” I say, scanning the menu.

  “Oh? And how’d you figure that one?”

  I glance up. “He’s fixing his hair in the mirror behind the bar,” I tell her. “He wants you to like the look of him.”

  She swivels, then tilts her head to the side. “He does have a nice bum,” she says begrudgingly.

  “Bee!”

  “What! You wanted me to like him, didn’t you, and I’ve not got much else to go on right now! Oh, hi, Mike,” she says as he returns to the table with a waiter and chair in tow. “So sorry about this.”

  “Not at all,” he says smoothly. “Thanks so much,” he tells the waiter. “I really appreciate you going to the trouble.”

  “Polite to waiters,” I whisper to Bee. “A very good sign.”

  Mike looks amused. “Eileen,” he says, “you have the advantage over me and Bee—you’re the only perso
n at this table who has any idea who anybody else is. So. Why don’t you tell us why you wanted to matchmake me and Bee today?”

  I pause, a little startled. “Oh, umm, well…”

  I catch Bee’s expression of rather wicked amusement. She shoots Mike an appreciative glance. I narrow my eyes at them both.

  “I have spent a great deal of the last few years keeping my mouth shut about one thing or another,” I tell them. “But I’ve come to realize lately that sometimes it’s better just to stick your oar in, as it were. So you shan’t make me feel embarrassed for trying to matchmake the two of you. As Bee put it—I have no shame.” I raise a hand as Mike opens his mouth to say something. “No, no, let me finish. Bee is an extremely successful management consultant and plans to launch her own business any day now. Mike, you recently set up your own business about … hummus scooping.” I wave a hand at them both. “Go on,” I say. “Discuss.”

  * * *

  I return home feeling pleased as punch. I chaired the entirety of Bee and Mike’s date and it was a roaring success. Well, they spent the majority of it laughing, at least—some of the time at me, admittedly, but that didn’t matter. I’ve always been rather afraid of being laughed at, but when it’s on your own terms, and you’re laughing too, it turns out it can be quite fun.

  I settle myself down at the breakfast counter with Leena’s laptop. There are three new messages waiting for me on my dating website.

  Todoffstage says: Tomorrow night, my house. The black lacy underwear. I insist upon it.

  I blush. Gosh. Normally I hate being bossed around, but somehow when Tod does it, I don’t seem to mind at all. I clear my throat and write back.

  EileenCotton79 says: Well, if you insist …

  Whew. Well, this should calm me down again—a message from Arnold. I thought I’d told him to bog off and stop looking at my profile, hadn’t I?

  Arnold1234 says: I saw this and thought of you …