by kendra Smith
Once she’d shut the door behind her and patted the frenzied terrier (and done a double take over how bad his halitosis was today – she must book him into the vet), she realised her phone was buzzing.
It was Rachel. ‘Maddie, how are you? What time shall I meet you tonight?’ She could always lift Maddie’s spirits, with her lively voice. Rachel had been the one to get her to go to choir earlier that summer. Once Ed leaves home you’ll need something else. She’d known Rachel ever since they dented each other’s cars as they were both reversing out of the tiny car park at the back of the corner shop. Rachel Andrews-Lee it had said on the Police Witness form, and Maddie had thought she’d be aloof and tricky to deal with – but it turned out swapping details led to coffee, which had led to a firm friendship. Neither had pursued the insurance claim. Rachel had lived in Little Rowland forever, and was married to ‘her rock’, Alan, who ran a small catering business.
‘Hi, Rach. I’m bushed! Feeling ancient!’ Maddie sat down with a sigh.
‘Less of that! You’re only forty-one!’ screeched Rachel. ‘Next you’ll be telling me you’re buying “comfy shoes”!’
Maddie peered down at her brown brogues.
‘Very funny. OK, see you about eight.’
She wandered into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Taffie was bouncing up and down by her feet, so she opened the back door. He ran out to the back garden as a cool breeze came in, along with some leaves, dancing in the doorway whilst her mind drifted to the first day of next term. Usually she got excited about it, couldn’t wait. Now… she felt – what? Well, exhausted, really. Bored. She’d started as a voluntary teaching assistant, then, a paid job came up as a dinner lady. You can’t do that, Maddie, Tim had said at the time. Why ever not? she’d swiped back at him.
You don’t need to earn; I can support us both.
But I want to work, she’d said, I want to have my own money, my independence. He’d looked her up and down and marched out of the room. That was seven years ago – it all started because Ed was changing, the umbilical cord was getting looser .
She heard the key turn in the lock and something inside her twitched. She took a deep breath and forced her shoulders to lower themselves as she heard Tim, his heels clip-clipping on the wooden floorboards. Be a good wife.
‘Hi, darling.’ He was up behind her before she could turn around. She felt him snake his hands around her waist and hold her close. There was a fragrance she didn’t recognise.
‘Hello. Cup of tea?’ she said.
He kissed her on the head and let go. ‘Nope. I’ll just have a white wine – there’s a new one here I want to try. Fancy some?’
He knew she didn’t like white wine – just red or Prosecco or sometimes vodka and tonic; it drove him crazy.
‘No.’ She smiled. ‘You know I don’t like white wine.’
He looked up at her from studying the cork speared by the corkscrew. ‘Imagine being married to a wine salesman and not liking 50 per cent of the wine I bring home.’ There was that Welsh lilt again. He sniffed the cork.
She felt her shoulders rise again. She should be happy. She looked at Tim’s face, at his short brown hair, greying slightly at the temples, at his glasses perched on his nose as he studied the wine label intently – and she felt blank. What was wrong with her? Why wasn’t she engaging?
Now was her chance. She felt an enormous surge of wanting to live life, of wanting to harness what she had. She wanted to get drunk, have sex, ride a speedboat – where had that come from? – anything, just something different.
‘Tim, let’s have sex. Now. In the kitchen.’
He dropped the corkscrew and stared at her. She noticed a strand of long hair on his jacket. Blonde?
‘Well, that’s a surprise.’
She came over to him, started to unbutton her blouse, then stood in her black bra in front of him. As he came over to her and started to kiss her neck, she relaxed. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. She inhaled his familiar smell and, despite everything, let herself be comforted by him, let her head fall on his chest and took a deep sigh.
Suddenly, he swept the contents of the table to one side and hoisted her up onto it. That was certainly a new technique. She let herself go, let herself find some magic in his arms. She thought about Olive, about being at the end of your life’s journey and how awful it must be to stare at four walls all day. She wanted more. She wanted some excitement. This could be it! And she wanted to feel real, and solid and living. Then he was inside her and she let out a small cry.
Afterwards, Tim looked at her. ‘That was nice, pet.’
Pet? Was this what she was looking for?
*
Tim had an enormous grin on his face as he took a slug of wine at the kitchen table. ‘Listen, Maddie,’ he said, straightening his collar, and her heart quickened, waiting for a romantic gesture. She gave him her most winning smile. ‘I bought those tickets to that classic car show last weekend.’
She was leaning on the kitchen table; she held on to the edge of it. Classic cars.
‘Right.’
‘Look, Maddie, I know I don’t always show you, but I do love you, you know?’ She knew this; she knew he was a good man. It had felt good to be held. It had felt right to be close to another human being.
‘I know.’ She touched his sleeve, but that little fuse, the one that flickered in her heart these days, it just twitched again. He was saying something. She tried to focus.
‘Maddie, what do you think?’
‘Sorry, about what, darling?’
‘The new car! You know, the brochure you were going to look at today?’ He looked up at her over his glasses. ‘The “S” class – does zero to sixty in three seconds; it handles really well, too. Good fuel economy, safety rating excellent.’
He might as well be talking Finnish. She managed a smile. S-class. Zero to sixty – do we need a getaway car?
‘Well?’ He was animated, vibrant.
‘Looks great, Tim. You know better than me what we need. In fact, you’re in it most of the time!’
‘Maddie, what’s wrong? You’re not yourself.’ He put his hands on her shoulders.
I haven’t been myself for about nineteen years.
Something had to give.
7
Tonight they were practising ‘Diva Classics’ and as Maddie walked into the church hall with Rachel she shivered. The heating was always a bit dodgy and even though it was a July evening, the room was chilly. The room smelt of teabags and baby wipes. Blue plastic chairs were set up in rows and there was a general hum of voices punctuated by the odd shriek.
Maddie lost herself in the music that night. As she belted out some of the Gloria Gaynor classics in the warm-up, she started to feel powerful. ‘I Will Survive’ seemed apt after today. Janet, their choir leader, was in front of them, waving her arms about, smiling and nodding her head. It was always cathartic to come here. They had started to practise for their big event – a flash mob number in the high street, on Christmas Eve. Maddie breathed in deeply, closed her eyes and belted out the second verse. She loved belonging to something bigger than her.
Later, at the Dog and Duck, Rachel and a few others were gathered at tables around the pub. It was one of the oldest buildings in the village and it had been the venue for many cosy nights out for her and Tim when they’d first moved there, as well as several loud New Year’s Eve parties. It had beautiful beams, there was always a real fire burning, and the smell of smoke and beer seemed to melt into the place.
‘So, how are you?’ Rachel placed a vodka tonic in front of Maddie.
Maddie took a sip. ‘I keep looking at Ed’s Facebook page,’ she said putting the glass back on the table. ‘I miss him! But it does seem like he’s having fun. It’s great that he’s having his year off.’ And the more she said it to her friends, the more it would be true, wouldn’t it? She took a sip of her drink and then fished around for the lime floating in it and gave it a squeeze. ‘Olive
said something, you know – you don’t want any regrets. I want to be good at something, Rachel. Is that so odd?’
‘No it’s not, love. But don’t be daft, there’s loads you’re good at!’ Rachel took a slug of wine.
‘Like what?’ She fixed her with a gaze. The spectre of Mediocre Maddie was tapping her on the shoulder.
‘Singing!’ Rachel grinned, passing her a packet of salt and vinegar to share. ‘Um, a mother, you’re a fabulous mother, too!’
‘OK, I’ll take that, but what about me?’
‘Well, I don’t know…’ She narrowed her eyes at Maddie. ‘But why now. Why all this?’
Maddie shrugged, not sure herself why this cloak of discontentment had descended upon her after all these years. Yet part of her knew that the real Maddie was hiding in the shadows; she’d seen her at the reunion.
‘So what’s Ed actually doing?’ Rachel interrupted her thoughts.
‘Last I heard he was working in a shop at a surf school in Bali.’
‘Sounds great.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I keep telling myself,’ said Maddie taking a sip of her vodka tonic. It’s all great. No, it’s not. She shifted in her seat. ‘I wish he’d send me a message – anything.’
Rachel pulled a few more crisps out of the packet and popped them in her mouth and nodded at Maddie. ‘I think he’ll be fine. You know what? I think you’re having a bit of a doo-da, my girl, a midlife crisis.’
Maddie blinked at her friend a few times before she answered. ‘Maybe.’ Perhaps it was a phase, a bit like the early days when she had Ed. It all seemed too much, but after a while, she was pushing that pram confidently across the park, Ed with a smear of banana on his cheek, and she’d realised she’d come out the other side of early motherhood. Maybe it was the same now; she just needed some time with Tim to reconnect, to stop moping about Ed.
Her phone bleeped and she grabbed her bag, wondering if it was a message from Ed. No.
It was a weather update from Bali. She’d set her phone to receive news of anything to do with Bali. There was a tropical storm heading that way.
Seeing her face, Rachel said gently, ‘He’s probably just too caught up with his new bunch of mates to worry about his old mum, Maddie! He’ll be having a ball.’
‘Yes.’ Maddie smiled, looking over at the fire and at the sheer bloody cosiness of it all. ‘But less of the “old”!’
Rachel grinned and stood up. ‘’Nother drink?’ she said briskly as she swiped away Maddie’s glass.
Maddie watched her weave through the crowded bar as she threaded the fine silk of her scarf between her fingers. The pattern of the beautiful birds fluttering on the pale lemon and pink background was embedded in her mind; she’d traced every detail of them in her room that summer, had wiped away her tears with that scarf and screamed when her mother had washed it – because it had taken away some of that scent. His scent.
8
Olive
‘Mrs Hunter, I think, from your test results and the monitoring, we can be fairly confident—’ the male doctor took off his glasses and squinted at Olive in the sun streaming through the little windows ‘—that you have some of the classic symptoms of Alzheimer’s: forgetfulness, difficulty making decisions, ability to recognise familiar things.’
‘Of course I’m forgetful! I’m eighty-seven, young man! And Maddie here, she’s forty-one; she has some of those symptoms!’
Maddie let out a snort.
‘Look, Olive, Dr Cable is only trying to help.’ Maddie squeezed her knee.
The young doctor rubbed his glasses with his tie and took a deep breath.
Olive shifted in her seat. ‘I know that! But honestly, I’m not stupid. There’s a lot going on; you just can’t always see it.’ She could feel the onset of tears and she desperately wanted to be in control. She’d even forgotten she had a doctor’s appointment until that lovely nurse, that girl – yes, Clare – came to get her. Why was her brain letting her down so much?
‘Mrs Hunter, Olive, if I may, I understand it’s a hard time.’
‘Do you? Do you really understand what it’s like, when you’re – what? Thirty years old? How it feels to have fifty years of marriage bundled up into a small suitcase, to have one cardigan, two jumpers, a woolly skirt, a favourite seagull ornament and a pot plant as your companions – all that to show for sixty years of being in one house? Do you? I might have a spot of dementia, doctor, but what you lack is bedside manner!’
She was trembling when she got up. That poor specialist doctor really didn’t deserve that outburst, but it had just spilled out of her. Months of angst, knowing in her heart something wasn’t right. Knowing the nurses were monitoring her. She’d been trying to dismiss it as old age. And finally, here was a diagnosis.
‘Olive, let me help you…’ She took hold of Maddie’s small, warm hand and felt calmer touching her soft skin. She was not going to cry in front of this doctor. No. She walked towards the door, but when she got there, she turned around.
‘And I’m not going into the “safe” area, that name you give for all the gaga patients. Don’t think I don’t know what goes on in the East Wing. I will not go there. I may be losing my marbles, doctor, but I intend to lose them in my own room.’
She saw Maddie and the doctor exchange glances but she didn’t stop to analyse them. She would do what she wanted!
‘Maddie! I’m going up to my room.’
Maddie hurried out after her and they walked slowly to the lift. Olive could never make a hasty retreat nowadays. Arthritis had seen to that. And a fall in the garden years ago, making her left ankle something that constantly gave her pain.
When the lift doors opened, they both got in.
‘Where do you want to go, Olive?’
Well, there was a question! On a flight to New York with Stan, on a cruise to Egypt, to look out over the Thames from the top floor of the tea rooms at the Tate Modern, to a concert at the Sydney Opera House. Where, indeed? She looked over at Maddie. The girl looked pale and drawn, as if the lifeblood had been taken out of her. When was the last time she and Tim had done anything spontaneous? What did they do for fun? It had been tea dances in her day. Maddie was with that choir; now that sounded all right, but there had to be more. Olive blamed Tim – all that travelling. Just then she noticed the posters in the lift. Pet Therapy.
‘Let’s go to the conservatory. There’s “pet therapy” on – I call it “pet comedy”. We’ll have a laugh at the woman who can’t control those dogs.’ She winked at Maddie. ‘Press the ground-floor button, there’s a good girl.’
As they got out of the lift there was a lady in a tartan gilet trying to shush two barking spaniels in the conservatory. They were both straining on their leads and yelping.
‘Rupert, down!’ The woman was smiling, but Olive could tell she was harassed; she had a big strawberry rash on her neck and was sweating slightly across her forehead. ‘Heel!’
Olive and Maddie took their seats on wicker chairs with purple plastic-covered cushions – oh the luxury – and Olive had to bite her lip to stop her giggling at the silly shrieking dog woman. ‘Pot plants’ lined the conservatory: plastic foliage covered in a fine layer of dust. Ivy trailed from the pelmets and geraniums sat forlornly in pots surrounding the chairs. Olive had always thought it was an odd idea. They were living things you were meant to look after. They grew, you cut them, you fertilized them, you picked their flowers, they encouraged you to look after them. You don’t have fake people, do you? Mannequins at a party to ‘pretend’ you have more friends than you really do. Olive stifled a big guffaw.
Clare appeared and handed Olive a cup of tea. ‘Oh, Olive, you don’t normally come to this!’
‘No, last time I came, she let a Labrador drool all over me and all over my cream cakes, but well, thought I’d… try something again. Whilst I still can. Pet therapy today, tomorrow it’s Paris.’ She winked at Maddie. ‘Hoping our Maddie here will take a leaf out of my book.’
&nb
sp; She caught Maddie frowning at her, then re-forming her expression.
‘Well, that’s just great, Olive. Tea?’
‘Olive?’ Maddie leant over. ‘You know the consultant is only trying to help?’
‘Now! Hello, everyone.’ The woman in the gilet was still yanking on the two leads. ‘I’ve got Laurel and Hardy here, two very boisterous cocker spaniels! If you’d like to pet them, put your hand up!’
‘Pah! Is he really trying to help?’ said Olive as she watched Beryl bend over to try to pat one of the dogs, whilst it eagerly licked her face. He was a reddy-chestnut colour with beautiful, melting brown eyes. ‘Yes! Me!’ shouted Olive as the dog was brought over to her. She stroked his soft, silky coat as he panted away next to her. Then he barked a little. ‘Shhhh!’ Olive smiled and tickled him under his chin. She turned to Maddie. ‘What would he know? Wet behind the ears that doctor. How would he know what it was like to forget the names of everyday things? Yesterday, I had to call Clare to ask where the brushy thing was.’
‘You mean your hairbrush?’
‘Down, Hardy!’ screamed the woman, as Hardy had clambered up onto the sofa next to Olive and was licking her hand.
‘No. Good boy!’ She patted Hardy’s head. ‘My toothbrush. See? It’s not easy. I know what I mean, but my brain loses the words. But I will not be stuck with everyone else who’s just as forgetful as me – can you imagine? I couldn’t think of anything worse. All of us losing our minds together. All of us unable to speak because we don’t know the words! It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.’ She suddenly felt this weight land on her, pressing on her chest, a feeling of despondency that no springy spaniel was ever going to be able to lift.
‘But it’s for your safety, Olive.’ Maddie wouldn’t give up. ‘Clare told me that two days ago she came in and you had the toaster on, but there was no bread in it,’ she continued. ‘Nobody wants you to hurt yourself.’
‘Pah! It’s just a toaster, not a chainsaw! And do you think for one minute that if I let everyone take care of me, and if everyone does everything for me, that I’ll get better? No. I will just become more dependent. For goodness’ sake, Maddie—’ she sighed ‘—I’m finding that I get stuck on the “Giant Crossword” nights – and I don’t want that. I will fight it all the way – and I want the battle to be on my own terms. As long as I can remember my name and yours, my love, I’m perfectly fine.’ With that, she squeezed Maddie’s hand just as Hardy snaked around Beryl’s feet, rose up and helped himself to her Victoria sponge from the plate on her knee.
