by kendra Smith
Her heart went cold. Not only was there no money, she was two thousand pounds overdrawn. What on earth was going on? How the hell had that gone missing? And what was she going to do now? She’d promised the lady at the hostel she’d pay in advance for her room for a week. She had absolutely no money now. She felt all the blood drain from her face as she put a hand out to steady herself at the bar.
*
‘You what?’
‘Needed to take the money out for an unexpected mortgage payment.’
‘What “unexpected” mortgage payment, Tim?’ she hissed. ‘We paid the mortgage before I left. I had nine hundred pounds in my account for this week. AND FIVE THOUSAND IN MY SAVINGS. What’s going on? Now I have a two-grand overdraft! I’ve never had an overdraft in my life!’ Her voice was getting louder and louder. She was in her room, the back door open; a trickle of sweat ran down behind her knee.
There was silence at the other end. ‘Tim?’
‘Never had an overdraft! Ha! Well, maybe you should live a little.’
‘What?’ Was he drunk?
Nothing.
‘Tim!’ But the line went dead. Had he hung up? Jesus Christ. Live a little? She was livid. She marched back and forth round the room, then sat down with a thump on the bed and looked out at the courtyard gardens, at the candles flickering in the lanterns, punctuating the darkness of the gravelly path. The fan above whirred round and round. How could Tim do this to her? How could he clear out all her money, including her savings? And why? He didn’t even know she had a savings account linked to her current account – she’d been keeping it a secret. Scratch that. It turned out he knew fine well she had a savings account.
Suddenly a feeling about Tim, a wariness on some level, of all the trips, all the years she’d put up with, his wine tasting client ‘meetings’, started to percolate through her brain and a thought started to gnaw at her.
Her cheeks were on fire. Yes, they had one almighty secret between them, but they’d helped each other out. How could he turn on her? He was her husband. They’d brought up Ed together; they’d built a home.
*
Ed was hauling a mattress across the floor.
‘I’ll sleep there, Ed,’ she muttered, as she lifted her feet to allow him to place it in the only space that would fit: right by the bed.
‘Mum, don’t worry,’ he said, leaning over her to shove it a bit further up by the wall with his foot. He then went to the small carved wooden wardrobe and got out his sleeping bag.
‘I’ll kip here tonight, you have the bed.’
The woman at the desk hadn’t been terribly friendly. Maddie had paid for her first few nights in her room, but now she was meant to pay for the rest of the days and she didn’t have any money. And the hostel owner seemed quite unconvinced that she would pay. She’d probably seen it all before with backpackers offering to pay later. Maddie couldn’t really blame her. She lifted her feet up to allow Ed to squish the mattress further under the bed to fit. A small black cockroach scuttled out from the other side of the bed.
But what was she even going home to? A husband who lied to her? A husband who had used her money? And Olive. She couldn’t bear to think about her alone. Had Tim even visited? She felt anger bubble up.
Ed sat down next to her on the bed. The fan was making a whooshing noise above their heads. The doors to the garden were shut, because, as she’d learnt from her room, if you kept them open, the so-called mosquito screen across them didn’t work. There seemed to be more holes than screen, and on her second night she’d been bitten alive. She leant down and scratched her ankle.
‘It’s humiliating, Ed.’
‘Yeah.’ Ed leant back on the bed and put his hands behind his head. ‘I don’t know what to make of it, Mum. Look, I can lend—’
‘No!’ she almost shouted. She was not going to let Ed lend her money. ‘I’m phoning Rachel.’ She wandered outside to the humid gardens, the cicadas busy with their own night orchestra, the sweet smell of jasmine in the air.
She dialled Rachel’s number and when she answered it was all she could do not to cry.
‘What’s up, love?’
Maddie told her everything: the money, the savings account that had been emptied, what Tim had said.
‘Bastard. Sorry, love, but to think he just bought a car – what did he say? Zero to sixty in three blimmin’ seconds? Honestly.’
‘I know, Rachel, I—’
‘There’s something else, Maddie. I’m glad you called. Your house.’
‘What?’
‘Well, um. There have been some blokes around. Tim was at the front door today, then when I looked at the car driving away, it was Evans Estate Agents. And yesterday, well…’
There was a slight time delay, but Maddie could almost picture Rachel biting her lip.
‘What?’
‘I think it was debt collectors.’
She felt sick. Why were they at her house?
‘I really don’t want to go back there, Rachel.’
‘You will stay with us. In our spare room. And Maddie?’
‘Yes?’
‘Listen, text me your flight details. Try to get some sleep.’
Maddie clutched the phone and let out a breath. ‘Thank you, Rachel.’
Maddie pressed the ‘call end’ button and wandered back into the room, grateful for the breeze of the fan. Ed was sitting on the bed, his long legs stretched out in front of him.
‘Mum?’ He put a hand on her arm.
‘Hmm?’ She came and sat down next to him.
She looked at his big hand covering her forearm. She used to hold that hand to cross the road.
‘I just wanted to say thanks, you know, for coming here. I was pretty scared. I might not have shown it—’
‘I know, I know,’ she said reaching up and touching him on the cheek. ‘Now let’s get some sleep. It’s been quite a day.’
Maddie lay in the dark that night and her brain whooshed as the fan spun above her head. She could hear Ed snoring lightly. He had his whole life ahead of him. She didn’t want to shatter what was left of his respect for his dad. She needed to get back home.
She had never been particularly superstitious, but an uneasy feeling settled on her, as she clutched her hummingbird scarf in the dark, and pulled it over her shoulders to stop the mozzies from biting. Just then, her phone buzzed with a notification. Finally, Tim with some comprehensible explanation. She thumped her pillow as she sat up.
She leant over and grabbed her phone, the eerie blue light casting a glow over the sheet. Suddenly, the events of the whole day were eclipsed by a single icon. There, in front of her was an acceptance of a friend request.
From Greg.
She sensed that the world as she knew it would never be the same again.
21
The picture was a bit grainy, but she could make out Olive, her glasses perched on her head. Maddie and Ed were in an internet café on the main drag in central Kuta. She’d had an awful night’s sleep in the end, worrying about money, worrying about her life, swatting away a persistent mozzie all night. She and Ed had been trying to change her flights after Maddie had got a phone call from Clare. Clare had felt that Maddie should speak to Olive on Skype again, which was why they were at the café, but she’d also said that Olive had taken a turn for the worse. You’d be a good tonic for her, Maddie. Claire had also suggested Olive would like to speak to Ed.
‘Is it because I haven’t been around, Clare? Is she lonely?’
There had been a silence on the other end of the phone, before Clare said, ‘Mrs Brown, Olive isn’t lonely here. She’s made it her mission to be friendly to absolutely everyone. In fact, I wish more residents were like her, but she is asking more and more, almost every day, for Stan. It breaks my heart because every time we remind her that he’s passed away, for her, it’s as if it’s the first time she’s hearing it, and the sadness in her eyes… It’s such a cruel illness.’
Clare explained that they�
��d get Olive in a wheelchair and get her to the computer to do a Skype call.
To compound things, Maddie had also got a curt text from Tim saying that he’d been to see Olive and she ‘wasn’t her usual self’. She hadn’t been her usual self for about five years because of the onset of dementia. Maddie bit the side of her lip, frowned and leant in towards the screen to get a better view. Tim had said she was asking for Stan constantly and getting angry with the nurses. He hadn’t said anything about the money or what had happened. Maddie tried to put that out of her mind for the moment and concentrate on the call.
It was thirty-six degrees outside. A fan whirred noisily above their heads, blowing a warm waft of air across her shoulders every few seconds. It was welcome and annoying at the same time. The place was full of backpackers hunched over screens, sipping cans of cold drinks, condensation dribbling down the side and pooling on the tables. A few of them had abandoned their screens and were simply using it to escape the heat.
‘Hello, Mrs Brown, I’ve got Olive here.’
Maddie peered at the screen and could just about make out Olive in a wheelchair. She looked thinner than she remembered, and quite hunched.
‘Hello, Olive! How are you?’
The woman on the screen squinted at them and narrowed her eyes. ‘What’s that?’
‘I said, how are you? I’ve got Ed here. Are you well?’
‘We had fish today.’ She smiled.
‘Good. That’s one of your favourites, the battered cod!’ Maddie smiled back and noticed Clare had put her hand on Olive’s shoulders.
Clare said: ‘Olive, tell them about the Giant Sudoku – that Beryl cheated, remember!’
Olive sat in the chair expressionless, then looked the other way.
‘Maybe tell Olive what you’ve been up to?’ Clare looked at her and Ed.
‘Aunty Olive, I’ve been surfing!’ Ed said to the screen.
Olive stared back. ‘That’s nice. But we need to get to the doctor’s.’
Clare gave her a sideways look. ‘No, Olive, we’ve just been.’
‘Olive.’ Maddie’s tone was like that of a schoolmistress. ‘I’m going to be back soon, OK? I am changing my flight today. I’ll be back to see you and we can go for a stroll in the gardens. I’ll bring a catalogue with me and we’ll choose some Christmas decorations! You like those! Soon we’ll be putting a small tree up in your room, OK? Is it cold there? When does Maybank put up its decorations? Remember last year they put them up so early!’
Olive squinted at them on the screen.
‘It’s very hot here,’ Maddie carried on, more for herself than Olive. She stared at the screen, willing there to be some sort of spark of recognition in Olive’s eyes.
Clare patted Olive’s shoulders. ‘Do you want to say something, Olive?’
The ceiling fan whooshed around, a gentle breeze flicking Maddie’s fringe up and then back down onto a damp forehead. Up, down.
And then Olive turned to Clare. ‘Who are these people, dear?’
Maddie felt like her heart might break.
22
Olive
‘It’s not as if she uses it, does she?’ One of the care workers; possibly Annoying Annie or maybe – Olive leant to the left – was it Kind Clare? You could never tell at some angles, same green outfit, same belt across a puffy waist, a fringe, no, yes, it was Clare – not, thank heaven, Pongy Peter, the nurse who came on after 5 p.m., the one who had BO and didn’t believe a word you said, had that patronising voice you knew he would use on pets or small children. How you doing today? Like she was a two-year-old. Whenever he spoke, Olive wanted to say, ‘Are you going to put me on the naughty step?’ But if she did that she’d be sent straight to the Dementia Ward, so she didn’t risk it. No, Clare was a good girl. She took proper care of everyone; she listened to them.
Clare was tugging gently at a blanket underneath Beryl and cajoling her to lift her legs. ‘C’mon, Beryl, you know it’s not yours.’
‘But Olive doesn’t use it anymore! It’s mine!’
Olive watched the scene unfold as if she was an observer to her own argument. Yes, she did use that blanket, and Beryl knew it. It had been given to her by… by… It was there, just there and if only she could retrieve it… nice girl, Maddie, yes! By Maddie. She knew it was wool with a delicate blend of heather purple and light mossy-green. It had been from Marks and… Marks and… oh blast, well, that shop. She’d had it for fifteen years and it was one of the few possessions she’d brought from home, from her cottage by the sea.
She’d just gone to the toilet in the corridor and left her favourite chair and blanket for a moment. She’d come back to find one of the nurses more or less playing tug of war over it with Beryl.
Ever since they’d properly diagnosed Beryl with Alzheimer’s she had become more and more belligerent. Was it the disease? Was it her? Was it her age? All Olive knew was that she was terrified she would turn into a grumpy old woman herself. Well, she was already, but that came with the territory at eighty-seven, or was it eighty-eight? Dear Lord. Beryl was probably scared – and very confused. Couldn’t blame her. But Olive did want her blanket back.
‘Beryl, why don’t you hang on to that blanket for today? Let’s just share it for a bit, shall we? It’s terribly soft, isn’t it?’ Beryl beamed at Olive, a huge childlike smile showing her missing teeth at the back, where the dentures just sort of stopped on the upper part of her mouth.
‘What a wonderful idea.’ Beryl sighed, leant back in her chair as Clare came over and patted Olive on the arm with a wink.
Not for the first time did Olive wonder at this descent from dignity. And how, as you aged, there was a steady decline into almost childlike behaviour. It was ironic really; the older you got, the more infantile you became. Arguing over a favourite chair, wanting a friend’s blanket, going into a mood over the ‘wrong’ pudding, and as for dribbling and loss of control over bodily functions… Olive shuddered. She wouldn’t go there. She knew the doctors wanted to retest her cognitive functions on Friday. ‘Cognitive’ – she played with the word in her mind. She just didn’t want to know the results.
At least she’d asked that lawyer chap to come and see her. Given him a few instructions. She felt happier now; he’d fix it. All her final wishes. Today had been a good day. She knew all the words she wanted to use. She had remembered – just – at the last minute that she hated tomatoes at lunch and now she was remembering to share.
She sat back down in her chair by the window and studied the coppery leaves gathering force in the corner of the garden. She watched them scurry together in a windy dance, twirl around, then get blown mercilessly into the corner by the greenhouse, to be left in little piles later; some to get blown onto the grass again, a few to fly away over the hedge and some to get trampled underfoot, for the life to be squeezed out of them so they’d be used for the next cycle of life.
23
Maddie
Three days later, a taxi pulled up outside the hostel. ‘C’mon Mum!’ Ed leant his head out the window. She hadn’t been able to bring her flight forward at all – it was going to cost money she didn’t have. Ed had jumped in and was chatting to the driver.
She was standing on the pavement with Johnny. He took her bags from her hand, brushing her skin as he did so. She smiled at him, and silently thanked the messy-haired surfer for igniting something deep within her. His boyish good looks, his passion and his determination had awakened something in her. She glimpsed the surf-mad teenager in him, thought about his stories at the bar – near misses with sharks (she never did know if they were true or not).
He’d been a good friend in Bali. Taught her to go for it, to enjoy herself again, that she could do it.
Cars belted past and diesel fumes filled her nose in the heat. Johnny’s hand was on her shoulder, squeezing it; she slid her sunglasses up on top of her head so she could look at him properly and squinted in the sun. ‘Hey, Mads, look after yourself.’
She studied t
he disheveled gentle giant towering over her. ‘I will.’
‘And there’s just one thing I want you do to for me.’ He squeezed her shoulder again as a smile played on his lips.
‘What?’
‘Go for it.’
She tilted her head to one side. ‘How do you mean?’
‘I think you know.’ And with that, he bent down, gave her a peck on the cheek and she inhaled his smell – damp sea and salt – for one last time. ‘He’s a lucky guy,’ Johnny whispered in her ear before he pulled away.
*
Maddie stood dazed and confused in the arrival hall at Heathrow. She had barely slept on the nonstop Garuda Airways flight back to the UK. The lovely energetic children who’d been running amok at the departure lounge had kicked the back of her seat for sixteen hours. They were now draped over luggage trolleys.
That’s precisely what she felt like doing.
‘You look like shit, poppet.’ Rachel gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘And your BO’s a bit much, darlin’.’
Maddie looked wearily at Rachel and frowned. She was relieved to see her wink at her. ‘Only joking! But I bet you could do with a bath!’
‘Bath, and forty hours’ sleep! Just take me home – well, to yours.’
‘Of course.’ Rachel reached over, took Maddie’s case handle and started to wheel it. ‘About that. I saw some other estate agents sniffing round your place yesterday.’ She glanced over at Maddie.
