by Beth Moran
We had our tea huddled on the back step, the only place free from piles, or people sorting piles.
April, who had said barely anything to me throughout the morning, peeked over her mug.
“How is he?”
I blew out a sigh into my tea. “He’s a little better. Still a really long way to go, but he’s getting there.”
I hoped. Oh, how I hoped he would get there.
“Have you seen him?” April asked.
“Only once, for an hour. We’ve spoken a couple of times on the phone. Too much outside interaction can disrupt things, early on. It puts pressure on him. There’ll be more opportunity to visit as he gets stronger.”
She kept her eyes down, voice hesitant.
“Did he mention me?”
I took another sip, taking a moment to form an answer. “You remember how he was, before he went in?”
She nodded.
“In his head, it’s like full-blown panic mode, every second of the day. He’s having to scramble to survive, only the danger is in his head, so he can never get away from or deal with it. He didn’t mention you, April. But I was sat in front of him for an hour and he didn’t mention me, either.”
“Is he angry with me?” she whispered. “For letting him get so bad? For not helping him? Does he think it’s my fault?”
“Look at me.” Slowly, she lifted her head, eyes skittering all over the place. “Right now he’s in some form of hell we can’t begin to understand. He’s ill. You couldn’t have stopped that. I couldn’t have stopped that. He couldn’t have, either. It’s no one’s fault. Okay?”
“Okay.”
We drank our tea for a few more moments.
“You love him, don’t you?”
She nodded, her mouth twisted.
“You know it might not be enough? It’s going to be a long time before he can focus on anyone apart from himself. Even if he loves you, it doesn’t mean you can make it work.”
“I know that. But it doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.”
We took our mugs into the kitchen, finding a tiny space to squeeze them onto near the sink before getting to work in the conservatory.
A while later, as we carried a broken futon out to the skip, I watched April’s determined face, and considered how hard she’d worked all morning. How hard she’d worked since September. I looked around at the Sort and Clean teams, beavering away in secret because Marilyn hated to ask for help, had tried to carry her struggles alone. I made a decision not to keep trying to carry my load alone. It wasn’t heroic. It was stupid. And prideful. And bordering on obsessive. Maybe I could let some of my Sam junk go.
“I can ask if they’ll let you visit, if you like.”
She stopped, nearly tripping over a plant pot as the momentum from the futon pushed her backwards.
“Are you sure?”
“They might not agree. Sam might not agree. But I can ask.”
“Thank you.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say “You’re welcome”, but I’d made the offer. Made a start.
Chapter Sixteen
By one o’clock, we were starving, and there were still mountains of work to be done. I rummaged around the kitchen, finding a sack of potatoes in the pantry and a tray of eggs.
Twenty minutes later we had Spanish omelette, flavoured with red onion, chives, and parsley fresh from the garden and a frugal layer of parmesan cheese. Having sent April out to buy a couple of loaves of crusty bread, I added some tomato salsa and finished off with a coconut cake thrown together from Marilyn’s amply stocked baking cupboard.
“This is well good,” Rowan said, through a mouthful of egg, perched on a cardboard box in the living room. “How did you cook for all of us that quick?”
I shrugged. “I used to work in a restaurant. You pick up some tips.”
“You should go into catering or something. Open a café.”
“Maybe one day. Right now I couldn’t take on running my own business.”
“Yeah.” Rowan shoved in another forkful. “It’s a lot of work. When I open my beauty salon with Kim you could get a place nearby, somewhere for the clients to have lunch once we’ve got them all spruced up.”
“So you’re planning on becoming a hairdresser?” I asked. “Is the music career on hold?”
She shrugged. “While Callie needs me here, anyway. I’m trying to find someone who’ll take me on as an apprentice but it’s tough. Hester says you have to keep trying if you want to fulfil your destiny; it doesn’t ever come easy. She said I need to keep my chin up and remember I’m a strong, courageous woman with as much worth as anybody else. One day someone will see the potential inside me.”
I smiled. “You know Hester; she’s usually right. And in the meantime, you’re still doing my wedding hair and other stuff like that?”
“Too right!” She stuffed in her last piece of omelette, leaning over to grab a chunk of my hair.
“Oh, sorry.” As I ducked away to avoid her eggy fingers, she reached about for a piece of kitchen roll and wiped her hands on it. “Rosa showed me what your dress is gonna look like, so I’ve been thinking about what hairdo will suit it best.”
“She showed you my dress?”
“A picture. It’s amazing, in’t it? When I get married, she’s definitely making mine.”
She tugged out my hairband, and deftly twisted and twirled for a moment behind my head before tying it back up.
“Something like that.”
I took a look in the mirror above the fireplace. “Wow.”
She grinned, cheeks flushing.
“When you next have an interview at a salon, bring me along.”
We were interrupted by Hester clapping her hands together. “Choir, while most of us are here, I will release the details of the Community Choir Sing-Off national final.”
There was some jostling and nudging as we prepared to listen.
“The next round will be held in Derry-Londonderry, the City of Culture a couple of years ago.”
“Derry or Londonderry?” Millie asked, scratching her hat. “I’m confused.”
“Isn’t it the same place?” Janice said. “Or are there two now?”
“No. It’s one place with two names. Derry-Londonderry.”
“What? Both of them together? Why?”
“I don’t know why. Because some people call it Derry and some call it Londonderry and nobody wanted to taint a cultural event with a political statement.”
“Why not call it Londonderry-Derry? How did they choose which one to put first?”
Hester closed her eyes for a moment, reaching into her head to find the Hester zone of tranquillity and eternal patience. “We have a thirty-minute lunch break scheduled, Millie. Twenty-one minutes of that lunch break are already over. Shall I use the remaining nine to inform you about the competition or answer questions you can easily find the answers to via an Internet search?”
“Sorry, Hest.”
“Apology accepted. Now, we will be needing flights, plus two nights in a hotel and transport either side of the airports. Food, outfits, sheet music. That comes to an estimated three hundred pounds each. Or four thousand eight hundred in total.”
“Flights?” Rowan asked. “Where is this Derry-dunderry place anyway? Will I need a bikini? Can we have a hotel with a pool? If I’m going to leave Callie with Mum for a whole weekend, I’m gonna make the most of it.”
“Derry-Londonderry, which I shall be calling Derry from now on in order to remain on schedule, is in Northern Ireland. We will fly to Belfast. The average temperature in October is ten degrees. By all means bring a bikini if you must. No, we cannot have a hotel with a pool unless you want to pay three times as much. I’m sure we can find a leisure centre.”
“Three hundred pounds each?” April had gone pale. “That rules me out, then.”
There was some general murmuring and shaking of heads. A couple more people agreed that the price was going to be a big problem, even with several mon
ths to save up for it.
Kim said, “Let’s face it, Hest. The only person in the choir who can afford that sort of money is the one person who doesn’t even sing.”
Hester smiled. One eye actually twinkled. “Well. That puts us all in the same boat then, doesn’t it? We’d better head back to shore, write it off as an impossible dream.” She let out a long sigh. “It was a lovely idea, but of course it couldn’t ever really happen. After all, we aren’t even a proper choir. Might as well give up now.”
“All right! We get the point,” Kim huffed. “What are we going to do then? Pray about it? Hope we find a box of buried treasure in the chapel vestry? Buy a lottery ticket?”
“That’s your suggestion, Kim? After all this time in Grace Choir? Sit about, hoping the answer to our problem will just come and poke us in the eye?”
Hester looked at us, probably unaware how intimidating the steam whistling out of each ear came across. Nobody moved a muscle as we all waited for someone else to speak.
“We could sell stuff,” Rowan suggested. “Like cakes.”
“You need to sell a lot of cakes to raise five grand.” Mags shook her head. “And by the time we’ve paid for the ingredients, we’d need to sell twice as many.”
“We could do a sponsored something,” Uzma said. “Like, a sponsored sing. Or a cycle.”
“We could do a full Monty,” Janice said. “I saw a film about it once.”
“Excuse me?” Melody looked confused.
“In the film, these blokes needed to raise money, so they did a dance and took off all their clothes. It wasn’t hard. They weren’t professionals or anything. Men pay a lot of money to see women take all their clothes off. If they’re anything like my fella, they won’t mind a few wobbly bits.”
“My fella used to like the wobbly bits best,” Millie sighed. “Before that young floozy came along all perked up and toned triceps.”
“Stop!” Hester barked. “Nobody is taking their clothes off for men. Have I taught you women nothing?”
“You taught us we’re beautiful!” Millie replied. “I’m not ashamed to get my kit off for the sake of the Community Choir Sing-Off national finals.” She stood up and began to sway suggestively, playing with the top button of her frilly blouse.
“Well, you should be!” It looked as though a volcano was about to go off underneath Hester’s helmet hairdo. Someone needed to do something quick.
“What about a proper concert?” I said.
“Oooh.” The choir looked at each other, impressed. Hester smacked herself on the forehead, as if she couldn’t believe it had taken that long for someone to suggest it.
“But how many tickets would we need to sell? Even if we charged twenty pounds each, we would need to sell two hundred and fifty tickets. And that means we’d need to hire a venue. When the Guides wanted to hire the Coddington Theatre it cost hundreds.” Melody frowned. “And I’m not sure we are a twenty pound concert yet.”
“So we make it more than a concert,” I said. “A proper fundraising event. With dinner and a raffle.”
“A raffle?” Leona grimaced. “What, a few bottles of unwanted smellies, an ugly teddy bear, and a jigsaw with three pieces missing? No one makes decent money from a raffle.”
“Okay. So how about a raffle selling stuff people actually might want?”
“That costs money.”
“Not if we provide the stuff.”
“What have we got that people want to buy?” Rowan asked, causing Hester to screech.
“We could sell half of this junk and make a couple of hundred quid,” Ebony said.
“No. No junk.” I stood up now, my brain whirring into gear. I could see it – a beautiful hall, round banqueting tables with tasteful centrepieces, full of men and women with more money than sense, bursting to spend it on some local good cause. “We can do better than that. How about a hair and beauty makeover? A privately catered dinner party? A singing lesson from a pro. A bespoke designer outfit from the woman who created the Bulgarian Prime Minister’s daughter’s wedding dress?”
“You can’t sell one of Rosa’s dresses for the price of a raffle ticket.”
“An auction.” I felt a bubble of excitement begin to grow. This could actually work. “I went to one with Perry once to raise money for a children’s hospice. This isn’t quite the same, but once the guests got into the party spirit they didn’t care. Some of them got into this competitive ‘who’s prepared to spend the most money because they’re the richest?’ type of spirit. If we got the right auctioneer, we could make a fortune. Add that to the entrance ticket and we could make five thousand without breaking a sweat.”
“Just one problem.” Kim pointed at me. “Where are we going to find a load of rich people willing to come along to our dinner/ concert/auction thing, where are we going to have it and, no offence to anyone here, but who is going to organize it all?”
I grinned. “Have you met my fiancé Perry Upperton, long-time member of the Houghton Country Club? I met him when I was the events manager there. I’ll make a few calls, pull in a couple of favours, and get back to you with a date.”
“Show-off,” Kim muttered.
“And so she should be!” Hester said. “About time the rest of you starting showing off your God-given talents. And the Grand Grace Gala sounds like just the place to do it. Now, fifteen minutes behind schedule, will you lot finally get back to work?”
It was a good job Marilyn had been de-stressing all day. By the time she came home, the team had dispersed along with the skip, a dozen bags of recycling, and a carload of items for the charity shop. Nancy and Pete were gurgling on the sofa while I read them a story about a family of sausages. The smell of still slightly damp carpets, bleach, and thirteen women working at full pelt for eight hours had been just about replaced with baby-bath, half a dozen bunches of fresh flowers, and the pasta bake warming in the oven.
Marilyn waltzed in, in a whirl of contented spa-day bliss. She plonked herself on the sofa next to Nancy before doing a double-take.
“What?”
I bit my lip.
“Who?”
I gathered up Pete and sat him on my lap, like a human shield.
“When?”
Pete burped. I think I squeezed him too hard.
“Did you do this?” She lowered her eyebrows at Nancy. “Did you help Faith tidy up?”
She looked around a bit more. “Tidy up, and throw out three-quarters of my things?”
I gulped.
“Is it just the living room?” She spoke to me now.
I shook my head. Silently, she got up with Nancy and walked out into the hallway. I sat and listened to various doors open as she checked the rest of the rooms. Her feet plodded up the stairs and we heard her doing the same above us.
“Bah,” Pete said.
“I know. Do you think she’s pleased, or is she never going to talk to me again?”
“Ppfffffff.”
“Well, she’s your mum. You should know better than me.”
“Ack!”
“I don’t understand women either, and I am one.”
We waited with bated breath until she finished her inspection. Standing in front of the fireplace, she balanced Nancy on one hip and nodded her head at me.
“Hester.”
“Yep.”
“She thought my house was in no fit state for Polly and Baby Pol.”
“Actually, it was my idea. For you as much as Polly.”
“You thought my house was too messy. You’ve been coming here, twice a week, and thinking I can’t take care of my own house.”
“No. That’s not true. I’ve been thinking anyone in your situation could do with some help.”
“What do you mean, my situation?” She pulled Nancy’s fingers from where they tugged at her hair.
I swallowed. “I mean a mum with twin babies and a husband who works away most of the time. Who has no support apart from a sister who works four days a week. You get no sleep.
And hardly any breaks. Goodness me, Marilyn, I look after them for two hours and I’m exhausted.”
“Where’s everything gone? You must have needed a skip.”
I nodded, attempting a wry smile.
“You had a skip? How many people came?”
“All of us,” I said.
“Poking, sorting, analysing my stuff. My house.”
“We didn’t go in any drawers or cupboards.”
She snorted. “You didn’t. What about Kim? Or Rowan? She’s probably gone straight to the pawn shop and made a fortune.”
“No. No one pried. We only threw out what was broken. We mainly sorted, and cleaned and tidied.”
“Well,” she huffed, looking at the floor, and then the ceiling, and then the floor again. “It looks rip-roaring fantastic. So, thanks. I guess.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“And a bleepin’ good job I didn’t have any shameful or embarrassing secrets hiding under all that rubbish.”
“Ooh, I don’t know. Janice and Millie found a pretty snazzy negligee on top of the wardrobe. They got quite excited wondering how it got there.” I winked at her.
Marilyn smirked. “They can wonder away. I might be able to fit back into it by the time James comes home.”
“Nah. It was covered in mildew. James’ll have to buy you a new one.”
“Seriously, though. Thanks. I feel like I can breathe again.” She looked around at the transformation once more.
“Maybe you should think about getting a cleaner.”
“I’m a housewife. I’m supposed to be the cleaner.” She came and sat back down on the sofa next to me.
“With all due respect, old friend, you are a rubbish housewife.”
“A rubbish everything. I can’t keep my house up to basic living standards. My marriage is a desert. I can’t look after myself. The HCC committee think I’m a joke. I can’t sing well enough to be in a non-auditioning choir. I guess I wasn’t even trainee of the month, was I?”
We propped Pete and Nancy, nearly asleep, on the cushions between us. I reached over the top of them and wrapped my arm around her, leaning my head on her shoulder.
