‘How much?’
‘Twenty thousand pounds.’
‘Twenty thousand pounds! And what did you say?’
‘Well, I didn’t speak, I let Leonard do the talking while I made the tea. I wish I hadn’t made that man tea, Grace. I’ll throw away the cup when I get home.’
‘What did Leonard say?’
‘He said that this spot was magic and couldn’t be bought for any amount of money. He said no. He said it for you, too, Grace. He said that we three come here to pay our respects and that that is something that can’t be bought.’
‘Bloody goat!’ shouts Leonard as he appears. ‘I knew the chap as well. Not well, but I played cricket with him years ago. He came in like an old friend, didn’t he, Joan? Joan even made tea for him! And then he turned, just like that …’
‘He did, Grace, he did.’
‘He of all people should know. He lost his wife years ago now, didn’t he? What was her name?’
Joan shook her head.
‘Oh, what was it? I had it a moment ago,’ blusters Leonard.
‘Lovely woman. Terrible when she died. He fell apart.’
‘Leonard wrote him a lovely condolence card.’
‘Now look what he’s doing. This definitely calls for a letter to the Gazette. I’ll get London Tonight onto this. Just you watch me.’
‘Relax, Len, think of your blood pressure,’ Joan soothes. I get out the doughnuts, but as I’m crossing Dad’s grave with them I look up and I see something. There’s a car parked on some industrial land across the canal. It’s a great big Range Rover. Not just any old gas-guzzling Range Rover, mind, it has a logo on the side that looks suspiciously like the SJS Construction motif. There’s a large silver-haired man standing beside it, and he’s holding something up to his face. It might be binoculars, but it could also be a camera, so I hold a finger up for his benefit. I feel like a football hooligan, and it’s not altogether unpleasant. That must be the land he wants to build on. And he obviously needs an access road down the side of the graveyard and over the canal. I keep my finger up until he gets back in his car.
‘Now, then, Simon & Garfunkel anyone?’
Leonard and Joan don’t respond, they just stare at me with sad eyes.
‘It’s all right, I’m going to make Mum change her mind, then the pressure won’t be all on you,’ I tell them, sounding far more confident than I feel.
Chapter 24
My mother. Now there’s a sigh. Where to start with my mother? We used to get on when Dad was alive. To be honest, our lives were amazing when he was here. Life excited Dad. ‘Grace, guess what I saw?’ ‘Rose, you’ll never guess what happened!’ ‘Listen to this, my lovelies!’ He would sweep us up in his amazement for the littlest things: a new version of a favourite song, a funny sitcom, a comfy sweater. He found wonder in everything and, as a result, so did we. But when he died and it was Mum and I alone, we didn’t find anything wonderful, least of all each other.
I thought she was a princess when I was growing up, though. Every fairy-tale heroine looked like my mum in my imagination. When Cinderella danced with Prince Charming at the ball, it was my mum and dad doing the Viennese Waltz. Light as a butterfly she would cover the floor, her exquisite face lost in a dream, my father revering her as he moved her in his arms. She became the nation’s sweetheart, with a manager to organise magazine interviews and TV appearances. She even appeared on This Morning with Richard and Judy.
The Rosemary Flowers you meet nowadays couldn’t be more different. She hasn’t left the house for at least three years. I can’t be sure it’s not longer than that, to be honest. I think it started the day I had my freak-out at the singing competition. When I say I screamed and screamed, I don’t want you to think I made a few ‘eek’ sounds because that definitely wasn’t the case. No, I howled. I howled as though someone was being murdered in front of me or I was being murdered myself. And I ran onto the stage, but only because it was the quickest route to the exit. A man appeared from backstage and caught me, while another ran from the audience to help him. They carried me out as I screamed and someone called an ambulance. I calmed down once we were outside, in the sense that I stopped yelling and started crying. I cried a lot that day – so much that I worried I’d never stop. I haven’t cried since.
I don’t remember my mother in the ambulance with me, but I do remember her at the hospital, how she dropped shaking to the floor as though she couldn’t take any more of what life was offering her. When we returned home from that trip there was an unspoken agreement between us that we weren’t terrific socially and that we should probably stay at home for a while. But whilst I eventually got going again, she didn’t. She just got worse and worse. Now she sits at home all day, buying things on the internet, doing her workouts and thinking. I sometimes wonder whether I work really hard so I don’t have time to think. There’s nothing worse than having time on your hands to listen to those nagging voices of doubt inside your head. I’d rather sell houses.
Still, I shouldn’t complain, at least I’ve stopped worrying that she’ll kill herself. There was a time when Wendy and I were on suicide watch. It was horrible. Before Dad died my mum used to make her own dancing dresses. She’d go to the fabric stores in Shepherd’s Bush market, where she’d haggle and flirt, then she’d come home with rolls and rolls of material and take to her sewing machine for days at a time. I would watch, fascinated, as the creation unfolded on the dressmaker’s model. The pulsing bleat of the sewing machine was a regular backing track to my life growing up.
But during the dark years, as I call them, when it was me and Mum at home, she didn’t touch the sewing machine. It sat there gathering dust and fluff, another symbol of a life given up on, until one day I came home from Danny’s and heard the ghostly sound of the sewing machine from my past. I crept upstairs and into the spare room and there was my mother surrounded by swathes of velvet and silk, all richly textured, but all black. Weeks it took her, longer than any dress she’d ever made, and when she finished the result was chilling. It was by far the most beautiful dress I had ever seen, and I invited Wendy over to show her.
‘It makes all those Oscar dresses look scabby,’ Wendy whispered when she saw it.
It had a mid-calf-length skirt made of velvet, which was shaped around the hips and ruched slightly at the front, as though there were a train at the back. There wasn’t a train, though, just a small kick of material that came from just under the bottom. The silk bodice rose to a heart-shaped top, with side panels of velvet, and she’d sewn row upon row of tiny beads and sequins across the front.
‘What’s it for?’ Wendy whispered.
I shrugged.
‘It’s not a dress she could dance in. She wouldn’t be able to move her legs. She doesn’t need a dress to go out in because she never goes anywhere.’
‘So what’s she going to do with it?’
I froze.
‘She’s going to die in it.’
Wendy gasped.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, but not in a way that suggested I was being silly.
We walked out of the spare room as though in a trance, then we raced through the house, hiding painkillers and sharp knives, convinced that my mother had made this beautiful dress to meet my dad in heaven. The Death Dress, we called it, and we only ever whispered in its presence. It sat on her dressmaker’s dummy like an ominous premonition for over a year, then one day I walked into the spare room and it had been covered up by a plastic dress protector. I think that was the day my mother decided to live. Not that she really does live. More like buries herself alive.
These days it’s virtually impossible to communicate with her. We do speak – I’m civil; she’s vague – but that’s it. Today, though, we’re having to go beyond that, and it’s not easy for either of us. We’ve been going round in circles for thirty-five minutes according to the cooker clock. We’re getting nowhere, and now I’ve resorted to whining like an eight-year-old.
‘M-u-
u-m,’
‘Grace, I don’t want to hear another word on the subject. I’m accepting this man’s kind offer.’
See! She’s impossible.
‘It’s not a kind offer. How can it be a kind offer? It’s a place I’ve gone to every week to be close to Dad.’ My voice cracks, making us both recoil. I used to be so good at not crying, but for some reason tears keep popping up and having to be blinked or swallowed away at the moment. It’s a right pain. I turn away from her and look out of the kitchen window. The back lawn needs mowing and buttercups are scattered across the lawn. I used to dance among them as a child singing, ‘Build Me Up, Buttercup’. When I think the urge to cry has passed, I face her again.
‘For ten years I’ve gone there to sing and talk to him, to wipe the bird poo off his grave and give him seasonal flowers, which I buy in Sainsbury’s on the way. And I’m sorry, Mum, but you can’t take that away from me.’
‘Grace.’ To give her credit, her voice sounds softer. ‘I’ve signed the form. They’ve got my signature.’
‘But you could retract it. You could say you’ve changed your mind. We could talk to him together. He lost his wife; he’d understand.’
She shakes her head silently.
‘No, Grace, it’s different for you.’
‘Why?’
‘I hate thinking of that cold dark place where he is, Grace. I can’t do it …’ She turns away. This is unprecedented. Mum never mentions my dad being dead.
‘But, Mum,’ I say gently. ‘Come with me. Come next Saturday. It’s not cold or dark. The slutty silver birch whispers to him all day. It’s a beautiful place to be laid to rest. I always thought we’d be laid next to him. Please, Mum, come with me next week. You can meet Leonard and Joan.’
‘Who are they?’
‘I told you when I met them. Their mum is buried near Dad.’
‘I didn’t know you still saw them.’
‘Yes, every Saturday. They’re fighting the construction company, but it’s not fair for them to take all the flak on their own. Len’s over seventy and he has high blood pressure, and SJS Construction seem like bullies.’
‘The man I met seemed like a very nice man,’ she says. I might be wrong, but she looks as though she’s trying to suppress a smile as she says this.
‘Mum, I’m with Leonard and Joan, but it’s quite hard for me to be with them when my own mum wants to sell my dad’s grave. But we’ll fight it and we’ll win, because everyone will be on our side. They want to build a slip road, but it shouldn’t be built there, Mum. Please be on our side. On Dad’s side.’
‘I’ve signed a form.’
‘We’ll say you’ve changed your mind. Don’t worry about the money.’
‘There is no money, Grace.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘We had investments and I was given money each month, but when the banks went bust we lost most of it, so I started using credit cards, and now I either sell the grave or the house.’
‘Oh, shit.’
‘For once I agree with you, Grace.’
‘I’ve got money coming in, Mum. I’ll sort out your debts and I’ll give you money each week. Maybe not enough to buy luxury juicers on the internet, but enough to get by. We’ll work out what you need.’
‘I need at least the twenty thousand pounds that he’s offering.’
‘I’ll get you twenty thousand pounds,’ I say, even though it gives me palpitations to say it. ‘I’ll give you twenty thousand pounds so you don’t have to sell my dad’s grave.’
My mum doesn’t say anything, we just stare at each other. Not angrily, not frostily, but curiously, as though we’ve just met for the first time but look familiar.
‘I’m going to open that box of letters in the study now, Mum. I’ll work out how much you owe and call some of them up. Let’s see if I can get a handle on your financial situation.’ I walk to the door. ‘And if you’re making yourself a cup of tea, or thinking about a gin at any point—’
‘You’re very strong, Grace,’ my mum says quietly, and I may be wrong but I think I detect a note of admiration in her tone.
I look at her and smile.
‘I love you, Mum,’ I say.
She doesn’t say, ‘I love you, too,’ but she nods and looks at me as though I might not be as bad as she’d previously feared.
‘Oh, love, that’s your phone,’ she gestures towards my mobile, which is vibrating on the kitchen table. I pick it up. It’s a text from Danny:
Need to have a chat to Dad about something.
Getting a train to Wales. Got Monday off. Back late
Monday night. Call you later. XX
‘Everything all right?’ Mum asks as I pull a strange face. Danny never goes to his parents’ house without me. Why didn’t he call? Why tell me I’m not going to see him all weekend by text?
‘Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. It’s just Dan,’ I say.
And as I walk into Dad’s study and turn the light on, I feel I might have turned a vital mother/daughter corner. Well, maybe not actually turned the corner, this is Gracie and Rosemary Flowers after all, but at least put the indicator on. It’s a start anyway. ‘You’re very strong, Grace,’ she said. It’s the nicest thing she’s said to me for so long. I wish I felt it, though. Instead I feel like an emotional liability at the moment. I must be due on.
Chapter 25
It feels so weird going out without Danny, even though I’m only at the pub. You’d think I’d be more comfortable as the pub’s my second home and most of the time that I’m here with Dan he’s either outside smoking or droning on to other blokes about football, but I have this strange feeling I’ve forgotten something. It could be my handbag or my knickers, but it’s actually my six-foot-three boyfriend. I’ve had a good evening, though. Wendy and I are sitting in the restaurant part of the Festering Carbuncle, where we treated ourselves to deep-fried Camembert because there’s nothing like deep fried cheese to start off a meal. We followed it with coq au vin. It’s an old recipe of Anton’s French grandmother’s, which is unbelievable and comes with mashed potato – after extensive research, I can comfortably say that their mash is the best in the world – then for afters we shared an apple and rhubarb crumble.
Anton’s not in the kitchen as it’s his night off. I was looking forward to seeing him again, but it’s probably for the best that he isn’t here. I dropped the picture in this afternoon after I’d visited Mum. I came over all nervous and a little sweaty, so rather than ask for him, I gave it to a member of staff, told them to pass it on and then bolted. Freddie, Anton’s son, isn’t here either, so Wendy and I have spent a large part of the evening talking about how Wendy wants to marry him. Wendy’s obsession with Freddie is very strange. In much the same way as I walked into the Festering Carbuncle for the first time and thought, Oh yeah, this is home, I want to live here, and made an offer on my maisonette, Wendy said, ‘You see that bloke there, with the freckles and a half of Guinness. He’s perfect.’ I do worry about Wendy, though, because although she sleeps with quite a few men and flirts outrageously with them all, she’s unable to form coherent sentences around Freddie. I think that might be a problem, coherent sentences being, on the whole, a good thing when you’re trying to pull.
‘Mmmm,’ I say, spooning the last of the ice creamy crumbly bit from the bowl. ‘Shall we share some cheese now?’
Wendy doesn’t answer; she just stares at me and raises her newly threaded eyebrows.
‘What? Your eyebrows look amazing now the red’s gone down by the way.’
‘Are you up the duff or something? You never eat this much. Normally you’re brilliant to share pudding with because you only have one mouthful.’
Now it’s my turn to stare. I raise my monobrow at her. Mine haven’t been threaded.
‘What?’
‘Don’t say that!”
‘Oh.’ She giggles and shares out the end of our bottle of white wine. ‘I forgot about all that. Have you not had a period?�
�
‘No.’
‘Do you feel … you know, preg?’
‘Wend, how do I know? I’ve never been pregnant.’
‘Oh, yeah. Well, my sister cried all the time when she was pregnant.’
Massive monobrow raise.
‘I keep wanting to cry. Like everyday. And you know me, I don’t cry,’ I admit.
‘Yeah, but with all this stuff at work and your dad’s grave and you being mugged, you’re bound to be emotional. And you did take a shed load of hormones.’
‘Oh, Wend, man, I so don’t want to be pregnant,’ I say with a large sigh. But she’s not looking at me; she’s looking towards the door and licking her lips.
‘Is it Freddie?’
‘Yep, Freddie and Anton have just walked in,’ she whispers.
Now normally if Wendy spots someone she knows she gets up on her seat and shouts, ‘Oi, hiya, come and join us, bring us a tequila en route!’ But as it’s Freddie, the object of her desire, she remains seated and looks the other away. It’s Anton who spots us first as he walks towards his kitchen.
‘Good evening,’ he says warmly.
‘Anton, we had the most brilliant meal,’ Wendy tells him.
‘Excellent, excellent,’ he says, kissing her on the cheek and then turning to me. ‘Grace,’ he bends down to kiss me, too, and when he gets close to my ear I hear, ‘Thank you for my picture.’
I nod, blush stupidly, kiss him on both cheeks and manage to inhale a lungful of Anton’s lovely smell.
‘Oi, Wendy, Grace,’ says Freddie. ‘What are we drinking?’
‘My son,’ Anton says, raising his eyes to the ceiling.
‘Um, really, thanks.’ Wendy sounds shy, which is so not her. ‘I’d like a vodka tonic, if you’re sure.’
‘No worries,’ Freddie calls. ‘Grace?’
‘I quite fancy some red wine, I was going to have some cheese,’
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