by Moran, Beth
“Why don’t we ask the Oak Hill members to contribute? Four hundred people only need to give two pounds fifty each. It would be a great way to help some of them realize Matt and Lois aren’t superhuman – that they need a break sometimes. We could ask people to give a little bit, see how much we get and then decide what yurt we can afford.”
“Has anyone ever mentioned you’re a genius, Ruth?” Ana Luisa stretched her long arms over and gave me a hug. “It would mean so much to them if the whole church was involved.”
“But the more people who know… it would be impossible to keep it a secret. This is church – the fastest grapevine known to man,” Emily said.
“So we don’t tell them; just say we’re making a collection to bless Matt and Lois with a surprise. I’ll ask Martine how best to manage it practically.” Ellie quickly shoved the printouts into her bag as we heard Jackson’s feet thumping up the stairs. “I’ll check Matt’s work calendar for a free weekend at the same time. It’d be best to do it before the weather gets too cold.”
Rupa smiled, her eyes glowing in the firelight. “I’m so excited. This is going to be awesome.”
I was excited too. I had forgotten what it felt like.
Chapter Nine
Sunday morning I stayed in bed. Mum had woken me up with a cup of tea at eight-thirty, pretending to be thoughtful but really just trying to get me up. I drank the tea in bed, and ignored her.
By the time my parents came home from church, I had dug out my old Anne of Green Gables video from the bookcase and was curled up with a patchwork quilt, hot chocolate and toasted muffin, absentmindedly doodling a group of foxes in a forest clearing, chasing butterflies and having a whale of a time together.
“Oh, Ruth, honestly! Are you not up yet?”
“I’m here, Mum, in the living room. I quite clearly am up.”
“Not even dressed! It’s nearly one. And such a glorious day. You’re wasting it all!”
“I’m enjoying myself.”
“Alone in your pyjamas! You should be out there, a woman of your age, making memories, enjoying yourself.”
“I said, I am enjoying myself.” I turned the volume up louder.
Mum couldn’t bear it. “EEK! Get some life into you, girl!” She grabbed hold of the quilt and started shaking it. “Blow out those cobwebs!”
I stood up and yanked the quilt back. “MUM! What is wrong with you? I worked all week, stayed out past midnight on Friday having fun and then got up at half-seven and spent Saturday hauling boxes of handbags up and down stairs before working my backside off cleaning up other people’s mess. I am tired, and need a day of rest. Not that any of this is your business. It doesn’t matter if you agree with my decisions or not. I don’t care if you like them, or approve. I don’t need your permission to do whatever I like on a Sunday morning, or any other morning. I’m not an addict. I don’t need an intervention. And if I choose to waste my life, that’s not your business!”
“Not my business?” Mum turned the colour of Thousand Island dressing. “We are family! Your business is my business. We share a house! We…”
Dad stepped out from behind her gesticulating arms and settled into the armchair in front of the window.
“Leave her alone, Harriet.”
“What?”
“Stop taking your frustration out on Ruth.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, Gilbert. Would you please explain yourself?” Her voice was ice. I gingerly lowered myself onto the sofa, resisting the urge to pull the quilt over my head. This was going to be a humdinger.
“You heard me. Leave Ruth alone. You nagging her all the time isn’t helping her or anyone else. You’re going to drive her away again. If she needs a rest, let her rest in peace, for goodness’ sake.”
Oh, Dad. You’ve done it now…
“Leave her alone?” she hissed. “Leave her alone? You mean, like you have been doing for the past fifteen years?”
Dad sighed.
“Drive her away again?” Mum’s voice began to rise in volume. “You think I drove her away? Me? I LOST MY DAUGHTER FOR FIFTEEN YEARS BECAUSE OF YOUR STUBBORN…”
There was a bang on the window. Loud enough to make me drop my English muffin onto the cream sofa cushion, butter side down. Through the blinds the shadow of a figure hovered, waving and pointing in the direction of the front door.
Dad went to answer it.
“Hello, sweetheart. How are you then?” It was Ruby. “I tried the bell, but don’t think you heard.” Her voice dripped with sympathy. “I hope this isn’t a bad time.”
I doubted that somehow…
“No, no, it’s fine. We just got back from church.”
“Oh, dear! The less said about that the better! Well, that would put anyone in a bad temper, wouldn’t it?”
Dad laughed. A polite chuckle, but still. This was Dad. Church was family. It’s a universal taboo. You don’t laugh when someone slags off your family.
“Anyway, you must be in need of some cheering up, and I happen to have a two for one voucher for the Pot and Penny. Jemima cancelled, her hip’s playing up again, and I couldn’t bear to eat alone. I thought: I know, I’ve been looking for a way to thank that wonderful man for helping me out with my project. I must take him out to lunch. And what a perfect opportunity! So, you will come, won’t you?”
Mum still stood in the centre of the living room. The White Queen. Aloof, contained, frozen.
“Excuse me for one minute, Ruby, please.”
I heard the door close, with Ruby on the inside of it, and Dad poked his head around the living room door.
“You haven’t cooked anything for lunch yet, have you?”
Mum moved her head, a fraction of a millimetre, to indicate no.
“Yes!” I was off the sofa. “There’s a lamb stew in the slow cooker. And the veg is all waiting in the steamer.”
“Oh.” Dad looked back, behind him. I could imagine Ruby doing a little finger wave and pouting her lips. “Well, I could always reheat it for tonight. I don’t want to disappoint Ruby. I think I’d better go. She’ll be eating alone otherwise.”
Mum said nothing. She lifted one eyebrow.
“She could eat with us.” I was garbling now. “Save the voucher for when her friend’s better.”
Yes, Ruth. Great idea. Invite the woman who is after your dad to stay for Sunday lunch. Well done.
“The voucher runs out today,” Ruby called in from the hallway. “That’s very kind of you, but I’ll just go by myself. I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”
“No, no! We can’t have that. I’ll grab my jacket.”
“Dad.”
He re-poked his head around the door, sensing something in the tone of my voice. “Don’t do this. Not now.” I gestured my head towards Mum. Two pink spots of colour bloomed on her lovely cheekbones. The rest of her face was stark white.
“You need to sort this out.”
He looked over at his wife. She was staring at the opposite wall, chin up, posture defiant.
Ruby called out something indecipherable. He shook his head.
“See you later, Ruth.”
The front door banged. I peeked around the side of the blind and saw Ruby clutching Dad’s hand as she pretended to need help getting down the wet patches on the driveway. Was this it? A step too far? The moment everything fell apart?
Mum dropped her head an inch, to the perfect dancer’s angle. She swallowed and paused for a second before reaching one hand up to pat her bun.
“Right. I’d better get on with those carrots. I think I can hear Maggie in the kitchen. I need to ask if she’ll help me carry some ironing round to Mr Porter later on. He’s not been the same since his wife left him.”
“Mum.”
She hurried out of the room. I listened to the sounds of her over-bright chatter as she talked to Maggie, and wondered how long she could keep whirling and twirling, faster and more frantically, trying to ignore the fact she danced alone.
The
following weekend, Maggie had her first session of the befriending scheme with Hannah Beaumont at Sherwood Court. I insisted she try at least one session, having promised to listen if she really hated it – but you never did know, sometimes miracles happened.
Hannah lived in a ground floor flat, sandwiched between two others, with a short stretch of grass in front. A path led up to the utilitarian front door squatting beside a window clothed with heavy net curtains.
The weather had turned colder towards the middle of October. Maggie slouched in last year’s coat, a dark green parka with a furry hood. She wore a woollen hat covering the back of her head, and I wondered if this was an attempt to hide her hair. Two nights earlier the dye she had ordered online finally arrived, and now her hair shone metallic grey, symbolizing that her “entire social life consists of hanging out with old people”.
Now her bluster had worn itself out, I suspected she felt a little embarrassed. Maggie had her faults, but she did understand respect. I hoped.
We rang the bell and waited for what was probably thirty seconds, but from the twitching and fidgeting beside me, it may have been thirty minutes.
“There’s no one here. Let’s go.” Maggie edged away, ready to scarper.
I grabbed her shoulder. “Try knocking. Maybe the bell’s broken.”
She knocked with all the force of a rag doll. We waited some more.
“There’s nobody here! Or she’s, like, asleep or something. I don’t want to wake her up. Come on, let’s go.”
“It might be taking her a bit of time to get to the door. Calm down.”
“Please, can we just go?”
I knocked louder. “We’d only have to come back another day. She probably didn’t hear your feeble knock.”
“Urgh! You are so annoying. There’s nobody here!”
“We ought to at least make sure.”
I tried the handle and found the door unlocked. Tentatively pushing it open, I poked my head in and called hello. “Mrs Beaumont?”
Stepping inside, a tendril of apprehension wound around my spine. I could smell mildew, unwashed clothes and stale food mixed in with the faint medicinal odour found in surgeries.
“Mum, what are you doing? You can’t go in. Come back. Mum!”
I ignored Maggie’s frantic whispers, opening the first door leading off from the tiny hallway, having to ram it hard against a pile of old newspapers before I could squeeze through. The room looked like it smelt – old, decrepit, unloved. So did the figure of Hannah Beaumont, slumped on the sofa with her head lolling on her chest, her eyes closed and skin as grey as the October sky.
I felt something clutch my arm and almost screamed, managing to stifle it to a muffled shriek.
That made Maggie, who had followed me in, jump too, grasping me tighter. She looked at me, her eyes wild. “Oh no. Mum. Is she…?”
“I don’t know. She might be.”
“What do we do? Shouldn’t you, like, try and take her pulse? Or, I know, hold a mirror over her mouth and check if it steams up. Then you’ll know if she’s breathing.”
“I suppose so. I don’t have a mirror, but we could look around for one. Let’s watch her for a bit. See if she moves, or if her chest goes up and down.”
“Okay.” Maggie giggled with nerves. “Why are we whispering?”
“In case she isn’t dead.”
“If she isn’t dead, shouldn’t we make some noise to try and wake her up?”
“I don’t know. It’d probably terrify her to wake up and find two strangers standing in her front room.”
Maggie tugged on my arm. “Yes. She might die of fright! Which would be ironic.”
We watched her for a couple of minutes, the only sound the relentless ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. Hannah was wrapped up in a thick fur coat, making it difficult to see if she breathed or not.
“How long do we stand here for?”
“I don’t know. I have to get to work.”
Maggie giggled again, still in a whisper. “You can’t tell them you were late because you were in a strange house staring at an old woman trying to figure out if she was still alive.”
“Right. Let’s make a bit of noise.” I coughed, twice, and spoke a little louder. “Mrs Beaumont? Hello? Are you all right? It’s Maggie Henderson from the befriending programme.”
Nothing.
I leaned forward and gently touched her shoulder, repeating her name.
Not a flicker.
“Oh no, Mum. I really think she might be… had we better call an ambulance? Or the police? We need to do something.”
“Right. I’m going to try to take her pulse.” Trying to ignore both my own pulse thumping and the reality of the situation, I quickly reached down and took hold of the limp wrist.
She’s fine, just sleeping, right? This is fine, I’m fine, I’ll find it in a minute. She’s just a very heavy sleeper…
“Well?” Maggie hissed.
“I can’t feel anything.”
“I think I might be sick.”
“Not on my carpet, you won’t!” A voice – very much alive – rasped out from the frail figure who now sat bolt upright in her chair.
Maggie and I shrieked, in symphony, and both stumbled back until we crashed into the fireplace, sending ornaments smashing onto the hearthstone and the poker clattering to the ground.
Hands pressed tightly to our ribcage in a vain attempt to calm our speeding hearts, we gasped desperately for air, and composure, as Hannah Beaumont shifted in her chair and glared at us with watery, yellowed eyes.
It took another half an hour to properly explain the situation, trying to avoid mentioning at any point that we had suspected she’d passed away. I swept up the broken pieces of china and made us all a cup of strong, sweet tea, trying not to notice the grime and grot in the stained kitchen. Hannah Beaumont, it soon became apparent, was about as far from the rosy-cheeked, scone-baking, grandmotherly type that Maggie had hoped for as it was possible to get.
We had been told she was seventy-six. Despite thick make-up and dyed daffodil-yellow hair, she appeared closer to a hundred. Not just because of the wrinkles and curved spine. Her face was pinched as if from permanently wincing. Underneath the fur coat she wore saggy tights and sandals. “So you’re Maggie Henderson?”
She nodded. “Yes. From the befriending programme?”
“Well, yes. I know that. I am old, not stupid.”
Maggie shifted on the sofa, looking to me with slight panic in her eyes.
“I’m Ruth, Maggie’s mum.”
“I can see that. You aren’t staying, are you? I wasn’t told her mother would be staying. I don’t have enough biscuits.”
“No, I’m on my way to work. I just wanted to check everything was all right.”
“Well, now you’ve checked. I’m not senile, drunk or dead, so you can be on your way.”
“Yes. Um. I had better go. I’ll see you later, Maggie. Have a lovely time. And sorry again about, well, the…” Standing there, staring at you, wondering if you were still alive…
I got up to leave, Maggie throwing a look at me which managed to combine “help!” and “I hate you!” at the same time. I closed the door gently behind me, and hovered on the path for a few moments before turning to walk away. Something – a wish, a prayer – popped into my head and flew out to wherever they go. Please don’t let this be one more thing to make Maggie feel bad about herself. Let this woman be nice to her. Make it all work out. Please.
When I arrived home from scouring toilet bowls, scraping grease off cookers and scrubbing bannisters, the initial signs didn’t fill me with hope. Maggie was waiting for me in the kitchen. She made me a cup of coffee. An ominous sign.
“I’m not going back.” She sat up straight in the high-backed chair, hands folded on the table, and smiled.
I drank my coffee. Resisted the urge to draw a picture of a turkey in a fur coat wearing a yellow wig.
“Firstly, her house stank. It made me nauseou
s. Secondly, her house stank because it’s disgusting. It’s crammed full of about one million old newspapers and vases and pictures and things. They’re all covered in, like, an inch of dust that’s grey or black or green. Bits of food were on the floor, and piles of dust balls in the corners of the rooms. The kitchen seemed clean from a distance, but when she ordered me to make her another cup of tea, I couldn’t find one clean mug in the cupboard. The worktops were sticky. And the sink made me actually gag.
“Thirdly, she is weird and possibly senile. She wore that fur coat the whole time, and kept going on about deportment and seemingly behaviour. She told me all these mad stories about how she was a countess who used to live in a stately home with a butler and went to parties with Princess Margaret, who isn’t even a real person.
“Fourthly. She’s mean. She flipped out when I didn’t make the tea right. How am I supposed to know about warming the pot first, and that you need a strainer thing for tea leaves? I don’t even like tea. Which she didn’t know because she didn’t bother to ask me. I had to drink tea, which I hate, out of a filthy mug, and eat Battenberg cake, which I also detest. On a greasy, foul sofa in a room that smelt like the rats we dissected in biology.
“Then, she went mad at me again because I didn’t do the washing up in the right order. Or rinse the glasses and cups before drying them.”
I took another sip of coffee. “What else did you do?”
“Nothing! That, and then counting out her ten billion medicines, took the whole time. And she went on and on about how girls today are like boys, and have no manners or taste, and they might be able to work a computer but what’s the point if they can’t even look after their home? She is sexist against her own sex! And she hates teenagers, especially me.”
“Oh dear.”
“Then, after all that, she asked me when I was coming back, and said how nice it’d been.” She flopped back in her chair.
“What did you say?”
“I said I’m supposed to go back on Wednesday after school. But I’m not! She is freaky. I’m Freaked Out. I can’t get that smell out of my nose. It’s followed me home.” Maggie waved her hands around in front of her face as if swatting a fly.
