They all said much the same in various degrees of irritation. Where was I? What had happened? Why didn’t I reply? Where was I?
I was suddenly very hungry. Before I could talk myself out of it, I ordered a coffee and a doughnut. My sister always had that effect on me. For all my life she, and by default I, had been on a diet. Pavlov’s dogs had nothing on me. Jenny. Bing! Doughnut.
I looked for the jam entry point, took a bite and replied to Jenny’s latest message.
Sorry, had no signal. I’m fine.
Within five seconds my phone rang.
‘Hi, Jenny.’
‘Hi, Jenny? Is that all you can say? Hi, Jenny? I’ve been having a terrible time,’ she said. ‘Where are you? Are you all right?’
‘Sorry, I’m fine. I just had a bit of a bad spell. Well things have been a bit crazy here. Everything got a lot worse.’
‘What things? Where are you?’
‘I’m in Devon. I’m helping a friend renovate a cottage. I had to—’
‘I made the mistake of phoning Susan. I know she’s lost her only son and I’m terribly sorry for her but she’s a nightmare. On and on and on moaning and complaining. How Trevor put up with her for so long is anyone’s guess.’
Jenny began a disjointed and lengthy ramble about what Susan had said and what she had said and who had slammed the phone down first. I carried on drinking my coffee and enjoying my doughnut.
‘You’re eating, aren’t you?’ she said suddenly. ‘I can tell.’
I swallowed and choked a bit. ‘Oh, you know. Late breakfast.’
‘What do you weigh?’ No time for fond sisterly chitchat then. Straight to the jugular, that’s Jenny.
‘Twenty-seven stone three and a quarter pounds.’
‘Very funny. I bet you are the size of a house, you always turned to food when you were miserable.’
‘I’m not miserable!’
‘Well you should be. Ian dead and you homeless –’
‘I’m not homeless, don’t you listen?’
‘– and your sister ill.’
I paused. ‘Ill? What sort of ill?’
‘Ill. Aches. Pains, allergies. I had tests for coeliac disease and then they considered IBS—’
‘I thought he was a Tory politician?’
‘That’s I.D.S., don’t be facetious,’ she snapped.
‘So are you OK now?’
‘As well as might be expected.’
‘Seriously, Jen, are you OK?’ I wiped the sugar off my chin with a guilty hand.
She sighed. ‘Oh just old and tired.’
‘Nonsense, Jen, you’re as strong as…’ I couldn’t say a horse as my sister’s dental configuration is a tad equine and she’s very sensitive about this ‘…as strong as Adele out on a hen night with the Kardashians.’
Jenny clicked her tongue at my levity. ‘I’ll have you know I’m on drugs now.’
‘Legal or otherwise?’
‘Don’t be flippant. I’m under the doctor, as Auntie Shirley would say. And it’s nowhere near as much fun as it sounds. For cholesterol.’
‘Most people your age are these days,’ I said. ‘When I worked at the surgery Doctor Hawkins scattered those pills around like confetti. That and blood pressure tablets.’
Jenny gave a shocked gasp as though I was psychic. ‘I’m on them too!’
‘Well, there you are then, nothing out of the ordinary.’ A thought struck me. ‘Jenny, it’s lovely to hear from you but this call must be costing you a fortune. Are you still in Texas?’
‘No, I’m staying in Croydon for a few days with Auntie Shirley. It really is the dullest place on earth. She sends her love, by the way.’
‘Croydon? Taking a break from all that sunshine?’ I began to feel a tremor of unease.
‘No, I’m back for good. Trent –’ her latest fiancé ‘– is history. I had to come back because my visa ran out. It’s a long story. He brought me back on the Atlantica as a treat but then Trent had to go back to Texas and, anyway, for various reasons it was never going to work. So I’m back in dear old England and here I shall stay.’
‘Don’t make me laugh. You swore you’d never come back.’
‘Nonsense. I would never say such a thing. I was hoping to come and stay with you but I had to phone Susan because I couldn’t get through to you and she told me you had upped and left after effectively murdering her son. Can this be true? I mean, I wouldn’t have blamed you and no court in the land would have convicted you.’
‘Jenny!’
‘Well I know. Don’t speak ill of the dead. So when Trent went back to Texas I came to see Auntie Shirley, but I’ll be honest, she’s driving me mad. I wouldn’t mind paying for a hotel but she won’t hear of it. But I think she’s getting a bit fed up of me now. Jennifer, don’t forget to turn off the heater in the bathroom. Jennifer, you’ve put the milk carton in the wrong recycling box. I’m on her sofa bed and I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since I got here. This place is Bedlam. If it’s not cats fighting in the wheelie bins, then it’s police sirens. And now she’s started timing my showers.’
‘Auntie Shirley is just careful with money.’
‘That’s putting it mildly. Do you know the highlight of her week? She likes to go to some ghastly little supermarket just before they close and snap up some ready-meal bargains. God knows how much unexpected horsemeat I’ve eaten in the last week. I swear there were bits of hoof in last night’s lasagne. So where are you?’
‘I’ve told you already, Devon. I’ve borrowed a two-bedroom cottage from a friend in exchange for decorating it. You’re welcome to come and stay but I have no storage space so it’s no use bringing a load of stuff.’
‘Oh, you know me, I travel very light.’
‘This from a woman who once went on an eight-day cruise with fourteen pairs of shoes.’
She huffed a little. ‘You do remember the strangest things.’
‘And I mean it when I say I’m decorating.’
‘But I’d love to help! I’ve always been very handy with a paint-brush, don’t you remember?’
‘I remember you painting your bedroom walls up as far as you could reach and then leaving it for two years.’
She made an impatient noise. ‘What’s the matter with you? You must remember the happy times, Lottie. Right, I’ll be with you the day after tomorrow. I’ve hired a car. I have no idea how to work the satnav so you must send me your address and clear directions. Ooops, I’d better go. Shirley has been getting the washing from the line and she’s coming back in. The towels here are like cardboard. I told her she should get a tumble dryer. Would she listen? No.’
After she had rung off I ordered another coffee as the first one had gone cold. I think I would have preferred a large gin but it wasn’t even midday. I would have liked another doughnut too but the imminent prospect of my sister pinching my waistline put me off the idea.
Then I rang Sophie and had a long and very honest chat with her, reassuring her I was OK, promising to keep in touch with more diligence. It was lovely to realise that people did care about me; I wasn’t on my own.
I hadn’t heard from Ian’s mother, Susan, since the funeral. She had sent me two very long and angry letters after Ian died, one detailing my many shortcomings as a human being and the other giving me a fortnight to clear out. It turned out that Ian had made Susan his sole beneficiary when he had his will drawn up many years ago and he had never thought to change it. So that was the end of that. As the ‘most recent girlfriend’, as Susan described me, her pen dripping with venom, I had no right to stay in Ian’s house and I should push off as soon as possible, taking all my odious effects with me. But she acknowledged if I wanted to come to the funeral then she couldn’t stop me. She didn’t want any interference, she was paying for it, and she had chosen the time and place. She would choose the flowers, the music, everything.
Funerals are awful things. One hears of some wakes turning into a joyful celebration of the deceased’s life
. People getting merry and swapping funny stories that lighten the gloom until eventually it turns into a right old knees up. Well I’ve certainly never been to one like that and Ian’s most definitely wasn’t one of those.
There was a business-like service at the crematorium where we were hustled in and out past the plastic flower arrangements by harassed-looking staff. I think they were concerned that we might overrun and our party of mourners become tangled up with those for the next dear departed, Terrence Harold Hunt.
As we came out to the strains of ‘Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring’, the Hunt gathering was already assembled around the litterbins, smoking and shuffling their feet. Terrence himself was waiting at the end of the long driveway under a pile of white roses in a horse-drawn hearse that made our fleet of grey limos look very tame indeed.
A couple of hatchet-faced men cast glances our way and we nodded and grimaced at each other for a few seconds. Then we were bundled off in our Daimlers to the Golf Club for the wake where Susan sat in state in the Captain’s ceremonial chair because no one was brave enough to tell her not to, and everyone thought of nice things to say to her about Ian.
People were very kind but I felt like a bit of a spare part, to be honest. I lurked at the back of the room, nursing a warm sweet sherry and a plate of tasteless canapés. The only high spot of the proceeding was when Ian’s cousin Pamela sought me out. She took a meandering path towards me that hinted she was several sherries ahead of the rest of us and flopped down into the chair next to mine, kicking off her shoes.
‘This is a turn up,’ she said. ‘I’m supposed to be going on holiday. Tomorrow. Canaries. Last-minute thing. No idea if I’ll get packed in time. End up going like this.’ She plucked at her black pleated skirt with nicotine-stained fingers.
‘That sounds nice,’ I said, ‘a bit of sunshine.’
‘Cruise,’ she said, hailing a passing waitress and swiping two dry sherries off her tray.
‘We were always going to go on a cruise, but we never got around to it,’ I said.
‘Terrific fun. Floating hotel. Wake up each day in a different place. No cooking. Food at all hours. Entertainment. Should go. Crew always good fun. Young men. Uniforms.’
She gave me a knowing wink, it seemed she was speaking in alcohol-punctuated shorthand. She knocked back the first sherry, swallowing noisily, and put the empty glass in front of me. She probably remembered at that point why we were all together and her face collapsed into sorrow.
‘Terrible thing,’ she said, her forehead creased into furrows. She reached over the table and patted my hand. ‘Terrible.’
‘Yes, it’s been a dreadful shock, especially for Susan.’
Pamela shook her head and sipped at the second sherry.
Her husband, always referred to as The Bastard, had scarpered many years ago, leaving Pamela to bring up her two daughters in a careless, alcoholic haze that had been unexpectedly effective. Both were doctors.
Her lips puckered around her glass into a thousand lipsticked creases that spoke of a lifetime of tobacco addiction. I wondered if I would end up looking like her, pickled and kippered by a lifetime of boozing and fags.
‘Poor old auntie,’ she said at last. ‘I expect she’ll be next, poor old thing. Sad really. Or maybe it will be Fat Uncle Richard.’ She nodded her head and I followed her glance.
Susan was talking to a red-faced man in a straining suit. Fat Uncle Richard, to differentiate him from Tall Uncle Richard who was standing at the bar with a pint of Guinness.
‘Or more likely it’ll be my cousin Roly, the way he’s carrying on,’ she said with emphasis, angling her eyebrows towards a worried-looking man of about sixty who was scurrying after his much younger wife as she went outside for a cigarette with someone I believe was her husband’s nephew. ‘Ah well, and how are you?’ Pamela said, leaning towards me, her head wobbling. ‘I mean, how are you really?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘it’s all been so sudden.’
‘Well of course it has! Of course. I expect you’ll get married again though. You’re young. Attractive.’
This was insensitive even for her and I drew in my breath in horror, hoping that no one had overheard her. The thought of this nugget being passed on to Susan was too awful.
‘Well you will,’ she said defiantly, perhaps realising that she had overstepped the mark. ‘Young, pretty woman like you. Course you will. And maybe next time you’ll find someone your own age. Ian was always very old and he was younger than me. Know what I mean? When all us cousins got together he always wanted to organise chess tournaments. The rest of us just wanted to nick food from the larder and play hospitals.’
Pamela gave a throaty laugh that rattled across the room, incurring a searing look of disapproval from Susan that crackled in our direction like a blow from a lightsabre.
‘I think that’s the last thing on my mind actually, Pamela,’ I said rather stiffly.
She finished her second sherry and put the glass in front of me. She gave me a long, slightly unfocused look.
‘I’m off outside for some fresh air,’ she said, code for another cigarette. She heaved her cavernous handbag onto the table and rummaged around inside it for a few minutes, eventually coming up with a gold lighter in one hand and a fresh packet of Lambert and Butler in the other. ‘Coming?’
‘I’ve given up,’ I said. It wasn’t true and to be frank I was desperate for a cigarette but I didn’t want to call attention to myself, and I couldn’t face walking across the room with Pamela under Susan’s watchful eye.
Pamela rolled her eyes and tutted. ‘Well, you’re no fun any more, are you? But I will say this, take it or leave it. I knew Ian all my life; I won’t have a word said against him. Mustn’t speak ill and all that. He was a nice enough bloke. Solid. But dull. Boring. No one was more surprised than me when I heard what he’d been up to.’ She thought about it for a moment, her mouth pursed. ‘Well I suppose you probably were more surprised, but I was jolly surprised.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Still, like father like son, eh?’
‘Pamela!’
‘Oh dear me, yes, Trevor was always after the girls, bit of an octopus from what I’ve heard…none of the younger waitresses here would serve him in the end.’
‘Pamela! Susan will hear you!’ I hissed.
‘I’m sorry but I speak as I find. And drink? Trevor was a terror. I told you ages ago, it was only because he played golf with the Chief Constable that he didn’t lose his driving licence.’
Trevor, Ian’s father, had died ten years ago. Two years before Ian and I met so I never actually clapped eyes on this paragon of manliness.
The image of Trevor as both a drunk and a philanderer sat uneasily next to the accepted wisdom that Trevor had been splendid in every way. Handsome, a generous and loving husband, a wonderful father, a talented golfer who might have achieved greatness. According to Pamela, Trevor’s major handicap had not been his golf swing but his lengthy affair with the steward’s wife.
Of course, we don’t mention that.
I looked round, terrified Susan would overhear this blasphemy and strike us both dead.
‘And I will say this,’ Pamela took a deep breath and then dithered for a minute, ‘what was I saying?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Right, well, dear, I’m off for a fag. I wouldn’t stay any longer than you have to. Auntie Susan’s set for the afternoon. She won’t want you deflecting the attention from her. I’d go home and put my feet up.’
I let out a long relieved breath. The idea was very appealing.
Pamela leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, enveloping me in a fug of alcohol and cigarette smoke. She hesitated, picked up my half-drunk sherry and downed it then grabbed her handbag and tottered off.
I took her advice.
CHAPTER 8
Purple iris – faith, hope, inspiration, friendship
My sister, Jenny, arrived at Holly Cottage in a rather jaunty yel
low hatchback and a filthy temper. She had got caught up in Exeter’s one-way system and had spent some time literally driving round in circles looking for the right exit from the roundabout that enlivens the centre of the city. Having chosen one she then blithely ignored the rest of my guidelines until she found herself halfway up Whitestone Hill and had to stop and ask for directions.
She eventually pulled up in the driveway just before five. She got out and staggered towards me rather theatrically as though she had been taking part in the Paris–Dakar rally.
‘What on earth possessed you to come and live here?’ were her opening words.
I went to hug her. She was very slim, chic in a cream dress, and she brought with her a familiar drift of Chanel perfume.
‘And hello to you too, Jenny.’
‘When you said you were living in Devon I thought you would be in one of those jaunty little seaside towns with views across to the lighthouse. You know, a village filled with salty old sea dogs telling tales of running before the tide on the outer banks. Like that place where Martin Clunes is the doctor. Shirley is very keen on him. She’s got the boxset. I’ve bought some adorable Capri pants and two Guernsey sweaters. I was going to buy some deck shoes too. Good job I didn’t, it looks like I need wellingtons. This literally is the back of beyond, isn’t it? I’ve often wondered where it was and what it looked like.’
‘When you’ve quite finished bad-mouthing my home, would you like to come in? Cup of tea?’
Jenny pulled her suitcases out from the back of the car and turned to face me, her mouth pursed like a cat’s bottom.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll have a large scotch and water.’
We lugged her bags into the house, where they effectively blocked the hallway, and then went into the kitchen. I began filling the kettle.
‘You won’t, you know, I haven’t got any scotch.’
Jenny went and rummaged in her holdall and came back with a bottle of Laphroaig.
‘Ta dah!’
The Summer of Second Chances Page 9
