by Clare Ashton
“Sorry to disturb you,” she said.
Celia looked up with the sharp precision of a woman who could annihilate the opposition in five moves, but not the sharp focus. She peered over the top of her half-moon glasses and relaxed into a smile.
“Oh hello, dear. What a nice surprise,” she said, removing her specs. She glanced over the room which still murmured with the excitement of Abby’s entrance.
“You’re here with Abby?” Celia’s expression was suddenly penetrating. Accusing somehow. Then as quickly as the severity had fallen it lifted again and Celia was her welcoming grandmother once more.
Another wave of laughter rolled over the room.
“Yes, Abby must be here,” Celia chuckled. “They do look forward to her rounds.”
“Better keep them in order,” Desmond groaned and he heaved himself to his feet. “You mind taking over? She’s thrashing me anyway.”
“I will gladly hasten defeat,” Jude replied.
“Don’t worry. I have no pride. If you last another three moves I’ll be impressed,” Desmond said, as he shuffled off across the room.
Jude sat down and leaned over the board.
“Don’t let that amenable Brummie accent deceive you,” Celia muttered. “Sharp as a tack that one.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Well, my dear. You’re looking better for some fresh air.” Celia squeezed Jude on the arm. “How are you?”
“Good. I had lunch with Abby, we took a walk through the woods and I thought I’d check up on you.”
Celia hesitated, scrutiny again in her eyes, before “Oh, Still here. Same gammy hip. Grateful for Desmond’s company.”
“Have they rescheduled the operation?” Jude asked, aware she had to speak louder.
“No. It’s a matter of waiting all over again I think.”
“You should be a priority,” Jude said, leaning closer to Celia, but she didn’t reply and they both looked towards the source of the increasing noise.
All eyes were turned to the corner where the old man and his absent wife sat.
“Go on, Abby,” Ray said. “You know I can’t anymore.” He lifted his hands, swollen and gnarled with arthritis at the knuckles.
Abby coloured and peeped towards Jude and Celia.
“Go on, Dr Abby,” Bev and Dot chorused. “We’ll join in too.”
Abby stroked the back of her head, always a sign she was nervous. What were they asking of her? Then to Jude’s surprise, Abby took her place in front of the piano. She placed her fingers on the keys and although it was too quiet for Jude to hear at first she could catch the rhythm. The one-two-three had the room swaying in time. But she could hear Ray’s voice and his smile was clear. He held his wife’s hand and rocked to and fro to the first verse.
“Is that…?” Jude frowned. “From Oliver?”
Celia nodded. Still Abby played, too quiet for Jude to hear, but as soon as Ray finished the verse the whole room took a deep breath for the chorus.
And “Oom pah pah” was sung with volume and relish throughout the room. Abby grinned and pounded the chords on the piano to the delight of the residents.
“Again,” they chorused and another round of “Oom pah pah” rose through the room as Abby launched back into the keyboard. It had an energy which seemed to lift the residents from their seats. Again a deep breath and “Oom pah pah”, this time with fists swinging up into the air.
“My mum loves this one,” Desmond said and he offered his hand to a middle-aged colleague and, to the delight of the residents, began a rudimentary waltz around the room.
“Encore, Abby,” Bev and Dot shouted, and Abby happily obliged, lifting her hands higher then pounding the chords for another rendition of the chorus.
Jude’s mouth gaped open. When on earth had Abby learned to play the piano? It was nowhere near accomplished, but what she lacked in polish she made up for in gusto and it was impossible not to smile while Abby gave it her all and the entire room moved to the song.
“I didn’t know she did this.” Jude laughed.
Celia gave her an astute look. “I think Abby is one of those people who could surprise you for a lifetime, and always in the best way.”
“When did she start?” Abby didn’t play brilliantly, but well enough to thrash out a tune and bring a great deal of happiness.
“She plays at your mother’s,” Celia said, “when she comes for dinner on Wednesdays. She plays by ear and she’s been teaching herself sheet music. Mainly she practices tunes for the folks down here.”
Jude couldn’t believe her eyes, or ears. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Perhaps it never came up,” Celia suggested. “Perhaps she was embarrassed.”
“Why?”
“You and Eli are so accomplished,” Celia replied. “She possibly didn’t want to bother you with her tinkering?”
“Did she say that?”
“Not in as many words.”
Jude was strangely delighted by this fresh view of her friend. It was unnerving finding something else she hadn’t known, but also thrilling.
Abby peered over her shoulder to survey the room, the words of the chorus on her lips, then she spied Jude. “Sorry,” she mouthed in an exaggerated way. “Awful.” She nodded to her hands.
Jude couldn’t agree. Look what Abby did to the room. Ray and his wife were rocking together and she was gazing at him with faint recognition in her eyes. There was confusion there, perhaps at seeing her husband an old man, but definite recognition and love. Ray swayed and sang his heart out, even though he sniffed between lines.
Jude stood and clapped to the song as she stared at Abby.
“I’m terrible,” Abby mouthed, blushing.
“No,” Jude murmured. “You’re wonderful.”
Abby rounded off with a slow and emphatic “Oom pah pah” and the whole room applauded each other and the dancing staff who had twirled around the room.
Jude sat again, not taking her eyes off Abby. People were reaching for her, entreating her to play again as she shook her head, shy and smiling, and pointed to her medical bag. How dazzling Abby was. Jude had always appreciated that Abby was pretty. But right now her sheer generosity of spirit shone through and lifted her to beauty. Jude was transfixed by Abby brightening the place with an almost visible glow. It made Jude warm inside.
“She’s come a long way, hasn’t she?”
Jude snapped her attention to Celia who studied her with an unwavering gaze.
“She’s a special woman, our Abby,” Celia continued.
Jude picked a bishop from the chessboard and twirled it between her fingers, more to distract from Celia’s scrutiny than any intention to play. “Yes, she is. Very special.”
“So different from the broken girl you brought home.”
Jude peeked over to Abby. She was in her element here, helping others, but the fragility was still there. “She is,” Jude said. “She needs us though.”
Celia made a non-committal noise. “Hmm. I wonder.”
Jude pinched the chess piece tighter. “What do you mean?”
“I wonder if she’ll ever find what she wants.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Sometimes, I think she’d be better off without us.”
Jude stopped twirling the piece and stared at it.
“Do we hold her back?” Celia said. “Me and Maggie mothering her. And you…”
Jude twitched.
“…You’ve been her crutch.”
Jude was acutely aware of Celia’s eyes fixed upon her. She took a breath and played the bishop, as if unmoved.
“Perhaps that’s not what she needs anymore,” Celia offered, reaching for a white knight. “It’s been a long time since her mother died. And, yes, look at her. See how she helps so many. But what does she need? Isn’t it time she had happiness? Real happiness.”
Jude swallowed. Celia was frighteningly on point. “Do you mean love?” she asked, her voice faltering.
“Yes.”
Celia made her move, her piece tapping onto the board. Jude was rigid.
“If she can’t find it here. Isn’t it time we let her go?” Celia said.
Jude trembled. “Maybe she could find it here?”
It was Celia’s turn to hesitate. “Can she? Is that possible? Is it even wise?”
Jude gulped again. She was shocked at the idea of Abby leaving Ludbury, leaving them all. Actually it was horrifying. “Wouldn’t you miss her?” Jude couldn’t help that her voice was full of emotion and she moved a piece as a distraction.
“Yes.” Celia’s look was piercing. “But I can’t bear to see her chained. We have nurtured and loved her, and she returns that love many times over. But if we can’t give her what she needs, then we should let her go.”
Jude inhaled, not knowing what to say. “I let Bill go,” she said, so quickly the words ran together. “I couldn’t give him what he needed.”
“A brave and right thing to do, though I imagine it wasn’t pleasant.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“And what do you need?” Celia said.
Abby. I want Abby. I don’t know in what way, or how to do it. But I want Abby.
Before Jude could vocalise her thoughts, Celia said. “Do you ever wonder,” still she fixed Jude with her stare, “if you chose Bill so you could see Abby. Because it fitted in with your life here?”
Jude’s heart beat hard and cold inside. She was only half aware of the approaching footsteps.
“Well that’s me done,” Abby said, then paused. “What have you been playing?”
Jude focussed on the board and errant pieces.
“They’re all over the place.” Abby laughed.
“I don’t know,” Jude said hesitating. “I don’t know.”
Chapter 16.
Abby took Jude’s arm and held her close as they took the route along the city walls back to the citadel.
“You look tired,” Abby said with a sympathetic smile. “Let’s get you home.”
“I don’t want to go back yet,” Jude replied. She needed the balm of Abby’s company too much.
“You can stay at mine. You’re always welcome.”
Jude caught the faint blush on Abby’s cheeks as she suggested it. And nothing could have been more inviting. Cosying up on the sofa in Abby’s warm company was just what Jude needed. But it wasn’t fair.
“Thank you,” Jude said. “I’d better stay at Mum’s.”
They turned up the hill and Jude sighed at the prospect of internment at Maggie’s and listening to her rant about everything from religion to the price of eggs.
“I wish you could see her through my eyes,” Abby said.
“Who?”
“Maggie.”
“Oh.” Jude blushed, ashamed her dread was so transparent.
“I was assuming that enormous sigh was about her.”
“Yes, it was.”
“She’s a special woman,” Abby said.
“That we can agree on.” Jude laughed.
“I mean it.” Abby tugged on her arm to chastise her. “I can’t count the incredible moments with her.”
Jude bit back her retort.
“Do you remember the second Christmas I stayed in Ludbury?”
Jude did. It was not long after Abby had spread her mother’s ashes on Stepley Hill, a beautiful countryside resting place.
“I dreaded Christmas without Mum. She was all I could think of that time of year. But Christmas morning,” Abby hesitated as she focussed on the memory. “It was early, before breakfast and presents. Maggie ordered us to get dressed, put on our hats and marched us out to Stepley Hill. It sparkled with frost in the dawn sunlight.” Abby smiled. “We were surrounded by a cloud of steaming breath – you, me, Maggie and Richard, Eli too. She took my hand.”
And Jude could remember it as clearly as Abby. They’d huddled in the Welsh hills, in the centre of the stone circle where Brenda, Abby’s mum, had been laid to rest.
“Do you want to say something?” Maggie had asked. Abby was too choked to speak. Maggie swept her under an arm and Abby shut her eyes tight with grief.
“Hello Brenda,” Maggie said to the lands. “This is Abby’s Christmas too and we wanted to start ours by visiting you.” She sniffed, perhaps with the cold air. “I wanted to tell you Abby is doing so well at university. She’s had a brilliant year. She might be too modest to say. You know her well enough for that to be true.” And she squeezed Abby tighter. “I wish I’d met you, Brenda. I know I would have loved you, because how could I not love someone who brought our Abby into the world. Merry Christmas, dear Brenda. We’ll take care of Abby, always.”
Abby and Jude stopped in the street, baking in the autumn sunshine. “I don’t think Maggie realises how much it meant to me, to have Mum as part of the holidays and you all share my grief. It let me enjoy the rest of the day, and I am the luckiest woman in the world to have Maggie in my life.”
Jude blinked, affected by Abby’s gratitude. Yes, Jude did appreciate how her mother inspired generations, like the girl she’d met in the square, and how fiercely Maggie loved and protected those dear to her.
But that didn’t make her any less fucking annoying. And even as Jude thought the words she could hear them in Maggie’s voice. Maybe that’s why she grated so much on Jude and not on Abby. Because Maggie sometimes surfaced in Jude’s personality. Jude was so like her father she guarded against his worst traits, then her mother’s reared their heads and took her by surprise. And Maggie was the voice in Jude’s head often.
“I think she reminds me of myself,” Jude tried to explain.
Abby gave her a sad smile and touched her cheek. “Perhaps that’s why I love you both so much.”
Jude’s mouth dropped open. She could feel the emotion rise up her throat and fill her eyes. She blinked. Abby’s love was a gift and Jude felt undeserving of both her friend and Maggie.
“How about,” Abby said, her melancholy smile still holding all the warmth of her love, “we get you a loaded hot chocolate.”
“That,” Jude said, “is the best suggestion I’ve heard all day.”
“Good. Come on, Jude, and don’t spare the whipped cream.”
“With marshmallows on top.”
Jude sat in the Victorian conservatory of the Garden Café on their favourite sofa, the central fountain trickling nearby. It was the blissful, quiet end of the day, the sun setting through silver birch beyond the windows. There were few customers – a mother with two toddlers, both unnaturally quiet and each gumming a biscuit to oblivion, and an old couple opposite, side by side with the same voluminous hot chocolate Abby had ordered.
What was Jude going to do? How could she reconcile wanting Abby, her friend needing her, but love separating them? She’d never desired a woman. Right now Jude wished she could sweep Abby off her feet. It would make life so much simpler. It would also irk Maggie no end and a squirm of pleasurable bloody-mindedness tingled inside at the thought before Jude chastised herself with Abby’s voice.
“I wish I was a lesbian,” she muttered, then surreptitiously looked around the café. Toddlers continued to gum their biscuits unperturbed, their mother dozed on her arm, and the old couple were giggling among themselves.
“Here we go.” Abby passed down a precarious saucer and tall mug of hot chocolate with waves of double cream and clouds of marshmallows.
“Bliss.” Jude sighed.
Abby shuffled her bottom beside Jude’s without ceremony and lifted her drink to her mouth. It was impossible to tackle without looking like you’d been mauled by a Mr Whippy and Abby sported a moustache of cream. Jude did the same and was similarly afflicted.
“Suits you,” Abby grinned, the cream melting and running down the sides of her mouth so she resembled a member of Sgt. Pepper’s band.
“Come here,” Jude said. “It’s going to drip on your suit.” Jude scooped up a serviette to catch a drip. She dabbed the blob of cream back on to Ab
by’s cheeks then swept up a curl of milky moustache.
“You look like a very odd Salvador Dali,” Jude said.
Abby giggled at the same time as the old lady across the café. The woman was laughing at her husband and a blob of cream stuck to his nose. He raised his hand to wipe it away but the woman cried “Wait!” She leaned close with a serviette raised, her eyes squinting in concentration. Then without warning she licked it off his nose. “That’s mine,” she said and they both burst out laughing.
Jude smiled at the couple; then it hit her. Their behaviour, ease and comfort mirrored hers and Abby’s. That’s what they were like – a happy old couple. She instinctively reached out for Abby’s hand at the thought. They’d been like it for years. Wasn’t that how the best relationships endured – being close friends more than anything else?
Jude sat up, suddenly hopeful for the first time in days. She watched the couple, the woman muttering and searching her handbag. Her husband tutted and eyed her head. She reached up and snatched her glasses perched in her hair and they dissolved into giggles again. Jude’s heart ached. It was the kind of happiness everyone searched for. She looked down at Abby’s hand in hers. And she already had it here with Abby.
If Abby had been a man, one she’d not been attracted to, she still could have made the common next step – marrying your best friend. They had a far better basis for a lifetime of love than with a handsome face in the crowd. It wasn’t crazy to settle down with a friend, especially one she adored and who depended on her, then hope that romantic love would follow.
“Did you ever a kiss a girl and not like it?” Jude asked.
OK. That was a bit random. It would have been nice if her brain had percolated that thought before airing it. Hopefully Abby would gloss right over it.
“Huh?”
“I kissed a girl once,” Jude said.
“You did?”
“Yes,” she said, alarmed at how quickly this conversation was moving. “It didn’t seem anything, I don’t know, extraordinary.”
