by Jane Gilley
Inherit the businesses? So that’s what all this had been about? Dora had never wanted to inherit the sodding businesses. She’d always intended that to be Stuart’s baby when the time came for her mother and father to check out, as it were.
That type of commitment, whereby she’d have to cultivate and tout for business and then maintain that business, was too much for her. She wouldn’t be able to live a carefree life, that’s for sure. And though she’d never really known what she wanted to do in life, she’d certainly never envisaged taking on the family businesses.
All she’d ever loved doing was romping around interesting countries with equally interesting men in tow, even though she’d blown the last one, Pepe, out after she’d caught him stealing her money for his roll-ups and vodka. He wasn’t the love of her life, even though the sex had been terrific. So, at the time, her foray home because of her father’s ill health had coincided with her limited choices of what to do next. Their tiny airless studio flat in Alicante was still there awaiting her return if she decided that was her plan, though she’d told Pepe it was not.
On the other hand, it was marvellous to be back amongst the lavish trappings of her family’s home environment. She could sleep in her beautifully furnished bedroom when she wanted and eat what she wanted, when she wanted. She didn’t have to do things like go out with Pepe on his boat to catch flapping, gasping fish for their supper or spend hours scouring the markets for all the items she needed to make everything from scratch. Dora simply did not expect to have to do things like killing, skinning and gutting things in order to eat. That’s what supermarkets were for, to take the stress out of finding food on a daily basis. She found life so much more civil at home in the UK. She knew she would starve if she ever found herself stranded on a desert island.
So looking down on her father, on his sick bed that day, Dora had sighed deeply, just to let everyone know she wasn’t happy with the suggestion that she ‘pull her weight’. Yet whilst she didn’t like to admit it, she could see that it did made sense for her to stay and help her folks get things sorted and settled for a little while because she really had nowhere else to go. Plus a stint in the office would be infinitely better than cleaning up after their mainly boozy guests. So it just might be do-able.
Yeah, but then I’ll be gone, she’d told herself.
In fact, not only had Dora stayed to help out for a few months, but she’d stayed working in the family business for a good few years longer than she intended. And she did everything from bar work to, yes, cleaning toilets when the situation arose, as well as running the accounts team and sitting in on the monthly meetings and putting her points across in a professional manner. Remarkably, she found she quite enjoyed managing people and, surprise, surprise, her parents had been right – working from the bottom up had put her in a good place for dealing with problems the staff faced. Thus business and life in general, for Dora, was trotting along at a good pace and they’d just secured another small hotel in London with a view to turn it into a boutique spa hotel when her father suffered his second, fatal stroke.
And then – almost overnight – everything suddenly changed.
After the funeral, one of Martin’s business associates asked if he could buy the four Hen & Stag Hotels and Dora’s mother said ‘Yes,’ without flinching. Those hotels might have given them an enviable lifestyle but they’d never been places Yvonne had felt comfortable in, even though that’s where she made Dora do her first few years’ work experience.
Stuart had just gotten divorced and decided to take a year out and tour Australia. And there, on a train between Sydney and Brisbane, he met Hazel, the woman he was now married to. They’d moved to Devon and ran a hotel there, complete with her young daughter, Stephanie, and a rescue dog they’d called Ozzy. The Wallabies, Dora called them all. A property developer bought the boutique spa hotel in London and Dora’s mother sold the family home and flat but kept the Cotswolds hotel she now lived in and ran with Dora. And even though Dora would later admit that it wasn’t such a bad thing, no longer running around the world with the likes of Pepe, she still had her off days when she wished she could just do that.
Hence why her mother’s recent outburst had Dora lamenting to her friend Jodie that life was becoming ‘predictable’.
‘I’m still living at home with my ox of a mother, for God’s sake! And she thinks I should be settled and married like The Wallabies by now.’
‘Aw, honey,’ Jodie had crooned. ‘But you’re not the marrying kind.’
Admittedly, Dora had certainly evaded that institution! But she’d soon be fifty, a fact that concerned her greatly because, where had all that time gone?! She was certainly at an age where she no longer felt happy in her own skin and had not been on a date or hooked up with anyone delectable in years. She felt as though she was drifting again, with no particular direction in mind. She seldom went out, unless Jodie rang out of the blue and they spent a rare weekend together at Jodie’s home, back down in Southampton, getting rat-arsed down the pub, whilst her bloke was working night shifts for his security company. Yet it somehow felt wrong that she was still living with her mother. In fact, everything felt wrong with her life.
‘It’s all slipping away from me, especially since my looks have faded,’ she’d whine to anyone who’d listen.
So, fed up of her friend’s whinging, Jodie had rung one day with a suggestion.
‘Look, why don’t you have a shot at Botox or whatever. Works wonders for me.’
‘No chance! I don’t like pain and what if it all went wrong?’ Dora had blared, robustly.
‘Look, just have a think about it. I can send you a whole bunch of literature on it.’
Just a little nipping and tucking could work miracles, the brochures had said. The glittering photos of the before and afters had certainly looked inspiring. And there were all sorts of procedures to choose from – invasive and non-invasive. And so, reassured by Jodie, Dora had asked her friend to drive to their hotel and then dragged her along to her appointment to try out a bit of Botox.
When they got back to the hotel Yvonne had squinted at the results, and then pulled a face. ‘Is that a botch job or what?’
Disillusioned, Dora went back to try and get it sorted out the next day.
‘Oh I’m sorry, love,’ the receptionist had told her. ‘You have to wait till it wears off. Round about three to four months after your first injection, sometimes less. And then we can have another go at it.’
‘What? So I’m supposed to look like a frog in the meantime, am I?’
‘You must’ve moved while they were doing it,’ Jodie had said, supressing a giggle. ‘It should’ve been fine. Oh, don’t worry about it. Just put a bit of lippy on and smile more instead of frowning. Anyway, I thought the intention was to get your forehead done? Not your mouth.’
‘I know but I hate my saggy face! And anyway, you should’ve persuaded me to use your chap.’
‘But you rarely get leave of absence from your hotel. Plus, like I said, he’s on holiday. Anyway, it doesn’t look that bad.’
Despite her friend’s encouragement, she didn’t feel any better and her smile was definitely wonkier than it had been. She wasn’t sure that a bit of lippy would help but clearly there was nothing she could do about it all now.
‘Oh, how I hate getting old and decrepit,’ she’d groaned to her mother.
‘You behave like a small child!’ her mother had snapped. ‘Just grow up and find yourself a man and settle that roving spirit of yours.’
‘Well, that might happen if I looked prettier than I do. But just look at my crow’s feet, my lined forehead, my crappy skin.’
‘What do you expect after sitting on a beach for nearly ten years?’ her mother had shot back. ‘And do you hear me whinging about my looks?’
Dora snapped. ‘No. But you’re allowed to be wrinkly at eighty-nine. It’s expected of you.’
Their sparring had become amiable over the years. True, she had been a d
addy’s girl and absolved of all failings and errors because of that. But now she was much closer to her mother. She was even closer to The Wallabies and popped over to see them sometimes, when being in one place for too long took its toll.
Yet it was on a rare couple of days’ visit to see her mother’s sister, Aunt Philippa, in Southampton, after nagging her mother to leave the staff in charge of the hotel and come with her because she was fed up of doing things by herself, that Dora spied a flyer in a shop window offering free afternoon tea at a nearby community centre, the following day. And it transpired that the building was on a road parallel to where Philippa lived.
So because Dora was feeling out of sorts and generally fed up with her life she decided to act on that flyer and find out what afternoon tea at the Borough Community Centre was all about. And as her bloody mother had complained about her moping about, she intended to leave her mother and aunt to catch up whilst she went off on a little adventure for the day.
Who knows, Dora thought, it might just cheer me up a bit.
Plus it said she was going to get a free cup of tea and a piece of cake.
Chapter 8
Stacy was lounging on the reception desk with her head in her hands, daydreaming.
She loved her work in the library and had been there so long she knew her duties back to front. She loved all of it, the cataloguing, the classifying and developing of library resources; dealing with reader’s queries on reception and showing people where the magazines or non-fiction or the microfiche machines were – yes, people were surprised they still used those. But today was exceptionally quiet for some reason and her supervisor had already mentioned her lackadaisical manner. Yet it was so easy to get side-tracked, ruminating about other things, when nothing much was happening. She did have a list of literature searches to do and needed the books ready for when the gentleman in question came in to collect them at 3 p.m. today. But that was a good few hours away yet.
Abstractedly, she was remembering the woman who’d upset her at the community centre. There were a couple of tetchy women who frequented the community centre, she’d noticed. Stacy couldn’t understand why some people had to take their annoyance out on others. Didn’t they throw plates and smash things in the anger rooms in China to vent their frustrations? She’d read about that. What a good idea that was!
One of the women had, at first glance, basically looked all right. She reminded Stacy of her kindly Sunday school teacher when she and her brother arrived late, slouching and poking about around the graves, trying to find the oldest gravestone or the one with the youngest occupant, because they didn’t actually want to go inside the church and do yet more colouring in of the three wise men or make paper angels.
But the woman had screwed her face up and pouted when Stacy had sat down next to her.
‘Good grief! Please stop,’ she’d said, making Stacy feel uncomfortable, until someone had suggested she might not be feeling well.
Then after the tea party, Stacy remembered hurrying back to her flat because of her cats. But she’d called into the corner shop, en route, to get them a little treat. In front of her in the queue was a tiny, frail-looking old lady with a faded flowery summer dress on that looked six sizes too big for her. She was stooped so that her head nearly touched the counter where her purchases – three tins of cat food, a tin of peas and the cheapest packet of dried mashed potatoes – sat on the conveyor belt.
Stacy had wondered if the peas and mashed potato were to pad out the cat food? She often spiced up her own cats’ meals with other ingredients. Just for variety. Who wants to eat the same things all the time? And why should pets be subjected to the same old tins of food just because they were animals?
‘Hello! I see you have cats, judging by your purchases. Do they eat peas then? Mine won’t eat anything like that,’ she’d told the old lady, bending down so she would hear her.
The old lady had jumped a little, as Stacy’s face came into her periphery, then she smiled.
‘Oh hello! No, the potatoes and peas are mine, deary. Don’t eat much these days. You don’t when you get to my age.’
Stacy had heard this sort of thing before, especially with elderly people who had pets. She’d sincerely hoped she wouldn’t only be able to afford peas and powdered potatoes when she turned eighty or so. As the little old lady paid for her purchases, Stacy put hers on the conveyor belt.
The old lady was ambling along, leaning heavily on her walking stick when Stacy caught up with her and ‘bumped’ into her.
‘Oh sorry,’ Stacy had said. ‘Not watching where I’m going. Silly me.’
She’d smiled as the little old lady trundled off into the distance, hoping that she would be tempted to eat the sardines and smoked salmon she found in her coat pocket later.
I wonder if anyone else is just as lonely as me? Stacy thought, with a sigh, and then sat bolt upright as the first customer of the day walked into the library and she was brought back to the present.
***
Simon dropped his father off at the community centre for his third visit to the afternoon tea party and waved goodbye. Raymond watched him drive away.
Raymond was very proud of his son and felt blessed that Simon cared about him the way he did. He was always ringing and making sure he had enough shopping for the week and that his washing was done. Simon said he wanted to make sure that the ordinary things that kept life ticking over got done. Yet Raymond knew Simon’s attitude was mainly down to Dianne’s unswerving love and devotion towards all things familial when she’d been alive. He knew he had a lot to be thankful for.
‘They’re going to read out our suggestions this week, so I can’t wait to hear what everyone else thinks,’ Raymond had told his son in the car, earlier, en route to the community centre.
‘So the old dear who caused an uproar hasn’t put you off going then?’
‘Well, like I said, it wasn’t nice. But I’ll give it another shot this week and see where I go from there. I did enjoy that first week and I didn’t expect to. You don’t mind dropping me off again do you, son?’
‘Good heavens no, Dad. I’ll drop you wherever you want to go and at any time. You only have to ask. So go enjoy it and see what else they have to offer by way of outings. Have some fun!’
***
‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ the middle-aged woman with faded blonde hair curled up into an untidy bun, huge dangly gold earrings and bright pink lipstick covering slightly wonky lips had asked Marjorie.
‘How she looked! And why nobody said a thing about the way she looked is mind-boggling, dear. That cheap lipstick just didn’t do her any justice at all. In fact, it drew attention to her crooked lips. Why she didn’t go for a nude colour, instead, I don’t know,’ Marjorie had said dourly, recounting that week’s afternoon tea over dinner with Gracie later that evening.
Gracie had given her a stern look and then shaken her head, despairingly.
‘I can’t believe you’re telling me this, after what we spoke about the other day, Mother. You tell me you want to change but all I hear from you is how you simply can’t stop putting other people down or criticising some aspect of their looks or behaviour. But it’s got to stop, Mum. It drives me mad. You’ve got to realise that nobody is perfect and they shouldn’t be berated for their imperfections! Now, I’ve got quite a lot of marking to do tonight, and I’m going to do it at the desk in my bedroom so I’m not disturbed,’ Gracie had said with a frown.
Marjorie knew Gracie meant that she didn’t want to be disturbed by her mother. That thought made her want to curl up and hide at her daughter’s harsh words. Yet hadn’t she given herself a strict talking-to in the park that wet afternoon? Hadn’t she already convinced herself she was going to change for the better? But when would she be able to implement that change in herself? It was so easy to simply mock or scorn the afflicted. It tripped from her lips or flew into her thoughts the minute she spotted someone acting or looking different. Yet Marjorie knew it was wrong.
She knew it was unfair of her. It was Oliver’s bloody fault but she simply couldn’t shake his awful behaviour. It had somehow disgustingly rubbed off on her after all the years she’d been subjected to his foul mouth and nasty ways.
She had to make it up to Gracie. ‘Well, look, darling,’ she began uncertainly. ‘By way of talking about something, um, happier. I did apologise today about that incident before and I think that helped.’
Gracie stared. ‘You apologised today? My God. The woman has a heart, after all!’
But it was true. Marjorie had taken her first step towards being more positive and civil to others. And it had started with an apology, at the community centre earlier that day, because she did not want to be excluded from the possibility of making new friends. Lou had gone with her and Gracie had dropped them both off.
Marjorie had been pleased that Lou had been able to come to the community centre with her because they hadn’t seen each other in ages, due to the fact Lou had been ill, with flu. She realised they needed to start doing more things together now she was better, even though they did live a good few miles apart.
‘S’lovely this is, here!’ Lou had grinned, looking around at everybody as she started on her second piece of lemon drizzle cake.
Lou didn’t drive and being overweight meant it was difficult for her to get out and about easily, even for something as simple as a walk, although she did have a walking frame. Gracie occasionally dropped Marjorie off to see Lou at the weekend or would pick Lou up and take them both to a café, for a cuppa. But they hadn’t done that in a while. Yet, although Lou was happy enough eating her afternoon tea, Marjorie had already noticed that her old friend was not her usual jovial self. She’d been very quiet and seemed depressed in Gracie’s car on the way over. And when she’d come to get out of the car, Lou’s movements had been very laboured. Both Gracie and Marjorie had struggled to get her out. She had no family to speak of, well apart from her son Derek, who she rarely saw and who rarely visited her in her tiny ground-floor flat. And because a carer only came in once a week to bathe her, to help with the shopping and clean the flat, Marjorie wondered if it was time to start having a talk with her friend about an alternative arrangement. Crikey, she knew Lou would balk at the idea of going into a home but it might simply mean that since she was finding things more difficult she’d probably only need more regular help. Either way, Marjorie decided to ask Gracie if she’d drop her off at her friend’s next weekend so she could talk things over with her.