Goodness, Grace and Me

by Julie Houston

  ‘Mum, it’s a sleepover. I’ve been going to sleepover parties since I was nine or ten. You wouldn’t have thought twice about it if it was at Joe’s house and all the people who were going were just my mates from my class. What difference does it make because there are girls there?’

  I don’t know why it did make a difference, but it did. And he wasn’t going.

  ‘You’re so tight, Mum,’ Kit exploded as we drove down the track to our house. This was reiterated by the slamming of his car door and his stomping into the house through the kitchen door.

  Where was my beautiful boy? And where was my bloody husband when I needed him to back me up? This being a single parent lark was definitely not cricket.

  While I’m not the tidiest of human beings, the state of the kitchen, as India and I followed in Kit’s wake, appalled even me.

  The breakfast things remained where they’d been left on the table after our hurried departure for Kit’s rugby match earlier that morning. A bowl of saturated cornflakes, drowned in an overenthusiastic pouring of milk, lay testament to India’s unsteady hand with the six-pint plastic milk carton. Adhering tenaciously to the hundreds of multicoloured beads and sequins that had lain undisturbed on the floor since India had dropped her ‘craft box’, as she called it, two days previously was a sticky trail of golden syrup. A Nutella-laden knife, balanced precariously on a half-empty glass of breakfast juice, lay surrounded by the detritus of several croissants for which the chocolate spread had obviously been intended, and the remains of Kit’s full English breakfast, which I’d cooked to salve my conscience for not having the time to cook him breakfasts on schooldays, lay resplendent in a congealed greasy mess of red and orange.

  With our chief dishwasher-filler away (Nick said I filled the dishwasher like I did the car boot when we were going on holiday – badly), no one else in the family had thought to take on the responsibility of dishwasher monitor, so dirty dishes from a backlog of meals had formed an uneasy gridlock on the already overcrowded work surface.

  The week’s ironing, hanging on precariously to the sides of the wash basket, rose in a reproachful tumescence on top of the ironing board which I’d set up in a fit of optimism last night, only to abandon it to a glass of wine and Ian Rankin after processing two handkerchiefs and a pair of pants.

  If a new glossy magazine calling itself 25 Most Disgusting Kitchens should ever break through on to the newsagents’ shelves, ours would have had no problem in being one of the first contenders to appear in all its dirty, undisciplined glory.

  Liberty wandered down the stairs and into the kitchen, waving her newly French- manicured nails before her.

  ‘You look in a mood,’ she said, glancing over to where I stood, arms folded, against the grease-smattered Aga. ‘What’s up?’

  Without waiting for a reply to what was obviously only a rhetorical enquiry she went on, ‘You’ve had five phone calls: Grandad, Auntie Christine, Dad, Uncle John and some posh-sounding woman called Mandy. They all want you to ring them back. I’ve written down the phone numbers somewhere. Libby glanced round in an effort to locate the piece of paper. ‘It’s somewhere round here, but this kitchen is such a tip it could be anywhere.’

  That’s when I exploded. ‘Right, you stay right there. Don’t move.’ Striding to the stairs I bellowed, ‘Kit, India, down here this minute. Now. This instant.’

  Still wearing an expression of mutinous dislike, Kit slunk into the kitchen and slouched onto the one chair that had managed to escape the plethora of dirty rugby gear, Bratz dolls’ paraphernalia, and school bags regurgitating books, pencil cases, artwork and pencil shavings. India, dressed in my long-abandoned wedding dress and shoes, shuffled into the kitchen and joined the elder two for my prolonged rant.

  ‘It may have escaped your notice, but this house is, as you so rightly point out Liberty, a tip. It may also have escaped your notice that I work full time, I am, at present, a single parent and you three do absolutely nothing to help around here. So,’ I paused for effect, ‘each one of you will abandon whatever you were thinking of doing for the next hour or so and contribute to your keep.’

  ‘That’s gay,’ Kit muttered, as India began to protest that this was her wedding day and her husband-to-be was waiting for her so that they could become man and wife.

  ‘If he really loves you he’ll wait an hour,’ I snapped, and proceeded to allocate jobs. It was about time that Liberty did her share of the ironing. After all, the majority of the stuff in the basket belonged to her.

  With much muttering under the breath from Kit, heavy sighs and rolling of eyes from Liberty and continued protests from India that her fiancé would go off with Adriana Saxton if she wasn’t at the church on time, we set to and blitzed not only the kitchen but the sitting room and downstairs loo. Admittedly, I did most of the hard graft but I lightened the proceedings by blasting out T.Rex’s ‘I Love to Boogie’, so that Kit even forgot that he was a fully paid-up member of the moody brigade and jitterbugged round the furniture with the Hoover.

  After an hour or so, and with the promise of tuna-melt panini for lunch, I sent the kids upstairs to see to their bedrooms and made the first of the five return phone calls to the numbers on Liberty’s list.

  Nick had rung home on Thursday, once he’d arrived in Italy, but I’d not had a word from him since. Ringing him was to be my treat after the other three, so I resisted the idea of phoning him first and dialled my sister-in-law.

  ‘Harriet, you’re there now. Where’ve you been?’ Christine sounded a bit uptight, to say the least.

  ‘Kit’s rugby match. What’s up? You sound a bit stressed.’

  ‘Have you spoken to your father?’

  ‘Dad? He’s in The Isle Of man. Liberty said he rang here this morning and I was going to ring him after I’d spoken to you.’ I was suddenly filled with dread. ‘What’s the matter? Is there anything wrong?’

  ‘Mother’s gone missing.’

  ‘Missing? What do you mean missing? When did she go missing?’

  ‘Dad rang me this morning about eleven o’clock.’ Christine, ever the drama queen, paused for effect and even the knowledge that my mum seemed to have disappeared didn’t prevent the now familiar feeling of irritation that she’d somehow hijacked my mum and dad. Why hadn’t Dad rung me first, or Diana? And if he’d rung my brother John why the hell wasn’t he dealing with this apparent crisis instead of letting Christine handle it as per usual? ‘Apparently he decided to go out for a quick walk to buy a paper and said he’d see Mother down in the dining-room for breakfast. When he got back, ten minutes later, the girl who was serving breakfast said Mother had arrived at their usual table, but after sitting down had immediately got up again and left the dining room. No one has seen her since.’

  I glanced at the kitchen clock. It was now nearly one o’clock. Knowing that my mum and dad, like many elderly people, were early risers, I reckoned she must have wandered off – I didn’t like to use the word missing – about five hours ago.

  ‘Have you spoken to him since he first rang?’ I now asked.

  ‘Harriet, I’ve been in constant contact with Dad for the last two hours. With both you and Diana not being available, I’ve been the one who has jollied him along, telling him she’ll have just wandered off for a walk and not realised the time.’

  I gritted my teeth. She was loving this.

  ‘Christine, put John on. He rang me earlier so maybe he knows something.’ I couldn’t bear listening to her smarmy, patronising voice any longer.

  ‘He’s been out playing golf since early this morning, and has turned his mobile off. You know what bad form it is to have your mobile ringing in the middle of a game.’

  No, Christine, I don’t know.

  ‘Well he’s tried to ring me this morning,’ I said. ‘He must have got wind of this somehow.’ My brother very rarely rang. In fact, thinking about it, I’d not seen him or been in touch for ages. I quickly made a decision.

  ‘Listen, Christine, I’m
going to ring my dad myself and see what’s going on. I’ll update you if there’s any news.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure Dad will do that. He knows how worried I’ve been.’

  I rang the number that my father had left, and a hotel receptionist answered it immediately. I explained who I was and she put me straight on to dad who must have been there, in reception, with her.

  ‘Dad, what’s going on?’ Mindful of his deafness, I had to enunciate every little word, my voice at full volume.

  ‘It’s alright, love. She’s back. Came back about half an hour ago. The hotel was just about to contact the police for me, when in she walked as if nothing had happened. Couldn’t understand why we were all worried about her. In fact, she got cross with me. Said I was making a fuss about nothing.’

  ‘But where had she been, Dad?’ Relief that my mum had turned up, apparently safe and well, didn’t stop me sounding sharp.

  ‘Ay, lass, I can’t figure her out. Said she’d been to Patricia’s.’

  That name again. ‘Has she said who Patricia is? Do we have any long-lost cousins called Patricia and living in the Isle of Man?’

  ‘Nay, I don’t know. Only Patricia I’ve ever known is that lass you used to go to infant school with. We took her to Blackpool that time and she was sick in the car. Do you remember?’

  ‘Vaguely. Dad, can I have a word with Mum? Is she there?’ Lurking at the back of my mind was the fear that had been with me for a while and which I’d tried to push under the carpet – the fear that my mum had dementia of some kind. I needed to speak to her to reassure myself about her state of mind.

  ‘No, she’s up in the room having a bit of a lie-down,’ Dad sighed audibly. ‘I think all the excitement of this morning has worn her out. I’ve come down to reception to get out of her way. Give her a chance to sleep.’

  ‘Dad, do you think there’s something, well, wrong with mum?’

  ‘Eh?’ I could visualise my father straining to hear, the receptionist glancing irritably at him as the call went on, leaving her without her phone.

  ‘Something wrong with her, Dad. Do you think?’ I shouted.

  ‘Well, it’s not normal behaviour is it? Wandering off without telling anyone and looking for someone who doesn’t exist.’ Dad sighed again.

  ‘When are you coming home?’ I asked, feeling helpless.

  ‘Not until next Thursday. I daren’t let her out of my sight in case she wanders off again.’

  ‘Has she done anything else strange?’ I now asked.

  ‘What like?’

  ‘Well, anything out of the ordinary?’

  ‘At our age, lass, we do a lot of things out of th’ordinary,’ Dad chuckled. ‘I’ll let her have a sleep and then take her out for tea somewhere. A walk by the sea and a couple of light ales this evening and she’ll be right as rain.’

  I had a feeling Dad wasn’t facing up to things. As soon as they returned next week, I’d get Diana to come with me and we’d go and see Mum together and have a chat with her. Telling Dad he had to ring Diana or me if anything untoward happened during the rest of their stay in the Isle of Man, I put the phone down and got on with making lunch.

  We were only halfway through eating when the phone rang again.

  ‘Leave it,’ I ordered, as India rose to answer it. ‘We’re eating. The answer machine will pick up.’

  ‘Where are you all? Why haven’t you returned my call?’ Nick’s voice, sounding incredibly jolly, floated across the kitchen and, to a man, we all jumped up and raced to grab the receiver.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ shouted Libby, who, having pipped us all to the post, was now talking ten to the dozen while holding off India who was desperate to speak to her daddy. After the two girls had flirted shamelessly over the phone with their father, and Kit had answered whatever Nick was asking with monosyllabic grunts, it was my turn. Taking the phone into the sitting room so that I could indulge in my own bit of flirting with my absent lover – being suspicious and jealous, I’d decided, wasn’t going to make Nick want me more – I collapsed onto the sofa, sitting down for the first time that day.

  ‘Hi, my darling. How’s it going?’

  ‘Really good. Italy is a fabulous place. How come we never managed a holiday here?’

  ‘What’s the weather like?’ Why do the English always ask this? Why wasn’t I asking him if he was missing me?

  ‘It’s actually very warm. Short-sleeve weather. Got a bit of a tan.’ Nick sounded very relaxed. Too relaxed. Shouldn’t he be sweating with finding new business, not with sitting in the sun?

  ‘So, what are you actually doing out there?’ I asked, a tiny modicum of resentment seeping in at the thought of him in balmy Italy while I was keeping the home fires burning, working my socks off and looking after his kids in the middle of a particularly cold and miserable week in an English autumn.

  ‘Things are going well. I’ve had several meetings with David’s contacts and one particularly seems very interested in doing business. He makes the most fantastic menswear and is looking to set up a manufacturing outlet in Yorkshire. You know, the original home of the textile industry, and all that?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What do you mean, “why”?’

  ‘Well, forgive me if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick,’ I said, ‘but isn’t Italy having a worse time of it than we are?’

  ‘That’s just the point,’ Nick said excitedly. ‘I know the pound isn’t overly healthy at the moment but the Euro in Italy is even worse. The Italians are looking for investment from us, from Germany, and perhaps even Russia. It’s a lot more complicated than I can explain right now.’

  ‘Germany and Russia? What are you getting into, Nick?’

  ‘Look, don’t worry. I trust David and his business plan. It’s up to me to check out the actual clothing. Is it the best on offer or do I need to look elsewhere?’

  ‘What, like Russia? You’re not off to bloody Russia now are you?’ My heart plummeted.

  Nick laughed. ‘No. Well, not for the moment anyhow. I’m just trying to find the very best men’s Italian designer-wear in the country. I’m having dinner with another manufacturer tomorrow evening, actually at his home, so that should be interesting.’

  ‘When are you coming home?’ I knew I sounded a bit peevish, but I thought he was supposed to be on a business trip, not actually enjoying himself for heaven’s sake!

  ‘Well, today’s Saturday,’ I could almost hear him mentally ticking off the days, ‘so I reckon I should be home mid-week. How are the kids?’

  ‘Kit’s hit adolescence big style.’

  ‘I thought he sounded a bit moronic. Well it had to happen. We’ve had it pretty easy with Liberty. Too much to expect that we should get off so lightly with both of them.’

  ‘Suppose,’ I said, and then remembering Grace added, ‘Daniel’s not coming home to Grace, you know.’

  ‘Really? Oh well, give her my love. I’m going to have to go now, Harriet. Signor Buttoni, my contact has just arrived. Take care.’ And he rang off. Just like that. Without saying he loved me, and without telling me how desperately he was missing me. Signor Buttoni? Sounded like a bottled sauce for pasta – or the Mafia.

  Just as I put the phone down on Nick, John, my brother, appeared through the kitchen door. Whenever I saw him I always marvelled anew at what a good-looking man I had for a brother. Over six-foot tall and with dark, almost black wavy hair, he often reminded me of a particularly handsome cowboy. You could imagine him lying beside his horse, hat pulled down over his sleepy blue eyes, a cigarette hanging from his full lips. Not that, as far as I knew, he’d ever been anywhere near a horse. Since he was a tiny boy his passion had only ever been cars. There was always an old banger which he’d tinker with, do up and sell on, before buying another. His passion became his job and, having become a car mechanic straight after school, he now owned and ran Midhope’s most prestigious, upmarket car garage. In place of the old bangers, John now drove only the sleekest, sportiest and probably most
expensive of motors.

  I had certainly never been as close to John as I was to Diana, partly because he was seven years older than me and partly because I’d never particularly got on with his wife, Christine. It meant we really didn’t see as much of each other as perhaps we would have done.

  ‘Hello, stranger,’ I now said, giving him a kiss. ‘Don’t worry, we’ve sorted the problem. Mum’s turned up, thank goodness.’

  ‘Mum? What do you mean, turned up? Where’s she been?’

  ‘She went missing for a few hours in the Isle of Man. You mean you didn’t know? I assumed that’s why you’re here.’

  John glanced towards the now deserted lunch table. ‘Where are the kids? I need to talk to you, Hat.’

  ‘They’ve eaten and gone back to their rooms,’ I said, surprised at the tone of his voice. ‘What’s up?’

  John sat down amongst the debris of tuna-melt paninis, empty yoghurt cartons, and spilt orange juice. He appeared distressed. Agitated even.

  ‘I’ve just come from the golf club.’

  ‘Yes, Christine said you were there. We tried to get in touch with you.’

  John appeared not to hear me, but went on, ‘Steve Ruscoe, one of the members, came up to me in the bar and told me about Nick going into business with David Henderson.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Ah? Ah? Is that all you can say? Ah? Do you know who his wife is?’

  I went to fill the kettle before sitting down at the table with John.

  ‘John, I’m perfectly aware that Amanda Goodners is David Henderson’s wife. We had dinner with them last week.’

  ‘You knew? You had dinner with them but didn’t think to tell me?’

  ‘Well, no. I’m having enough on trying to get my head round the fact that Amanda bloody Goodners appears to be back in my life. I thought it best to keep it from you as long as I could. It is all in the past, you know, John. I mean, I realise she hurt you terribly, but it was a long time ago when you were both very young.’