by Fiore, Rosie
And here, Holly thought, came the crunch. ‘And the rent would be …?’
‘I haven’t decided yet.’
‘Okay. Do you have a rough idea?’
‘Well, I think rent should be based on how much trouble a tenant is going to be. So definitely more for children, pets …’
‘Musical instruments …’ Holly chimed in.
‘Scratching the floors, stupid questions …’
‘Sewing machines?’
‘Don’t mind sewing machines. My wife liked to sew. It’s a good noise.’
‘So I ask you again … the rent would be …?’
He looked at her long and hard. ‘What can you afford?’
She looked back at him. She had to be realistic. It wasn’t even as if her job was a-hundred-per-cent secure, working for a start-up business never was. She would love to live in this flat: she liked the old man, she adored the flat itself and the location was ideal. She named a figure. It wasn’t the maximum she could pay, but it wasn’t far off. She knew the flat was worth more, but she wasn’t going to be bullied into paying more than she could afford. There was a long pause.
‘I wondered if you’d take the piss one way or the other,’ he said, ‘but you didn’t. I know I could get more, but I like you, and that’s a good enough offer, and that’s enough for me.’
‘So …’ Holly said, not quite daring to believe it, ‘I can have it?’
‘We’ll have to do all the usual checks, but yes. Can’t see why not.’
She wanted to hug him, but she was sure that would be one of the items on his list of things that would make him change his mind about letting to her, so she contented herself with holding out her hand and shaking his energetically. ‘I’m Holly, by the way. Holly Evans.’
‘Bob.’
‘Bob?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bob the Builder?’
‘That’s right. And I’ve never heard that one before. Not. Any more smart jokes like that, young lady, and I’ll put your bloody rent up. Now, would you like to come downstairs for a cuppa?’
Holly went back to Bob’s a week later with bank statements, employment references and, embarrassingly, a note from her mum saying she was a good tenant. Bob, true to his word, had got a standard lease form. On the last page, he had written in dark, spidery handwriting:
Additional clawses
No rubbish music
No long-haired boyfriends tramping up and down the stairs at all hours
Use teak oil on the doors and wood fittings, none of your supermarket furniture polish
Come for tea once a week
Holly handed over her paperwork, signed the lease, carefully initialled each of the handwritten ‘clawses’ and handed Bob a cheque for the deposit and first month’s rent.
‘Right, young lady,’ he said, ‘I’ll check out your references and bank the cheque. But unless you hear from me to the contrary, I’ll expect you to move in at the end of the week.’
It was good news, but of course, there was a catch. Holly had nothing to move. She had had no furniture of her own in Damon’s lavishly appointed house in South Africa, and she hadn’t bought anything since she’d been back in the UK, as she had been at her mum’s. She could fit pretty much all her worldly goods into the back of her mum’s car. She didn’t own a plate or a knife and fork, let alone a bed or any furniture to sit on.
She hoped her mum might let her take the bed from the room she’d been sleeping in, and possibly the armchair. The rest, she’d have to buy. When she mentioned her move to Jo, Jo offered her their old sofa. It was perfectly sound, but the upholstery had taken the brunt of three years of Zach – not a problem for Holly. She bought some lovely plum-coloured fabric and spent one late night making a fitted slipcover for the sofa and new cushion covers. Then she borrowed her mum’s car and spent a morning racing around IKEA, list in hand. She came out with a table and chairs and a couple of bookshelves that she would need to assemble, very basic crockery and cutlery and a few saucepans, and some bright throws and pillows. The rest would have to wait. But there it was: she had the basis of a home, the first she could call entirely her own. She would be moving that weekend and she just couldn’t wait.
When she got back to her mum’s place, she opened the door and called out, ‘Mum, could you give me a hand? I’ve got a stack of stuff to unload from the car.’
‘We’re in here, dear,’ called her mum.
We? Who could be visiting at this time of day? Holly went through to the kitchen, and found her mother sitting at the kitchen table opposite Miranda. The first thing she registered was that Miranda had neither of her children with her. The second was that her sister had clearly been crying.
‘What’s going on?’ Holly asked. ‘What’s wrong, Randa? Are the kids okay?’
Miranda shook her head. ‘The kids are fine. Sit down, Holly.’
Holly felt cold. Something was obviously very wrong. ‘Okay, hang on,’ she said, irrationally trying to postpone the moment. ‘I just need to lock the car. It’s got half of IKEA in it.’ She walked back to the front door and held up the key remote. As she heard the locks in the car clunk shut, she somehow knew that when she walked back into the kitchen, something in her life was going to change forever.
Miranda had got up and put the kettle on and was bustling around getting cups and milk and sugar. Holly sat down next to her mother, whose small thin hands were resting on a folded piece of paper. They were all quiet for a minute, but Holly couldn’t bear it. ‘Look, just tell me. What is it? Is it Paul? Or David? Did something happen to David?’
‘No, dear,’ her mother said softly. ‘It’s me.’
Holly looked over at her mum and saw her, really saw her, for the first time in months. She had been so wrapped up in her own life, and so irritated by her mother’s feeble behaviour, that she hadn’t been paying attention. Judith’s skin was pale and dull and looked loose and sagging, and she was very, very thin. She’d always been slim, but now that Holly looked at her, she realised she could see the outline of her jawbone under the skin. She was almost skeletal. How could Holly not have noticed?
Judith pushed the piece of paper she had been holding across the table to Holly, who unfolded it. The letterhead said, ‘Dr E.K. Madison, Oncologist’. Holly swallowed hard. She skimmed the letter, but to be honest, it didn’t make much sense to her. She registered the words ‘stage four’ and ‘cancer’, but that was about it. She looked up at Judith, her eyes wide.
‘I’ve been having some tummy problems for a while now.’
‘A while?’
‘A couple of years. I kept thinking it would get better, but it just didn’t. I didn’t want to bother the doctor …’
Holly frowned. She could imagine how her prudish mother would hate walking into the doctor’s and discussing her bowel problems. She would have been mortified. But what had that reticence led to?
Judith continued. ‘Well, it has got a lot worse recently. I’ve been in some pain, and I couldn’t seem to keep anything down. Miranda noticed that I’d got thin, and she nagged until I went to get checked out.’
Miranda. Miranda had noticed, not the daughter who lived with Judith and saw her every day. Holly felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach.
‘Well, the doctor examined me and referred me to this specialist.’ Judith indicated the letter. ‘That was only a few days ago. I thought it would take ages, but my doctor must have thought it was a bit of an emergency. And …’ she hesitated. Miranda came back to the table carrying three mugs of tea. Judith looked at her, rather helplessly. ‘You tell Holly, dear.’
‘It’s bowel cancer, but it’s spread … to quite a lot of Mum’s organs. They say they can operate, but there isn’t a lot they can do.’ Miranda burst into tears again and got up from the table to get a tissue.
‘So …’ Holly managed. She wasn’t going to cry like Miranda. She could barely breathe or speak, but she was damned if she was going to cry.
‘We
ll, dear, the doctor told me I could have surgery, but it would be very invasive and painful and wouldn’t get rid of all of the cancer, and I could have chemotherapy, but the side effects would be dreadful. And with both courses of treatment, my chances are still rather poor.’
‘So …’ Holly said again.
‘Well, I’ve decided just to have medication for the pain, and let nature do the rest,’ said Judith calmly.
‘So you’re just going to GIVE UP?’ The words exploded out of Holly before she could stop them. ‘You’re going to refuse all medical intervention and just sit there and FUCKING DIE?’ She was faintly aware that she had just sworn in front of her mother for the first time ever, and that she was screaming at a dying woman, but neither of these things bothered her. She saw only a red mist of fury. How could Judith be so pathetic?
‘You’ve got grandchildren, for God’s sake! Martha’s only little and Oscar’s just a baby! And what about my children? What about the children I haven’t had yet that won’t know you? You can’t! You just can’t!’ And then the tears came. Holly put her head down on the table and sobbed like her heart was being torn from her. Judith said nothing. She just gently stroked Holly’s hair, like she used to when Holly was little.
A short while later, David arrived. Miranda had rung him and he drove over once he understood the seriousness of the situation. He spent some time trying to talk Judith out of her position on refusing treatment, but for once in her life, she was adamant and refused to be moved. By eight that night, she was shaking with exhaustion and excused herself to go to bed. The three siblings sat around the kitchen table, cups of tea untouched in front of them.
‘So what do we do now?’ said Miranda helplessly.
‘Well, the first thing I’m going to do is talk to that doctor,’ said David. ‘He hasn’t been very clear in that letter about the prognosis. How are we supposed to plan? What are the real chances of success with treatment? Is surgery or chemo a better option? We need some facts.’
‘I don’t think there are facts,’ said Miranda. ‘Only odds, and he seems to think the odds are really poor.’
‘Well, what about a second opinion? A different specialist?’
‘You can try. But Mum seems pretty sure that she’s had all the medical opinions she needs. I think she knew even before we went to see the doctor how serious this was.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, Miranda,’ barked David. ‘How could she know? She’s an old, sick, rather pathetic woman.’
‘She’s only sixty-two,’ said Miranda reasonably. ‘Hardly old.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said David impatiently, ‘she’s not some kind of soothsayer who can peer into her own body. For God’s sake, the woman can’t even send an email.’
For some reason, this made Holly snort with laughter, her only contribution to the conversation so far. Her siblings were playing their roles in this drama so well: Miranda was concerned and compassionate, David forceful and practical. But what was her role? She felt numb. Cold, afraid and numb. She had been so focused on her own life, she hadn’t even noticed her mother was ill. She had just been irritated by her, like the selfish, self-involved teenager she was. Except that she wasn’t a teenager. She was a soon to be thirty-one-year-old woman, who should bloody well have known better. And now, when her mother needed her most, she had her life in the back of a car in the road outside, and she was about to move away.
As if reading her thoughts, David turned to her and said, ‘Well, the one good thing is that you’re here to keep an eye on her.’
Holly didn’t know what to say, but Miranda waded in with, ‘Oh no, but Holly is about to move out. Weren’t you starting to move today, Holls? That’s what Mum said.’
‘Well, you can’t go,’ said David briskly. ‘Not the way things are.’
Holly wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to do, but David’s smug bossiness really got to her.
‘I’ve just shelled out a couple of thousand pounds in rent and a deposit. I’ve signed a lease and I have a carful of furniture. I can’t just not go.’
‘All of those things are reversible,’ said David. ‘I’m sure you can take the stuff you’ve bought back to the shop. And any reasonable landlord would excuse you from the lease and return the money. If you’ve signed with an unreasonable one’ – his lip curled as if he thought that was highly likely – ‘we can use my lawyer to put pressure on them. They’ll soon give in. Someone needs to be here, and it makes sense that it should be you.’
‘Why, David? Why am I more responsible for her than you are? Why don’t you move in here? Or Miranda?’
He looked at her like she was crazy. ‘Because I have a home. A proper home, not a room in some squat somewhere. And a job, and a family. And Miranda has a home and a family too. You’re the one who’s spent the last decade roaming around footloose and fancy free. It’s time to take some responsibility.’
Holly said nothing. She just got up from the table and walked out. As she opened the front door, she heard David say, ‘… running away. Like she always does.’ She could hear Miranda’s placatory murmur, although not what she said. She got into her mum’s car, and without thinking drove around the North Circular to East Finchley. When she’d signed the lease, Bob had given her keys, so she opened the door and started to carry stuff up the stairs to the flat. The car had been absolutely rammed to the roof, but once she’d lugged all the boxes up the stairs, they made a sorry, small pile in the middle of the living room. The flat-pack furniture was all still in its boxes, and even when she laid all the kitchen stuff out on one counter, it looked pathetically inadequate. She wandered back into the living room and sat cross-legged on the floor, looking out of the window at the branches of a big tree that was illuminated by the street light. Curtains. Fuck. Curtains. She didn’t have any curtains. She was thirty years old, about to become an orphan and she didn’t even have curtains. She wished she could go and buy a lot of alcohol and get very drunk, but she didn’t have a bottle opener or any ice, and anyway, she couldn’t drink because she had to get her mum’s car back.
When Bob tapped hesitantly on the door and came in, she was sitting with her head in her hands. She was too tired and sad even to cry. She could see Bob’s olive green trouser leg and carpet slipper beside her, but she didn’t have the strength to raise her head. She heard the clink of glass against glass, and Bob held a bottle of beer in her line of vision. ‘I know you have to drive, but you can have one,’ he said.
‘Thanks.’
‘Had some bad news?’
‘Yes.’
‘Need a bit of time to think things over?’
‘Yeah … I—I don’t know if I’ll be able to take this place after all, Bob …’
‘Well, that’s a pain in the arse. I don’t want to have to go down WHSmith’s to get a new lease form and fill it in and all.’ He paused, and then said diffidently, ‘Look. Take a week or so. Sort yourself out. I haven’t got around to banking your cheque yet, and I can hang on to it for a bit.’
‘You’re a nice man, Bob.’
‘Now, don’t you go spreading that around. I have a reputation to protect, you know.’ He clinked his beer bottle against hers, and she heard him shuffle out and close the door behind him.
12
MEL NOW
Things between Mel and Serena seemed, temporarily, to have reached a peaceful place. Since they had returned from Christmas in Devon, Serena had been keeping better hours, hadn’t skipped school once, as far as Mel could tell, and was generally more civil, even friendly. Mel hated to admit it, but it seemed Bruce’s gift of the laptop had turned things around. A bit of freedom and access to her own computer had made Serena very happy. Not that Mel had had much choice in the matter, as the first time she knew about the computer was when Bruce gave it to Serena on Christmas morning.
And, to be fair, so far so good on the whole computer thing. They had set limits on the hours Serena could access the Internet: a two-hour window each weekday evening and
longer at weekends. Her IT-whizz friend Hamish had assured her he had limited the websites Serena could access and he had given Mel the web address for the monitoring website so she could look at Serena’s Internet history, but so far, she hadn’t done this. Firstly, because while things were this good, it seemed unnecessary, and secondly because now that she had the laptop, Serena seemed happy to come home and spend time in her room, rather than being out roaming the streets. As her hours on the Internet were limited, she must be using her computer for other things – Mel could often hear music playing, so she reckoned that was a major part of it. She hadn’t been at all sure about the whole thing when Bruce first gave Serena the laptop, but he seemed, on balance, to have been right. Having a laptop in her room meant Serena could type assignments for school instead of handwriting them, for one thing. And as her handwriting was as bad as Mel’s, that could only be a positive.
One Thursday morning, Mel was at home. She wasn’t due at work till midday, so she was using the morning to give the flat a quick once-over. She put through a few loads of laundry, mopped the kitchen floor, cleaned the bathroom and set about giving the flat a thorough hoover before she left for work. Serena was off to stay with her dad that weekend, a rare occurrence, and Mel would be working long hours at the shop while she was away, so she wanted to get all the housework out of the way.
She wasn’t planning to clean Serena’s room. She hadn’t done that since Serena had turned thirteen and started yelling at her every time she came through the door. She nagged periodically and got Serena to pick up all her dirty clothes and put them in the laundry basket in the bathroom, or kept on at her until she brought dirty plates and cups out to be washed, but by and large, she left her to it. If it wasn’t actively unhygienic, it seemed best to leave her to have her own space. But today, Serena was out, and her door was slightly ajar. Mel could see the fluff and dirt on the carpet on the other side of the doorway. She had the hoover out. She might as well run it over Serena’s carpet. It wasn’t as if she was going to do a major clean.