Janet smiled. ‘I’m sure they will.’
At four o’clock I went to put the kettle on. Amanda came with me. ‘I must go upstairs to powder my nose,’ she said. ‘Then I’ll give you a hand.’
‘There’s no need to go upstairs,’ I called out as she made for the stairs. ‘There’s a loo down here, Amanda.’ But she didn’t hear me – or pretended not to, continuing determinedly on her way. I guessed that maybe she wanted to have another sneaky look round.
I was carrying the tray of tea through the hall twenty minutes later when she appeared at the top of the stairs. I looked up. ‘Good timing, Amanda. Tea’s ready.’ But I had hardly uttered the words when she tripped and fell; half rolling, half tumbling down the entire length of the staircase.
The crash and Amanda’s cries brought everyone running out into the hall, appalled to find her lying crumpled and white-faced at the foot of the stairs.
‘It’s my ankle,’ she whimpered. ‘I think it’s broken.’
Mary went to help her up but Ian held her back.
‘Better not to move her,’ he said. ‘She could have other injuries. Someone get a blanket. I’ll ring for an ambulance.’
With a cushion under her head and a blanket over her Amanda quickly found her voice, complaining loudly that the stairs were not safe.
‘I’m sure that carpet isn’t correctly fitted,’ she said. ‘I must have caught my foot in it.’
Dad wanted to get her a brandy but again Ian shook his head. ‘Better not give her anything until the paramedics have checked her,’ he warned. ‘It might be necessary to give her an anaesthetic.’
The ambulance arrived and the two paramedics confirmed that Amanda had broken her ankle. She was given a pain killing injection and lifted onto a trolley. We all looked at each other. Clearly someone needed to accompany her.
‘I’ll go,’ Mary volunteered. ‘You can’t leave Jamie, Elaine, and Janet has to get home and see to Brownie.’ As she climbed into the ambulance behind a loudly complaining Amanda she turned. ‘I’ll ring you from the hospital, she said. ‘Try not to worry.’
She rang an hour later to tell us that Amanda had a double fracture of her right ankle and that she would have to remain in hospital and undergo surgery to have the bone pinned.
‘How is she?’ I asked.
‘Furious,’ Mary told me. ‘Complaining about everything she can lay her tongue to. I think the nurses are fed up with her already.’
Amanda’s accident put a damper on the rest of Christmas Day. Janet went home to Brownie and Dad stayed to watch the Christmas film with us, after which he declared that he was tired and ready to turn in. Jamie went reluctantly upstairs after we’d put Toffee to bed in his new basket beside the Aga.
‘Can’t he sleep in my room – please, Mum?’ he begged, but I was adamant.
‘Not until he’s properly trained. We’ll put lots of newspaper down for now and we’ll think about it again once we’ve got him clean and dry.’
‘He’ll be lonely though,’ Jamie protested.
I remembered reading somewhere that putting a clock in the basket reminds a puppy of his mother’s heartbeat. I found my little travelling clock and tucked it into the blanket and to our relief Toffee settled down happily, tired after his busy day.
Amanda had surgery the following day to pin her badly broken ankle. Ian and I visited her once she had recovered from the effects of the anaesthetic. Propped up in bed she was the picture of suffering.
‘The pain is indescribable,’ she grumbled. ‘Nothing they give me comes anywhere near easing it. And the food! You wouldn’t give it to a pig.’ She gave Ian a meaningful look. ‘If only I could afford it I’d get them to transfer me to a private hospital where I could get the kind of treatment I’m used to.’
He ignored the hint. ‘I’m sure you won’t be in here for more than a few days,’ he said. ‘They don’t keep people in hospital for long nowadays.’
‘Oh? And where am I to go, pray?’ Amanda challenged. ‘Back to that high rise flat? I don’t think so. How would I ever manage the stairs?’
‘There is a lift.’
‘Do I really need to remind you that I’m going to be in plaster and on crutches for weeks?’ she reminded us.
‘Well, once you’re in the flat you’ll have no need to go out for anything,’ Ian said.
‘I’ll do your shopping for you,’ I offered. ‘And take you for your hospital appointments.’
‘What about the physiotherapy?’ she moaned. ‘I’m supposed to attend a physio clinic twice a week!’ She glared at us. ‘Or do you want me to end up a permanent cripple?’
‘Don’t be melodramatic,’ Ian said. ‘We’ll manage somehow.’
‘I’m not going back to Ocean Heights and that’s flat!’ she declared.
We looked at each other. ‘Maybe you can stay with Janet,’ Ian ventured.
Amanda let out a loud snort. ‘Stay with Janet! Not if you paid me a thousand pounds a day!’ She shook her head. ‘Have that disgusting animal of hers drooling all over me in my helpless condition. I think not!’ She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. ‘I wonder if your father knows how lucky he is to have a doting daughter like you, Elaine, to provide him with a roof over his head in his time of trouble.’
We glanced at each other. Amanda had her own agenda and she was making it abundantly clear. I could see from the look in Ian’s eyes that he’d got the message loud and clear too.
‘You’re joking!’ Mary stared at me across her kitchen table where we were busy preparing buffet food. ‘You’re seriously considering having that woman to stay with you at Beaumont House? Have you taken leave of your senses?’
‘What else can we do?’ I asked. ‘She can’t go back to the flat.’
‘Why not? You said you’d help her and it’s only for a few weeks, after all.’
I shrugged. ‘You try arguing with Amanda. Once she’s made her mind up there’s no shifting her.’
‘What about Janet. She is her sister.’
‘Amanda won’t go there. Anyway I think they’d end up killing one another. You know what they’re like.’
‘So it’s down to you. Where would you put her anyway?’
‘She suggested that she might have the dining room. I reminded her that it isn’t furnished and she said she’d bring her own furniture from the flat.’
‘Which sounds suspiciously as though she has no intention of going back there.’
I sighed. ‘Looks very much like it, doesn’t it?’
‘Oh, Elaine; just when you’ve found your dream house and settled in so nicely.’
‘I think she resents the fact that we’ve given Dad a home,’ I said. ‘I’ve told her he shared all the costs with us but she still feels she’s entitled to the same treatment.’
‘The cheek! Ian doesn’t owe her anything. She’ll drive the pair of you barmy!’ Mary’s eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t think she chucked herself down the stairs on purpose, do you?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think even Amanda would be that devious. It was a lucky break – if you’ll pardon the pun. But she’d have found a way to get what she wanted in the end somehow.’
In spite of her disability Amanda managed to make arrangements for her furniture to be moved from Ocean Heights to Beaumont House. There was more than enough to turn what had been the dining room into a bedsit for her. She very graciously informed us that we could arrange for the decorating to be done at a later date after her ankle had mended. I tentatively brought up the subject of rent.
‘Obviously you won’t have the same self contained facilities you had at Ocean Heights so maybe half of what you paid there….’
She fixed me with a hard stare. ‘Let me get this right – you’re expecting to take rent from me?’
In spite of my sinking heart I stood my ground. ‘Naturally. We were going to rent the room out anyway, to cover our overheads, and I’m going to have to take on a cleaner for the extra work. Ian and I don’t e
arn a fortune.’
‘Do you take rent from your father?’
‘No, because Dad is part owner of the house. He paid for the renovations and he gave us a lot of the furniture.’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve always thought that blood is thicker than water. I think it’s outrageous that my own son is expecting his mother to pay him rent,’ she said.
‘It’s not long since you were worrying that he might be stretching himself financially,’ I daringly reminded her. I didn’t remind her of her warning that sharing a house with relatives was full of pitfalls, though I was sorely tempted to.
She turned away. ‘Oh well, if you insist I suppose I shall have to try and eke out my meagre income.’
I asked Ian to have a word with her but to my annoyance he agreed to let her stay rent free on a temporary basis.
‘You know it won’t be temporary,’ I told him. ‘Once she digs her heels in she’ll stay on for nothing. You know she will.’
He sighed. ‘Oh don’t worry, I’ll thrash it out with her again later,’ he said dismissively. ‘I’ve got too much to think about at the moment to face up to a battle with Amanda.’
She moved in a week later to much moaning and complaining and kept me running after her for the rest of the week. Finally Ian insisted that we put an ad in the local paper for a daily cleaning woman.
‘You’ll be making yourself ill,’ he said. ‘What with your job, the house and Jamie and I; not to mention keeping an eye on your dad and the dog.’
A week later we’d had three replies. One was a blonde girl with a very short skirt and lots of make-up who was under the impression that Beaumont House was still a guesthouse and she could expect tips at the end of the week. Once she knew it was a strictly domestic environment she lost interest. The second applicant was an elderly woman who looked too frail to lift a broom never mind sweep with one. The third arrived to be interviewed on Saturday morning. She was what you might call flamboyant. Her hair was an unlikely crimson and when she spoke it was with a strong Cockney accent. I put her age at around sixty and once I’d taken in the scarlet coat and black miniskirt revealing knobbly knees, I doubted whether she would be any more suitable than the other two.
‘They call me Cleo,’ she told me as she settled herself at the kitchen table, ‘Although me real name – the one on me insurance card is Betty – Betty Mott. But Cleo was me stage name an’ it’s what I likes best to be called.’
‘I see. So you’re an actress then – er – Cleo?’ I asked doubtfully.
She laughed. ‘Bless you, no. I used to be half of a magic act. We used to top the bill in all the number one variety shows. Trouble is there ain’t no call for variety shows any more and there’s no work on the telly either for the likes of The Great Zadoc and Cleo.’
‘Was that the name of your act?’
‘S’right,’ she said. ‘We done the usual magic tricks – y’know, sawing me in half an’ the disappearing cabinet, then, when work started to dry up we introduced more exotic stuff: fire eating, weight lifting, bed o’nails.’
‘Bed of nails?’
‘Yeah. Bert, that was Zadoc’s real name, used to lie on it and I used to sit on his belly.’
I winced. ‘Didn’t it hurt?’
‘No. I never felt a thing!’ She laughed. ‘Can’t speak for Bert, mind!’
We laughed together and I decided that I liked her. She was thin and wiry but she looked strong and she had a good sense of humour which I decided would be called for with Amanda around. I explained our unorthodox situation. She nodded sympathetically.
‘’Avin’ the mother-in-law to live with you ain’t no joke. You can’t tell me nuthin about it,’ she said. ‘I had the mother-in-law from hell – God rest the old battleaxe!’
‘Oh, well I’m sure you and Mrs Trent will get along fine,’ I said quickly. ‘She used to be on the stage too, so you’ll have something in common. My father has the top floor flat and he likes to do his own cleaning so you don’t have to worry about him.’
We arranged terms and she promised to start the following Monday at nine sharp. ‘You’ll find me a good time keeper,’ she said as I showed her out. ‘Never been late for a show yet.’
As I watched her tottering down the drive, the muscles in her stringy legs bulging, I congratulated myself. ‘I think she’ll do,’ I told myself. ‘I think she’ll do very well.’
Nine
By early March Dad had made a good start on clearing the jungle-like mass of undergrowth from the garden. He unearthed an overgrown lawn and flower beds in which spring bulbs were trying hard to raise their new green shoots. Massive bonfires burned at the bottom of the garden every day and Dad came in late each afternoon filthy but blissfully happy, his face streaked with soot as he climbed the stairs with Toffee at his heels, to take a shower and cook his evening meal.
Jamie’s Christmas puppy was growing into a nice little dog and Dad was doing a really good job in getting him trained. Although Toffee relied on Dad for company all day he was always waiting, tail wagging in anticipation when Jamie came home from school; eager to share his tea and to curl up at the end of his bed at bed time. I’d long since given up the battle on that score. Everything would have been fine – if it hadn’t been for Amanda, as I told Mary as we worked together in her kitchen one morning in early April.
‘I thought she and Cleo would get along fine with them both of them having been in the same business.’
‘But they don’t?’ Mary gave me a ‘why aren’t I surprised?’ look.
I sighed. ‘Amanda complains that Cleo is over familiar. But worse than that, she objects to being put in the same category as a magician’s assistant.’
‘But surely it’s all show business?’
‘Not according to Amanda. She tells me that she is what is called a “legitimate” actress.’
‘And Cleo is, what – illegitimate?’
I shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me. It’s almost three months now since Amanda moved in and so far she’s shown no desire to move out or to pay us any rent.’
‘Have you spoken to her about it?’
‘I have hinted. Her response is to point out how inconvenient it is for her, living on the ground floor at Beaumont House with a shared kitchen and having to struggle upstairs to the first floor bathroom. She makes it sound as though she’s doing us a favour by putting up with all the hardship.’
‘But surely it’s not that hard for her to get upstairs now, is it? Her ankle must be almost back to normal.’
‘Not to hear her talk. She insists that she still finds the stairs a problem, yet she’s always in the first floor bathroom first thing in the morning when Jamie’s trying to get ready for school.’
‘Ask her to wait till the morning rush is over.’
‘I have. It makes no difference. She’s always in the kitchen too, getting under my feet, making her own meals when I’m trying to get ours. I’ve suggested that I cook for all of us but she objects to what she refers to as my “outlandish cuisine”.’ I sighed. ‘And then of course there’s Dad.’
‘Ted?’ Mary’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Bless his heart, what can he possibly have done?’
‘It’s just that he will tease her. He sees right through her, that’s the trouble, and he never could bear boasting. He knows she exaggerates the success of her stage career and he tries to take her down a peg. It infuriates her. I’ve asked him not to do it but it seems he can’t resist it. The more she rises to the bait, the more he does it.’
Mary tried unsuccessfully to stifle a giggle. ‘I can’t say I blame him,’ she said. ‘The way she goes on you’d think she was Vivienne Leigh and Dame Sybil Thorndike rolled into one.’
‘It’s not funny, Mary,’ I told her. ‘You don’t have to live with it and try to keep the peace. I’ve taken her to all her hospital appointments and physio sessions yet I’ve never had a single word of thanks from her.’
‘What about Ian? Won’t he have a word? After all, she is his mother and it
must affect him too.’
‘No, it doesn’t. He’s so full of his school work and his teaching. The minute he gets home he shuts himself in the studio. If he’s not teaching he’s recording work for school or preparing lessons. Then, when Jamie gets home he’s helping him with his practice and they’re shut up together for hours. I hardly get to see either of them these days.’
‘How’s the adoption going, by the way?’
I felt tears of angry frustration pricking my eyelids. ‘Slowly,’ I said. ‘Like the rest of my life, it seems to be on hold.’
Mary stopped what she was doing and crossed the kitchen to put an arm around my shoulders. ‘I’m sorry, darlin’,’ she said. ‘Sorry I laughed too. I can see it’s not funny. It’s really getting to you, isn’t it? You know, you can’t go on like this or you’ll make yourself ill.’ I dashed away the tears impatiently as she handed me a tissue. ‘Stop what you’re doing,’ she said. ‘We need a break so I’ll put the kettle on and you can moan as much as you like. Get it all off your chest.’
Ten minutes later we were seated at the table with coffee and chocolate biscuits; Mary’s remedy for all ills.
‘When we moved into Beaumont House I thought you and I would be able to use the kitchen there,’ I said. ‘I know we’d have to have had it approved just as we did yours, but it would have been so useful. On days when I needed to be at home I could still have worked and we’d have had double the freezer space. Now Amanda clearly considers it half hers to use whenever she feels like it.’
‘Mmm, that is a problem.’ Mary looked at me thoughtfully. ‘I’m still intrigued at this so-called “outlandish cuisine” of yours,’ she said. ‘What can you be cooking that’s so bizarre?’
‘Nothing. It’s just that she won’t touch anything with a sauce,’ I told her. ‘Or even anything that involves a recipe. Nothing wrong with plain cooking, she says. Her idea of an exotic dish is spag bol!’
Too Late to Paint the Roses Page 15