‘You can start on the living room. I’m going to finish up in here.’
‘And what about those?’ Matt pointed to the letters on the table. Without a second thought, I picked them up and threw them in the bag he was holding. Matt raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? You’re just going to bin ʼem?’
‘Yep. No point dwelling on the past. Time to move on,’ I said, with a certainty I didn’t really feel. He left the room and I carried on emptying the cupboards in the kitchen.
I was midway through wiping the shelves in the cupboard under the sink when there was a knock at the front door.
‘I’ll get it!’ hollered Matt.
I was halfway out of the cupboard, my arse stuck in the air, when I heard someone walk into the kitchen.
‘Who was it?’ I clambered to my feet, expecting to see my brother.
‘Hello, Abigail.’
I turned to see Jack, with a look on his face that told me I wasn’t going to enjoy the next few minutes.
I wiped my hands on my jeans and attempted to tidy my hair up a bit. ‘I thought you’d dropped off the planet,’ I said, aiming for cheerful but landing on slightly hysterical. ‘Was it something I said?’
He didn’t reply so I hurtled on. ‘Can I get you a drink? Tea? Oh, but I don’t think I have any milk… let me just…’ I went to the fridge but his voice stopped me before I could open the door.
‘I’m going back to America, Abigail. I have to leave.’ His voice was flat and cold.
‘Has something happened? Is your mum okay?’
‘She’s fine… It’s not that…’ He struggled with the words. ‘I’m sorry… I just have to go… I wanted to say goodbye.’
‘When will you be back?’
He wouldn’t look at me; he kept his gaze firmly fixed on the floor. I didn’t need to hear him say it out loud to know what the answer was.
‘You’re not coming back, are you?’ I felt a tightness pulling across my chest. Keep it together, Abby, just breathe.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Stop saying you’re sorry!’ I yelled. He flinched at my raised voice and when he looked up his eyes were so full of sadness, it made my heart hurt. I reached out towards him, but he backed away.
‘I have to go but you have to believe me when I say that I never meant for this to happen. I never meant to hurt you.’
‘And yet you’re doing it anyway. Please just tell me what’s going on.’
He shook his head. ‘You deserve so much better than me, Abigail. Take care of yourself.’ He turned and walked out of the kitchen; I followed close on his heels, determined to make him talk to me.
‘Jack… wait… please.’
He reached for the door but didn’t open it. ‘It would never have worked,’ he said, quietly, without turning around. I couldn’t believe my ears; how dared he?
‘I don’t fucking believe this!’ I exclaimed. ‘You’re using all my excuses against me. You were the one who said I was wrong, you convinced me that we owed it to ourselves to give it a try and now you’re throwing my words back in my face!’ I lost all control; my first punch landed in the middle of his back but he didn’t even flinch, so I started raining puny blows down onto his shoulders. ‘You’re an arsehole and a coward,’ I screamed, ‘and I hate you for doing this to me. Why did you have to come back and fuck everything up?’ I couldn’t stop myself, the rage was so strong, but Jack didn’t even turn around.
‘Abs, stop! Calm down.’ My brother came out of the living room and grabbed me, holding my arms by my sides whilst I shouted. Jack opened the front door and stepped out onto the path. He turned back to me, and I was shocked to see tears in his eyes; shocked but not sad. He didn’t deserve my sympathy. I pushed my way out of my brother’s grasp and lunged towards the door.
‘You don’t deserve me, Jack Chance! And I refuse to waste any more time on you. Have a nice fucking life!’ I slammed the door so hard that the glass rattled and then leant against it, breathing heavily.
‘What the bloody hell just happened?’ asked Matt.
‘It’s nothing.’
‘Didn’t look like nothing. I thought you two were friends or whatever?’
‘So did I. Apparently I was wrong.’
‘He’s gone, then, has he?’
I nodded, wrapping my arms around myself to ward off the sudden chill I felt. I started to shiver slightly but, to my amazement, I wasn’t crying. The tears that had threatened a few moments before had been replaced by a creeping sense of numbness.
‘I’m going to pack up Mum’s room.’ I pushed myself away from the door and started up the stairs. Each step felt as if I were dragging my body through a swamp; my limbs felt like dead weights and my head was swimming.
‘Why did you let him walk away if you love him so much?’ The question stopped me dead in my tracks.
‘It wasn’t up to me. He’d already made up his mind that he was leaving. I wasn’t about to start begging him to stay.’
‘Why is he going?’
‘Don’t know, don’t care. Probably all for the best in the long run.’ I turned to face my brother. ‘Now, I’m going to finish clearing stuff upstairs. If you want to come and help me that would be lovely, but only if you can manage to keep your trap shut about all of this.’ I gave him a look that dared him to argue.
‘Fine. After you, then, you stubborn old tart.’ He gave me a little bow and walked over to the stairs. I couldn’t resist giving him a little peck on the cheek.
‘Thanks. I love you, you big idiot. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Well, I am very loveable,’ he said, ’and so are you, in your own weird way.’
‘Thanks, I think.’
‘Just be kind to yourself, all right?’
‘That’s all I’m trying to do.’
‘Right, then. Let’s go and see what sort of rubbish Mum kept in her loft, shall we?’
‘Sounds like fun.’
Chapter 26
‘Mum!’
Lucy was yelling at me from her bedroom. She was due to leave for university the next day, so she was in there finishing the last of her packing. I didn’t immediately drop everything and run to her room because she’d been shouting for my help every ten minutes or so for the previous two hours. Her cries of panic either meant she’d lost something she needed or that she’d remembered something she was supposed to have done before she left. The first few times she’d called for me I’d immediately dropped everything and run to her room, eager to help. I’d stopped doing that after I almost broke my neck tripping on a pile of shoes she’d pulled out of her wardrobe and left by her door.
‘Mum!’
‘What is it, Lucy?’
‘Mum!’
Bloody child! It’s not like I’m busy making her farewell dinner or anything, is it? I grumbled. I reached her door and poked my head round it. ‘What’s up?’
‘I can’t find Poncho.’ She was on her hands and knees, pulling things out from under her bed, and it took me a second to work out what she was on about.
‘You mean that manky-looking dragon you used to drag around?’ He’d been Lucy’s favourite when she was little, I hadn’t even realised she still had him. ‘I thought we chucked him out ages ago.’
The look of utter disgust she gave me was something akin to the one she used to dish out whenever I tried to get her to eat broccoli when she was little.
‘No way! He’s here somewhere, I know he is. I need to find him, Mum, it’s important.’ She was digging through the piles of clothes and books that littered her floor.
‘Hold on, hold on. We need a system – all you’re doing now is throwing stuff on top of more stuff. You won’t find anything like that.’ I cleared a small space at the end of her bed.
‘Let’s fold everything up, put back what you’re not taking and then see where we are, all right?’ She nodded and then wiped her face with the back of her hand; she was crying.
‘We’ll find him, don’t worry. He’ll be here
somewhere.’ The confidence in my voice was masking the fact that I had a horrible feeling I might have thrown him away. Lucy always refused to get rid of anything, she was such a hoarder when she was young. I’d had to resort to clearing out her room whilst she was at school. Every few months I’d get rid of anything I thought she didn’t play with any more. I’d put it into rubbish bags and hide them under my bed. My theory was that if she didn’t ask where any of it had gone then she obviously didn’t need it, at which point I would sneak the bags out in the weekly rubbish collection. I’m sure it made me sound like an awful mother, but if I hadn’t thrown stuff out we would both have become imprisoned in this flat by mounds of dolls’ clothes, stuffed toys and old birthday cards. As I sorted through Lucy’s things with her I said a silent prayer that Poncho the dragon had managed to escape my monthly cull.
After about twenty minutes of folding clothes into piles and putting shoes back in the bottom of the wardrobe, I’d managed to clear quite a bit of space on the floor and the bed but there was still no sign of Poncho.
‘He has to be here, Mum. I have to find him.’ Lucy started to cry again and she flopped herself down on the end of her bed. Oh, Christ, perhaps I had slung him out after all?
I sat and surveyed Lucy’s room; the posters on the walls had changed over the years, as had the contents of the bookshelves, but I still remembered the little girl’s bedroom it used to be. Everything had been pink. I’d managed to get hold of some cheap paint at a car-boot sale, but I hadn’t realised quite how pink it was until I’d opened the tin. I’d had to mix it with some white paint that Ted had had lurking around in the yard behind the café. But I’d done it all myself and I’d been so proud of it.
In those days, all I’d been able to afford were curtains from the charity shop and a second-hand chest of drawers that had weighed a bloody ton and taken three of us to get up the stairs. Mum had commented at the time that I wasn’t ever going to be able to get it out of the room again, it was so heavy, let alone move it to clean behind it. The idea of not being able to clean behind furniture had driven her nuts but it never really bothered me. I was never what you would call a natural housewife. I’d made the room look quite good, even if I did say so myself, and in my eyes Lucy had deserved to have the prettiest bedroom ever. She had been such a beautiful little girl, inside and out, so happy and helpful. I could still picture her, sitting on her little chair with her stuffed toys lined up on top of the chest of drawers, playing teachers or serving them tea. That was it!
‘Lucy, come and help me move these drawers,’ I said, scurrying over to the chest. It was wedged in an alcove between the window and the wall and I couldn’t see down the side of it or behind it.
‘We can’t move it, Mum. It’s too heavy.’
‘Yes, we can, with you on that side and me on this one, we can just jiggle it forward.’
Lucy shrugged but positioned herself on the opposite side just the same.
‘I don’t think this is going to work, but all right.’
Slowly, with me pulling one side forward then Lucy doing the same to her side, we gradually rocked the chest about six inches away from the wall.
‘Wait, wait, that’s enough, I think. Hold on.’ I clambered onto the top of the chest and stretched down behind it.
‘Careful, Mum, you’re gonna rupture yourself. What are you doing?’
‘Ha!’ I grabbed hold of my prize and pulled it out from behind the drawers.
‘Poncho! You found him! Mum, you’re a bloody genius. What made you look for him there?’
‘You used to line all your toys up on top of this chest and play schools with them. Do you remember?’
‘Yes, I do. How did you get wedged down there, then, Poncho?’ She brushed dust and cobwebs off her beloved dragon and wiped his face with the hem of her T-shirt.
‘Now perhaps you can explain to me what was getting you in such a tizz about finding him?’
Lucy sighed and when she looked at me she had tears in her eyes.
‘Hey, what’s all this?’ I took her in my arms. ‘Don’t cry. You’re going to be fine. You’re going to have a great time in Bristol. New friends, new flat.’ I reached into my pocket for a tissue and dabbed her eyes gently; it was such a familiar feeling, wiping away her tears and taking care of her. ‘You’re going to be okay, Lucy, I promise.’
She pulled away from me. ‘I know I’m going to be okay – that’s not why I’m crying.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘It’s you. I’m crying because I’m worried about you.’
‘About me? Why?’
‘Because I don’t like the idea of leaving you here all on your own. I know you, you’ll just work to take your mind off being by yourself. You won’t go out, you won’t have any fun. You’ll spend your time keeping an eye on Uncle Matt, but you won’t give yourself a thought.’
‘Don’t be silly. I’m all right. You don’t have to worry.’
‘Well, I do worry. I was so happy for you when Jack came back into your life and then he went away. You haven’t really explained that to me properly so I still don’t get it. Anyone could see he was nuts about you and you lit up like a Christmas tree any time he came near you. What went wrong, Mum?’
I started folding a pile of discarded jumpers on the end of Lucy’s bed.
‘Nothing went wrong, Lucy. We just realised that whatever was between us was in the past. It was better to leave it there.’
‘Better for who? Not for you – since Jack left you’ve been like a ghost. You go about your day like you always did but you’re not really here.’
‘I’m fine, Lucy. Please. You don’t need to worry about me. My life is not your problem.’
‘I know it’s not but, bloody hell, Mum, you can’t expect me to not be worried about you, stuck here on your own.’
‘To be honest, I’m looking forward to some time by myself. I’ve been thinking about expanding my cake-making business for a while now, and if I don’t have to worry about you I’ll have the time to do that. The cakes I made for your Auntie Liz’s event a few weeks ago were a big hit. I’m thinking I might do a bit more of that.’
Lucy looked at me as if I was making all this up – which I was – but even as I was saying it out loud it didn’t sound like such a bad idea. I knew Liz would love to have me helping her with events. Perhaps I’ll mention it to her when she gets here for dinner later, I thought. Blimey – the dinner! I stopped folding clothes and headed for the door.
‘I need to get the food sorted for tonight or else we’ll all be eating takeaway. Are we okay here now? Have I managed to convince you that your old mum isn’t going to self-destruct the minute you leave the house?’
‘Yeah, we’re fine. You go and get on with stuff. I’ve just got a bit more to do and then I’ll come and give you a hand.’
I looked round her room. ‘I’m thinking you might have more than just “a bit more to do”, my lovely. You get yourself sorted. I can manage dinner.’ I kissed her on the cheek and left her to it.
I managed to make it to the kitchen and close the door behind me before the tears started to fall. You can’t do this now, I told myself. You have to be strong for Lucy, so she doesn’t worry. I couldn’t tell her the truth because I didn’t have the words to express just how much I was going to miss her. Tomorrow, that was when I could fall apart; until then I had to go on as if nothing were wrong.
*
I slid the lasagne – Lucy’s favourite – into the oven, just in time to hear a knock on my front door. Wiping my hands on a tea towel, I walked down the hall and I could see my brother’s outline filling the frosted glass panels in the door. I opened it and saw that he was talking to someone on his phone. He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, thrusting a bottle of wine into my hands and walking past me, into the living room.
I took the wine into the kitchen and tried to find room for it in my already overstuffed fridge. Why had I made so much food? It looked as if I was catering a pa
rty for sixty, not six. Stress – that was my only explanation. When I was stressed, I cooked. Then I ate. My generously proportioned backside was a sure sign that I must have been stressed for years.
‘Right, just call me if you hear anything different. Yes, I’m at Abby’s flat. No, don’t come here, just ring. Right, thanks.’ My brother finished his call and stuffed his phone back into his pocket as he came into the kitchen. ‘Got any beer, Abs?’ He peered into the fridge and then reached in to grab one.
‘Oi! Get out of there. You’re going to pull everything out and onto the floor. Get your hands away from my croquembouche!’ I managed to rescue the toppling plate of choux pastry before he pulled his beer bottle through it.
‘Crock on what?’
‘It’s a French dessert, made of little pastry balls.’
He let out a whistle. ‘Wow, sounds posh. It’s only us coming tonight, isn’t it? No one special that I don’t know about, is there?’ He wiggled his eyebrows and smirked.
‘Drink your beer and stop being so annoying.’
He chuckled as he pulled out a chair and sat at the kitchen table. ‘Anything I can do?’
‘You can tell me who you were on the phone to just now. Not more leaky plumbing at the gym?’
‘No, nothing like that. It was Jimmy. He called me to say that Egan’s gone. Back to Spain.’
I was relieved. ‘No more ridiculous talk about us being secret millionaires, then?’
‘Nope. He’d have to be stupid to think that after coming back here, and even stupider to hang about when he’s technically still a wanted man.’
‘Thank God for that. The idea of him lurking about somewhere, watching us, was starting to give me the heebie-jeebies.’
‘Nah, no need to worry about him. That’s all over and done with. He’s probably back on his sun lounger in his budgie smugglers, sipping sangria and working on his tan.’
The image of Terry Egan in skin-tight swimwear made me shudder a bit. ‘Thanks for that mental picture. Now I need a drink.’ Opening the fridge, I pulled out the bottle of wine I’d started whilst I was cooking and poured myself a glass.
Secrets and Tea at Rosie Lee's Page 28