‘Well …’
As Fay looked at her thoughtfully, Charlotte wished she hadn’t said anything. She’d trusted Fay to be dismissive. ‘Anyway, I’ll have another go at gathering everyone next week,’ she said tightly.
Fay looked at her watch. ‘Do you fancy a quick one now? Greens? Just one before we go home. Len can lock up.’
‘I wasn’t going to drink today.’
‘Oh, OK well no problem …’
‘But yes. Let’s!’
The bar was quiet – the six o’clock crowd having not yet arrived. Sarah, one of the owners, was the only one behind the bar. She came round to the front and hugged Charlotte. ‘Hey stranger! Feels like you’ve not been in for ages.’
‘Wasn’t that long ago, surely.’ Fay gave her a kiss. ‘We conceived the party here, didn’t we …?’
‘Ah yes.’ Sarah laughed. ‘Invite of the year. Everybody’s talking about it.’
‘Course they are!’ Charlotte laughed too. ‘Laura’s coming down for it.’
‘Lovely. It will be really good to see her … So, what are you ladies having? Is it a bottle of our finest house white or are we on the fizz tonight?’
Fay looked at Charlotte. ‘The Cava?’
‘Oh my god – they should have this on prescription.’ Minutes later Charlotte carried her glass and a bowl of peanuts to her favourite table in the corner by the window. ‘What is it about fizz? I’ve only had two mouthfuls and already I feel so much better.’ She scooped up some nuts and took another sip. ‘Just what I needed.’
Fay nodded. ‘So where are we with this party then? Do you need me to do anything?’
‘Just chase up your RSVPs. They’re going to want final numbers the week before.’
Fay shrugged. ‘I’ve not got that many coming that you haven’t already included. All the chaps at work and their partners – saves me a staff outing. Elaine from the office and her old man if he can stay sober long enough to come. I did ask my cousin but–’ Fay shrugged again. ‘Her ladyship won’t want to travel all this way for a party for me. Mingling in a crowd is a bit beneath her. And there’s no point involving Mum – in the old days she’d have loved a party but …’
For a moment Fay looked uncharacteristically sad. Charlotte spoke brightly. ‘And Cory?’
‘Haven’t mentioned it. Hardly think a gathering of drunken middle-aged women doing the conga is going to be his scene.’
Charlotte mock shuddered. ‘God forbid. I must make sure Sherie is on top of the flowers.’
‘Not literally.’
Charlotte laughed. ‘Thanks for suggesting this. It’s good to spend time with you. And I hope you are right about Roger,’ she went on. ‘He is being very nice – just as he always has been really. Maybe you and Laura are right and I am over-thinking it all …’
‘I’m quite sure you are,’ Fay said.
Charlotte drained her glass. ‘I know I drink more than government guidelines,’ she said ruefully. ‘And I am going on a detox for a few days very soon. But when everything else is going wrong, booze makes me feel confident it will all be OK.’ She looked at Fay, hesitating for a moment before saying: ‘When I’ve had a glass of wine, I feel invincible again – that I can deal with it all, that whatever happens, I will overcome.’ She gave a short brittle laugh. ‘So is that the real me coming out? Or is the real me these days, this fucked-up, totally fretful mad woman, obsessed with what her husband is doing, even if he isn’t doing anything?’
‘They are both the real you,’ said Fay. ‘Different parts of you. But drink,’ she said, looking seriously at Charlotte, ‘probably isn’t the answer!’
‘I know,’ said Charlotte, ‘but it does make me feel happy.’ She picked up her phone to look at the time. Then she shrugged off her cardigan, fanning herself briefly with a beer mat and leant back. ‘Hey, you know what?’ she said with fresh conviction. ‘Joe’s not being brought back till eight. I’ll leave the car and get a cab home. Let’s have another …’
Chapter 17
They were kind at the breast clinic too. The first doctor was Polish, with beautiful skin. She frowned when I opened my shirt and showed her.
She made me sit on the bed and put my arms above my head and then lie down, while she spent a long time stroking the stress-lump looking quizzical. Then she smiled.
‘We will be positive and say I don’t think this is cancer,’ she said. She gave another tiny frown. ‘But I don’t know what it is.’
She wants me to come back on Thursday but when I explain about work commitments, she says she will see if anyone is free to give me the biopsy today. She makes phone calls while I sit and twist my hands together, trying to remember what else I have Googled that the medical profession might not immediately identify. That looks like cancer but just might not be.
The radiologist is Polish too. She is older than me and motherly-looking. I keep my eyes on her face as she puts her ultrasound probe over my stress lump and I know immediately.
‘Is there fluid in it?’ I ask, hearing the hope in my voice and knowing it is misplaced.
‘No,’ she says, and I see her sympathy. She asks the young nurse to fetch things and begins to talk quietly about what the biopsy will entail.
‘What do you think it is?’ I ask her. ‘On my report,’ she says, ‘I shall write ‘Indeterminate.’’ There is a pause. ‘Slightly suspicious,’ she adds, as if her conscience has demanded honesty.
When it’s all over she smiles at me but her eyes are sad. ‘Try to remain strong,’ she says. ‘There is nothing to be done before the results are here. That will be as soon as we can.’ She pauses as if choosing her words. When she speaks again, her voice is full of encouragement. ‘We do not cross the bridge yet.’
She shakes my hand and sees me out.
The door clunks shut and I hear it closing on the rest of my life.
Chapter 18
‘Here’s to the second half of your life!’
‘Thank you!’ Roz smiled around her cramped kitchen at her three friends. ‘Fifty,’ she added ruefully. ‘How did that happen?’
‘God knows,’ said Charlotte. ‘But you’re looking pretty good on it, love. So let’s get the fizz open!’
Sherie shook her head sorrowfully. ‘I still can’t believe I’m going to be that old.’ She pulled a face. ‘From now on, every time we’re paid a compliment there’ll be that unspoken for your age …’
‘And when you’re sixty, you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about!’ Charlotte sounded uncharacteristically sharp. ‘Let’s just be grateful we’re alive!’
As the others looked at her in surprise, she gave a brief smile and said in a milder voice. ‘So we’ll drink to that, shall we?’
In the slightly awkward pause that followed, Roz reached into the cupboard for glasses. She’d deliberately invited them all round in the afternoon – saying it was for tea and cake – so she could keep it cheap and didn’t have to put on a lavish spread or spend a fortune on booze. But Fay and Sherie had both brought a bottle of champagne with them and Charlotte had produced two.
Charlotte popped the cork and began to pour, mouthing ‘sorry’ at Roz and handing her the first of the mismatched wine goblets. As Roz sipped at the deliciously cold bubbles, she was grateful. Amy was still largely monosyllabic and had stayed glued to her iPad for the entire journey back from her parents this morning and they had barely spoken since. Her actual birthday, the day before, had been a low-key, slightly strained affair and it was good to see her friends cheerily raising their glasses to her, instead of constantly judging.
‘How was your mother?’ asked Sherie, taking a chair at the small table. She looked, as always, effortlessly stylish in her jeans and heels, loose top and arty, chunky jewellery. Beside her Roz felt rather tired and drab.
‘Oh her usual joyous self,’ Roz pulled a face.
‘She got you a cake!’ Amy spoke accusingly from the doorway.
‘Ah – come and give me a hug!’ Charlotte held out
her arms. ‘You’re looking so gorgeous.’
Amy coloured and smiled at Charlotte. ‘How’s Bex doing?’
‘Partying extremely hard, as far as I can gather,’ said Charlotte brightly. ‘But sparing me the details. How is school – and what do you want for your sixteenth darling? Euros to spend in Paris?’
‘Yes, she’d arranged a cake,’ Roz told Fay and Sherie, as Amy chatted on to Charlotte with more enthusiasm than she ever displayed for her mother. ‘We had dinner at the golf club and they brought out a strawberry gâteau with five candles and everybody clapped.’ Roz looked at them with a straight face. ‘Yes, I did feel about six years old, and yes she did manage to get in about six digs about my appearance before the main course.’
Roz raised her eyebrows. ‘Have you thought,’ she intoned, ‘about a more structured look now you’re that bit older? There was an article in Good Housekeeping about bobs to suit all face-shapes.’
Roz raised her eyebrows. ‘Apparently mine is entirely wrong.’
‘Your bob or your face-shape?’ Fay enquired.
‘My general lack of style,’ said Roz, pushing back the soft brown waves from her face. She nodded at Sherie’s classy blonde chignon. ‘She’d like me to look a bit more like you.’
‘You look lovely,’ said Sherie. ‘You have a beautiful face and your hair is fine as it is. What did she give you as a present?’
‘Five hundred quid’s worth of M&S vouchers.’
‘Not to be sniffed at,’ observed Fay.
‘Presumably so I could buy clothes like hers,’ continued Roz, adding guiltily: ‘but yes, it was generous.’
‘You can always blow it on yummy food, and champagne and scented candles,’ said Fay. ‘And there’s knickers …’
‘Indeed,’ Roz nodded. ‘I do get my underwear there. And that particular drawer could certainly do with an overhaul …’
‘Oh, I must give you my copy of the Marie Kondo book,’ said Sherie with enthusiasm. ‘Honestly it really is life-changing – look!’ She picked up her phone and began scrolling through her photos. ‘I’ve got two more to do …’ Sherie held up her iPhone so they could see the screen. The picture showed an open drawer filled with neatly-rolled tights. She flicked to the next one and Roz and Fay peered at an array of make-up in small boxes sorted by type. Sherie appeared to own an astonishing number of mascaras.
‘See?’ Sherie sounded animated. ‘And it really does spark joy every time I look at that.’
Fay made a peculiar noise in her throat but Sherie kept talking. ‘Mind you, it becomes addictive. Once the inside of my cupboards were a work of art, I started moving the furniture and I did so much hoovering that I hurt my back.’
‘Hmmm – that’s unlikely to happen to me,’ said Fay dismissively. ‘I thought you had a cleaner?’
‘Yeah, I do – Toni – but she’s a bit hit and miss. Her child keeps getting excluded from school so she can’t always come.’
Fay pulled a face. ‘So glad I don’t have kids.’ She swallowed the last of her champagne. ‘Hey Char, let’s have some refills.’
An hour later they’d moved into Roz’s small sitting room. Sherie had taken off her shoes and was sitting cross-legged on the floor doing occasional yoga stretches, Charlotte and Fay were sprawled on the sofa. Roz, several champagnes down, and propped up against the bean bag was beginning to feel in need of a bit more sustenance than a slice of Waitrose’s Mary Berry celebration cake.
‘Shall I make sandwiches?’ she enquired of the room, aware that her voice was teetering slightly and she was in that place just before slurring began. She’d left her parents’ house early, shaking away her mother’s offer of breakfast, wanting to get home and the house tidied, before her friends were due. Longing for some sea air away from the stifling atmosphere of Carshalton polite society. There was bread, she had eggs and there was probably ham left lurking at the bottom of the fridge. She wondered if she dare ask Amy – who had disappeared again after her conversation with Charlotte to help. She must be hungry too …
‘Don’t go to that effort, love.’ Charlotte waved an arm as if brushing the idea aside. ‘We’ll go on Just Eat and order something. I’m famished as well. Where’s Amy with her iPad? I find a teenager very useful in these situations …’
Before Roz had a chance to reply, Charlotte had levered herself off the sofa and was at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Amy darling! Us oldies need your assistance …’
They finally settled, after much discussion and eye-rolling from Amy, who was tapping on a variety of menus and reading out the options, on an Indian take-away, including vegetable rice and paneer for Sherie, a ‘fuck-off sized shish kebab’ for an increasingly strident Fay, and a variety of chicken dishes that Charlotte had taken an executive decision on, for them all.
‘Stick the order in, darling!’ she instructed Amy. ‘You can use my card.’
‘Please let’s just phone the restaurant direct,’ begged Roz. ‘I’ve heard these booking sites charge so much commission that for the business, it hardly makes it worthwhile.’
Charlotte looked at her fondly.
‘Your mum,’ she said to Amy, ‘is such a very good person.’
Amy looked at Roz. ‘Don’t be so sure of that,’ she said darkly.
‘Garlic!’ said Jean, three hours later. ‘Pooh.’
‘Yes, I’ve had a curry, Mum.’ After the perfunctory hello kiss, Fay settled herself in the chair in the corner of the lounge next to her mother.
The TV was blaring as usual with nobody watching it. The three old boys on the sofa were all asleep with their mouths open and the other residents were variously engaged with staring into middle distance or wandering in circles muttering.
‘Don’t know whether they’re coming or going – this lot,’ remarked Jean. ‘Where’ve you been anyway? Haven’t seen you for months.’
‘I was here Tuesday,’ said Fay. ‘And it’s only Sunday now.’
‘The doctor asked me if I knew who the Prime Minister was,’ said Jean. ‘I said – do you think I’m stupid? It isn’t Tony Blair!’
‘Who is it?’ enquired Fay with interest.
‘I don’t know,’ Her mother’s tone suggested she didn’t care much either. ‘That one with the shoes.’
‘Can we go in the conservatory?’ Fay stood up. ‘It does my head in, in here.’
She’d come on impulse. Sherie and Charlotte had shared a cab from Roz’s but Fay had said she’d walk – it was only twenty minutes from the Broadway to the Esplanade. But as she’d come out of the end of the road, she’d seen a bus go past, heading for Margate, and had run to jump on it.
Maxine the manager had greeted her warmly when she arrived, used to Fay popping in at odd hours. ‘All as ever,’ she’d said in answer to Fay’s raised eyebrows. ‘Still complaining I don’t know how to make steak and kidney.’ She continued as Fay nodded in recognition. ‘And she wants more oranges.’
‘Bloody hell – what’s she doing with them? I brought a dozen last time.’ Fay smiled as the other woman shrugged. She sometimes wondered if her mother was squirreling all her bounty away somewhere and at some point a giant, rotting fruit mountain would burst out of her wardrobe or ooze up through the floorboards.
‘That’s better,’ Fay said now – as they sat down in the cool and comparative quiet of the glass extension at the back of the home. ‘I can hear you in here. What sort of day have you had?’
Her mother pointed to a large potted palm in the corner. ‘They didn’t water that.’
‘But what have you been doing?’
‘Shopping I think, but I don’t know,’ her mother stood up. ‘Have you seen my room?’
‘Yes,’ said Fay, as she always did. ‘It’s got a lovely view of the garden.’
Her mother looked surprised. ‘Yes it has. Have you seen it? Come and see it now.’ Fay rose and followed her mother down the carpeted corridor where they went every time she came here.
The room was tidy – the hairbrush and co
mb lined up on the dressing table that had come from the house, the blue and white cushions propped up in the chair Fay had brought here from her mother’s bedroom at home, the bed covered with the quilt she’d had as long as Fay could remember. Fay looked at the framed photographs of herself and her father. She wondered how long it would be before her mother no longer remembered who he was.
Her mother settled herself into the armchair as Fay perched on the end of the bed. ‘Tell me why I’m here again?’ her mother asked, sounding as if she’d forgotten some minor detail.
‘Because you kept leaving the gas on,’ said Fay. ‘And the front door open,’ she added. And you tried to give the window cleaner three hundred pounds but thought twenty was enough for the plumber. And we never did find your post office card or what you did with the key to the garage …
‘You don’t have to worry here,’ she said. ‘Maxine looks after everything.’
Her mother nodded. ‘She’s not a bad one.’
With perfect timing the manageress appeared in the doorway. ‘I’ve brought your cocoa, Jean. Do you want one?’ she looked at Fay.
‘Smells like Horlicks to me.’
Maxine gave a wry smile. ‘It is. But Jean calls it cocoa so we do too.’
‘Don’t like that chocolate muck,’ put in Fay’s mother. She took the steaming mug and picked up the shortbread finger from the plate below it. ‘Are you going to marry Len?’ she demanded.
Fay laughed, startled. ‘I shouldn’t think so.’
‘Well he’s going to ask you, so you say yes.’ She regarded Fay beadily. ‘If you know what’s good for you.’
Fay gave a small snort. ‘I really don’t think he is, Mum.’ She turned to Maxine. ‘Len works for me. She hasn’t seen him for years.’
‘Oh, she has – he was here the other evening. Nice man isn’t he? They played scrabble.’ Maxine picked up the water jug from the bedside table.
Fay felt her mouth open. ‘She can’t do that any more …’
‘No, but she enjoyed putting the tiles out. They were laughing.’
‘I like scrabble,’ said Jean firmly. ‘And I win.’
The Big Five O Page 13