Untitled Book 3

by Susan Elliot Wright

  Marjorie looks down at herself with a puzzled expression.

  ‘Sorry, Mum, but what you’re wearing . . . it’s not really appropriate.’

  Marjorie tuts and moves towards the French doors. ‘I haven’t gone completely doolally, you know. These are my gardening things, for heaven’s sake. There’s so much needs doing out there. I might as well take advantage while the weather’s good.’ And in no time she’s out of the French doors, down the steps and striding across the lawn towards the shed.

  *

  The sideboard has been emptied and there are papers strewn all over the table and floor again. Marjorie hasn’t even been in here this morning, so she must have done this during the night. What on earth is she looking for? Eleanor sighs and start picking things up, pausing occasionally to read one of the postcards she sent all those years ago. Many bear no clue at all as to where she was staying at the time, apart from the picture on the front. It had been a deliberate decision not to tell her mum or even Peggy where she was, because she was afraid they’d try to find her. Or maybe she was afraid that they wouldn’t.

  When Marjorie comes in to have coffee, she chats happily about what she’s achieved in the garden this morning and what she hopes to get done this afternoon. Then she asks if Eleanor can take the trousers she bought in Bromley last week back to Marks & Spencer’s to change them for a smaller size.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Eleanor says.

  ‘Thank you, darling. And could you pop into the garden centre on your way back? I need another bag of bark chippings – that fat tabby from next door uses the patch by the rhododendrons as a toilet and scatters the bark all over the place.’

  She sounds completely and utterly normal. How can this be the same woman who flew at the sitter in a rage last night? ‘Yes, sure. If you’ll be okay on your own for a couple of hours, I’ll pop into Lewisham and get some shopping, too.’

  ‘Good idea, I think we’re low on eggs.’ Marjorie drains her coffee cup, picks up her gardening gloves from the draining board and heads back down into the garden.

  Normal. Normal, normal, normal.

  On her way out, Eleanor pops up to see Peggy, who is just unpacking her own shopping. ‘I was wondering if you’re around for a few hours, and if you could pop down later to make sure she takes her pills and remembers to eat her lunch. I’ve got to run a few errands and do a bit of shopping.’

  ‘Of course! I’ve said before, just ask me any time. How is she today?’

  ‘Good. In fact, if you saw her now, you wouldn’t think there was anything wrong. I’m not complaining, but it’s hard to know where you are with her.’

  ‘Tell me about it! It’s been like that for a while. Sometimes she’s so much her old self that you honestly wonder . . .’ She pauses. ‘Well, I used to wonder, anyway. You know, whether they’d got it wrong. Not so much now, though, obviously. There are a lot more bad days now.’

  ‘It’s not even whole days, though, is it? She was all over the place this morning, and now she seems fine. It’s worse in the evenings. Which reminds me – do you know anyone called Jeannette?’

  ‘Jeannette?’ Peggy looks up from the bag she’s unpacking. The recognition on her face is instant.

  ‘Yes, I was going to tell you – she had a bit of a set-to with Jenny last night.’

  ‘Really? I thought she liked Jenny.’

  ‘She does, but I think she mistook her for this Jeannette, and she went for her. Hit her in the face and tried to pull her hair.’

  Peggy looks at her for a moment, then shakes her head and carries on unpacking the next bag. ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘Jenny’s being very reasonable about it, thank God – says she’s had far worse to cope with than a bit of hair-pulling.’

  Peggy shakes her head again. ‘Why didn’t she phone me? Jenny, I mean? She knows about the extension. And she’s got my mobile number. I’d have come down straight away.’ She balls up the carrier bags she’s just emptied and shoves them into a drawer, then she pulls out a chair and sits down. ‘You don’t remember Jeannette, then? She babysat for you a few times while your mum was in hospital.’

  ‘I don’t remember that. I thought you looked after me. I remember coming up here after school. And even going up to the other house when I was very small, before you moved here.’

  ‘That was the first time, when the boys were little and I was around more. This was later, when I was back at work. I still looked after you when I could but if I had a late shift, and your dad was at work and your grandma couldn’t come over, that’s where Jeannette came in. She’d pick you up from school, give you some tea and stay until your dad got home.’

  Eleanor has a sudden flash of memory; sitting on the pouffe in front of the fire, eating Marmite toast and watching Blue Peter and feeling shy because she barely knew the pretty lady in the red blouse who was looking after her.

  ‘Hang on, it’s coming back to me now.’

  ‘It probably wasn’t more than a dozen times all told. Seemed a nice enough girl.’

  ‘So if my mum went for Jenny because she confused her with Jeannette, what happened?’

  Peggy looks away. ‘They had a bit of a falling-out. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I think she blotted her copybook in some way.’

  Eleanor has been thinking about what Jenny said: Called me a filthy trollop. She has her suspicions. ‘Was it something to do with Dad?’

  The way Peggy’s eyes flicker and look away more or less confirms it. ‘I’d rather know; it won’t upset me. I barely remember him now, to be honest.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it makes much difference, not if you can’t remember him.’

  ‘I think I’ve guessed anyway.’

  ‘You may have. Your mum came home from work one day and found the two of them in bed.’

  Eleanor sighs. ‘Thought so. So that’s why they split up.’ How strange it was to feel ever so slightly relieved to find out that your dad was an adulterer. It isn’t great, but maybe it helps explain things; maybe her mother’s depression was partly due to that betrayal rather than entirely because of what happened with Peter.

  ‘I don’t think that was the main reason, but it didn’t help, of course. Don’t judge your dad too harshly. I’m sure it was a one-off – not like Ken.’ She shakes her head. ‘No, your dad loved your mum, but she wasn’t easy to be around, especially when she was poorly.’

  ‘That’s one thing I do remember. You’re so good to her, Peg.’

  ‘Thing is, she’s always been there when I needed her, especially when I had the boys. Being young, unmarried and in the family way was frowned upon much more back then than it is now, or even than it was when . . .’ She catches Eleanor’s eye. ‘Well, at least young girls now don’t have it as bad as we did.’

  ‘No,’ Eleanor agrees, ‘I hope not, anyway.’

  Peggy’s face takes on a faraway expression. ‘My parents disowned me, as you know, even though we were engaged, but your mum stood by me the whole time.’ She looks thoughtful. ‘And then all those years later when I found out about Ken and his bloody harem all over the country, well. I’m not sure what I’d have done without her.’

  ‘That was such a shock. About Ken,’ Eleanor says. It had all happened not long after she took off in the camper, so she didn’t hear about it until she was in touch with her mum again. ‘I couldn’t believe it when Mum told me.’

  ‘No one could, that was the point. Ken was always so charming to everyone else that some people thought I’d made it up. But your mum was a brick. She sat up with me the night I found out – the whole night! I couldn’t sleep, so we just sat at this very table smoking ourselves silly. You know, if it had been just one woman, I could probably have let it go, but four of them, Ellie; I mean, why would one man need that many women?’ She sighs. ‘And what a hypocrite. He’d been deceiving me for donkey’s years, and then he had the bloody cheek to get on his high horse about you and me keeping things from your mum.’

  Eleanor looks thoug
htful. ‘I’ve never forgotten that, Peggy; it was a lot to ask.’

  Peggy shrugs. ‘It was, but I can see why you felt the way you did. Anyway.’ She smiles. ‘I suppose that’s why I’ve stuck around your mum for so long, even when she’s being a pain in the arse. And because of you, of course.’

  *

  She is only out for a couple of hours, and is loading the rest of the shopping onto the back seat because the bark chippings take up most of the boot space, when her phone beeps a text: Mum absolutely fine but is upstairs with me, so come here first when you get back. X

  Her stomach tightens. Why would Peggy be reassuring her that her mother was fine if there wasn’t something wrong? After she’s returned her trolley, she sits back in the car and calls Peggy. No answer. Oh, well, she’ll be there in ten minutes anyway.

  She parks outside the house, relieved there are no fire engines, ambulances or police cars lining up in the street. Perhaps there really isn’t anything to worry about. She grabs the bags with the frozen stuff so she can put that away before she goes upstairs. As soon as she unlocks the inner door the smell hits her: damp, slightly musty, like wet carpets. She loads the frozen food into the freezer, then checks the dining room and living room before opening the door to the bathroom. It is still warm. There are no windows or fan in here, so the air is still moist, the mirror misted with steam. The floor is wet, although by the look of the heap of sodden towels in the bath, attempts have been made to mop up. Some of the cork floor tiles have started to lift and she can see water sitting beneath them. It looks quite bad.

  She opens the door to the basement. The downstairs hallway looks okay, but as soon as she opens the door to her mother’s bedroom, she feels cold water seeping through the sole of her right shoe. The carpet in here is completely sodden. The curtains are still closed so she flicks the light switch, but nothing happens. She feels her way around the bed to the window so she can pull the curtains, her feet squelching as she walks. Once she’s let some light in, she looks up and sees the extent of the damage to the ceiling. There is a hole about the size of a tea tray where the paper has come away completely, exposing the lath and plaster beneath. Drips are still forming on the laths, and some of the debris has fallen onto the bed – chunks of saturated plaster with the ancient whitewashed paper attached. This is going to take some putting right.

  *

  Marjorie is sitting at Peggy’s kitchen table, in her gardening clothes, her hands clasped around a mug of tea as if it were a life raft. Her face is streaked with mud where she’s wiped away tears with soil-encrusted hands. She is rocking back and forth like a child and doesn’t even look up when Eleanor comes in.

  Peggy looks upset, too. ‘Ellie, I’m so sorry, I should have gone down sooner. I was chatting to Michael and Chrissie on Skype and I—’

  Eleanor waves her apology away. ‘No, it’s not your fault. It’s only a bit of water, anyway. It could have been worse.’

  ‘I was on my way down to check on her when I heard the taps running. I turned them off and chucked the towels on the floor but the water had seeped under the tiles by then. And after you asked me to pop down, too. It’s my fault.’

  Eleanor puts her hand on Peggy’s arm. ‘Honestly, it’s no one’s fault. No one’s hurt, that’s the main thing.’

  Another tear rolls down Marjorie’s face. ‘It was my fault, you know. I fell asleep.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ Peggy says. ‘You were pulling up nettles when I came down. You just forgot you’d left it running, that’s all. It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘If I hadn’t gone to sleep,’ Marjorie says, ‘it would never have happened. I shouted at her, but it was all my fault, you see. Right from the start.’

  Eleanor, the present

  With Marjorie happily installed in Peggy’s spare room until everything dries out and is repaired or redecorated, Eleanor can head back to the farm for a while. They called the insurance company, but apparently there had been no response to the renewal letters, so the policy lapsed several months ago. Fortunately, Peggy knows a good, reasonably priced painter and decorator. He came to do a quote within a couple of days and while he was there, he helped Eleanor take up the wet carpet. It was so ancient there was virtually no pile left to hold the water, so it wasn’t as heavy as they expected, but that meant the water had run straight through and soaked the floorboards. Once she’d scraped up what was left of the underlay and plugged in the dehumidifier, the whole thing didn’t seem quite so bad.

  The drive back up to Scalby is a nightmare – there’s an accident on the M18, then miles of roadworks on the A1, and by the time she arrives, exhausted and slightly frazzled, it is past midnight. The cattle grid shudders beneath her as she crosses it slowly to reduce the noise. The farm is still and quiet. All the lights in the cabins are off but the whole area is bathed in such bright moonlight that the sensor light which flickers on as she passes the main house hardly seems necessary. An owl hoots, puncturing the silence. The sound of the owl and the familiar hush surrounding it feel soothing after the noise and urgency of south-east London, and she can already feel the tension starting to slip away. She closes the car door quietly and, leaving her bags in the boot for tonight, makes her way across the yard. Right now, all she wants is a cup of tea and her bed. She could do with a slice of toast as well, but she doesn’t want to disturb anyone by going over to the main house and crashing about in the kitchen. She opens the door to her cabin and flicks the light on. On the desk-cum-table is a tray covered with a tea towel. There’s a note on top: Fresh milk in fridge. Kettle filled, but thought you might need more than tea! Welcome back! Jx She lifts the tea towel. Jill has laid out an individual cottage loaf, probably baked today, a disc of goat’s cheese and a tiny dish of butter. Next to that, a small bowl of strawberries and sliced melon and, poking out from underneath the bowl, a Snickers bar. There’s also a miniature bottle of David’s elderberry wine. A surge of gratitude and affection swells inside her as she kicks off her boots, pours the wine and climbs onto the bed with the tray of food.

  *

  Eleanor’s relief at being back at the farm is tempered by the knowledge that she’ll have to go down again before too long, despite Peggy’s assurances. But for the time being, she feels good. The weather’s warm, things are growing, everything is bright and cheerful and the familiar routines of daily life here feel almost nourishing.

  As of this morning, they have three new hens. It’s the same old story – a family who’d fancied the idea of a constant supply of fresh eggs without really thinking about the work involved or what would happen when they went on holiday. ‘At least they’ve been well looked after,’ Jill says as she opens the back door to the yard where all the hens – eleven of them now – are fussing and clucking, sensing that food is imminent. ‘There we are,’ she points out the new arrivals. ‘That one’s Joni Mitchell, that’s Petula Clark, and the one at the back having yet another dust bath—’

  ‘Dusty Springfield?’ Eleanor suggests.

  ‘How did you guess?’ She turns and points back into the kitchen. ‘There’s some stale cake in that tin, so you can mix some of that in with their feed if you like – don’t give them the coconut one, though. Remember last time?’

  ‘Ha! I certainly do.’ A whole slab of coconut cake, lovely when fresh, had been forgotten and allowed to go stale; they’d fed it to the chickens, who’d gobbled it up greedily, and for the next two or three days all the eggs had tasted of coconut. In the kitchen, she crumbles up the plain cake, mixes it into the bucket of chicken feed and sets out again to feed the ‘girls’.

  She smiles as she scatters the food, and is thinking how she’s missed their funny little ways, when she spots a figure coming through the gates. She recognises Dylan instantly, even though she hasn’t seen him for ages. His hair is short now, and he’s still slim, though no longer the gangly youth he’d been when he first started coming here. He’s smiling as he comes towards her, slightly bent under the weight of his enormous ba
ckpack – she’d told him before it was like Mary Poppins’ travel bag. The first time he stayed here, she’d watched him unpack and had been enthralled as, after pulling out the usual clothes, washbag and camping gear, he’d then produced a sketch pad, pencils, charcoal, paints, brushes, a collection of poetry – Christina Rossetti – and a treble recorder. Her heart gives a little skip.

  ‘Hey.’ Dylan smiles broadly as he walks towards her. His skin has a tanned, weathered look; he must have been living outdoors again. His usual designer stubble is now a definite beard, short and neatly trimmed, lighter than his red-brown hair. She isn’t usually keen on beards, but it suits Dylan. He swings the backpack off his body and lets it fall to the ground so he can embrace her.

  ‘Hey, yourself.’ His skin feels cool and he smells of spearmint with a hint of tobacco underneath. She can feel herself smiling already; Dylan always makes her smile. ‘It’s good to see you.’

  ‘Likewise,’ he says, his eyes darting straight up to her scalp. ‘What’s . . . ?’

  ‘You remember I told you it grows every so often? It usually falls out again fairly quickly, but this time, well, so far so good.’ She turns her head one way and then the other. ‘I can’t exactly flick it yet, but I can run a comb through it.’

  He holds her away from him and steps back to get a better look.

  ‘May I?’

  She nods, and feels his cool hand, so familiar now, as it cups the back of her skull, then strokes her hair which is now a good three centimetres long.

  ‘It’s so soft,’ he says, still looking at it. ‘Downy, almost. It looks great. I know you’ve said before that it grows sometimes, but I didn’t realise it would be so silky.’

  ‘This is the probably the best it’s been. It’s usually a bit patchy and dry. And as I say, well, I’m not getting my hopes up, but it’s been four months this time. Longest so far.’