by Claire Sandy
Adam and Fern stood either side of the heirloom. ‘Going somewhere glam, Fern?’
‘Adam,’ said Fern. ‘Could we have a word? It won’t take long.’
‘Well, I—’
Penny speed-walked towards them. ‘Adam, we’re all waiting.’
‘Guys, can I have a minute?’ Adam’s question was greeted with genial approval.
‘I need to talk to Adam,’ said Fern.
‘Uh-huh.’ Penny stayed where she was, as Adam looked at the rug.
‘It’s private.’
‘I know all Adam’s affairs,’ said Penny, with what seemed to Fern an unfortunate turn of phrase.
‘It’s a family matter.’ Fern pulled down an iron shutter and Penny trotted back to the sofa, one eye on them at all times.
‘Adam, it’s Nora. She’s ill.’
‘You said it was just a sprained wrist.’
‘That’s the short story. The long story is, well, longer.’
They sat on a grey sofa by the door.
‘She has something called . . .’ Fern hadn’t said it enough times yet to be sure of it. ‘Late-onset cerebellar ataxia.’
‘Is it . . .’ Adam didn’t want to say it.
‘Fatal? No. Although it does shorten life expectancy. The sad thing is what it does to your life before it ends it.’
‘This sounds bad.’
‘It really is, Adam. She has a tough few years ahead. She’ll deteriorate physically. It affects, well, everything. Her ability to walk, to coordinate movement. Her eyesight will suffer. That’s started already.’
‘The black glasses!’
‘Exactly. Her poor iris wanders all over the place. And the clumsiness wasn’t gin. It was this bloody degenerative disease. It causes depression.’
‘Which explains the crabbiness.’
‘Although she was always crabby. The worst bit is dementia. When it starts it’ll be rapid.’
‘Fern. You’re crying.’
Adam’s arms went out but fell back.
‘I’m fine. It just hits me sometimes. The list of problems is so long. Fatigue. Bladder control.’
They pulled a joint face.
‘Then, later, her speech will go. She already slurs. It won’t happen all at once. I keep reminding myself of that. Nora might have years left. Or it might be months.’ Fern ended on a squeak.
‘What about treatment?’ Adam was pinching the bridge of his nose, taking it in.
‘There’s tons of it, but no cure. All the docs can do is help with the symptoms. The cerebellar ataxia just gallops on, shutting down Nora as it goes. Miraculously, there’s a space in a nursing home attached to the hospital where they have the right sort of expertise to care for her.’
Adam was gentle. ‘It’s for the best.’
‘I hate that expression,’ said Fern with a wan smile. ‘But you’re right, of course.’
‘No way could you cope with all that.’
‘I know. I can visit. We’ll all visit, won’t we?’
‘We won’t let her be lonely.’
‘Right.’ Fern slapped her thighs and stood, snatching up the pretty new holdall she’d treated herself to. ‘Gotta fly.’
The hospital wasn’t really on the way to where Fern had arranged to meet Hal, but she allowed extra time. Hal had been disgruntled that he couldn’t pick her up at home.
‘Am I a dirty secret?’
‘You’re a sexy secret.’ For now. Secrets have a way of forcing their way into the light.
The room was as cosy as Fern could make it, given the underlying smell of Dettol and the clatter of hospital life. Daffodils sat on the windowsill and Nora’s favourite cushion was at her back. A silk scarf patterned with poppies covered her sling.
Sitting up in bed in a pristine new nightdress buttoned to the neck, Nora looked small. Fern wondered why people looked smaller in hospital, as if the beds were oversized.
‘You should have seen me dinner. Slop. No wonder folk come in here and never get out again.’
Setting out fruit and chocolates, Fern was grateful for Nora’s curmudgeonliness. It showed spirit, and Nora would need buckets of spirit to withstand the onslaught of her condition. Without her dark energy to keep her going Nora might already be dead. The thought sliced through Fern; now that her empathy gland was engaged, there was no going back. She was on Team Nora.
‘I brought you the Reader’s Digest like you asked.’ Demanded.
‘That’s a fat lot of use. Me eye’s wonky today.’
‘So it is.’ The blue iris jitterbugged. Fern didn’t flinch, even though it was gruesome to see. ‘How about a nice audiobook instead?’
‘No pornography, thank you very much.’
‘Jill Mansell, Auntie? Or is that too risqué?’
‘No. I like her.’ Nora took a chocolate. ‘I’ve got me first MFI on Monday.’
‘MRI, Auntie.’ Nora’s dance card was full. A multi-disciplinary team was working on her case: a neurologist, a physiotherapist, a specialist nurse.
‘I suppose you’ll be too busy to come with me.’
‘I’ve cancelled all my Monday clients. I’m sitting in on the session with the speech therapist as well.’ Fern needed to hear information from the horse’s mouth; Nora tended to paraphrase, grumbling that the doctors all looked like schoolboys and what did they know, anyway.
‘I won’t be able to pop in tomorrow, Auntie.’
The brief look of panic was hastily replaced with disdain. ‘Gadding about, I suppose?’
‘Yup. Even though I’m not exactly sure what gadding about entails. I’ll be with my fancy man, but Evka’s going to pop in, keep an eye on you.’
‘That Evka’s a good girl.’
And I’m not? Fern kept her amusement to herself as she took one last look around. ‘I’ll be off.’ Hospital farewells are always poignant, even when the patient isn’t in immediate danger. It felt appropriate to kiss the lady in the bed, but Nora would recoil, claim she was giving her syphilis. ‘Ta-ra, then.’
Slurring only slightly, Nora spoke fast. ‘That lady’s coming back tomorrow, she said. The one with the papers for me to sign.’ She looked out of the window, a black rectangle on the wall. ‘For the nursing home. They can have me straight away, which is handy.’ She looked back at Fern, her face naked, with no melodrama. ‘Will you visit me, Fern? Will you bring my Tallie?’
‘No, Auntie,’ said Fern. ‘We won’t visit because there’s no way you’re going to a nursing home. You’re coming home to your family.’
Nora took Fern’s hand and gripped it very tightly for a woman so diminished.
‘I love you, Auntie,’ said Fern.
‘That coat does nothing for you,’ said Nora.
When Fern had imagined her middle age, she’d seen dull repetition, all the fun and drama long gone. Like a mum in a Kellogg’s ad, she’d be upstanding, warm, mature. Yet here I am, waiting at the park gates for my toyboy, having just made a life-changing promise to a woman I couldn’t stand two weeks ago.
The filling in a generational sandwich, Fern was still caring for the younger ones while taking responsibility for the age group above her. All while finding the time to buy a flattering bra online. Which will shortly be removed in a plush hotel room.
A black cab growled to a halt at the kerb. Fern bounced into the back seat beside Hal, and was soundly kissed.
‘Where are we going?’ The taxi’s wheels turned in the direction of the station. ‘Into the city? Or out to the country?’ Either option was divine. A Georgian townhouse with a hip bar in the basement, or a four-poster in an ancient manor house.
‘You’ll see.’ Hal was nervous, giggly, unable to sit back. ‘Christ, I hope you like it.’
‘I’m going to love it.’ Hal wasn’t to know that any working woman weeps with gratitude if she’s handed so much as a biscuit she hasn’t had to buy, store and fetch herself.
‘Just here, mate.’ The taxi stopped just a few streets away. Hal stepped out ahead of h
er, taking Fern’s hand as if she was a Regency heroine alighting from a carriage.
Terraced houses, three storeys high, marched down a long, typically London street. Midway through gentrification, every other house had a Farrow & Ball painted front door with an olive tree either side of it. Other front gardens boasted bins lolling on their sides among forests of thistle. A dog barked. Somewhere glass shattered.
Taking Fern up the path of a sooty house, its curtains half pulled and a black bag full of empty bottles in the porch, Hal produced a key.
‘Welcome,’ he said, ‘to your hotel.’ He was watching her intently.
Carefully non-committal, Fern said, ‘I see.’
‘The porter will take your luggage to your suite.’
Fern handed over her new luggage to Hal.
‘I’m a bit skint, Fern,’ he said, leading her up the stairs. ‘I couldn’t afford a real five-star break but this’ll be even better, I promise.’
‘Mmm,’ said Fern, reaching the landing and pixilating the seatless toilet beyond an open door.
‘It was a lot funnier and more charming in my head.’ Hal turned back, tilted Fern’s chin and kissed her. The smell of burning mince receded as Hal’s signature scents of clay dust and soap enveloped her. Holding her tight, his lips moved to her hair. ‘I wanted you all to myself. I want to wake up with you.’
‘This hotel,’ said Fern, as the nylon carpet squeaked beneath her feet, ‘is the best I’ve ever stayed in.’
The top floor was a long way in new heels. Fern passed posters tacked to woodchip walls, and doors with handwritten KEEP OUT signs. A noisy bath was taking place beyond a crackle-glazed door.
The room at the top was large, with a generous bay window.
‘This is lovely!’
‘Don’t sound so surprised.’
In contrast to the fluff-covered stairs, the room was virginal and clean. Floorboards, walls, blinds were all white and a snowy duvet ballooned on the wide bed.
‘I spent all last weekend painting.’ Hal watched Fern the way Boudi did whenever she opened the fridge. ‘There’s all the little touches you’d expect from a hotel. Complimentary dressing gown.’ An obviously new towelling robe hung on the back of the door. ‘Million-thread-count cotton bedding. Tea and coffee making facilities.’ Hal pointed at a mini kettle and two mugs on a low table. ‘I even bought those shortbread biccies in cellophane. Free wi-fi. Hot and cold running snogs.’
Crossing the distance between them, Hal bent Fern backwards. The kiss was hard, hot, resolute. He lifted her palm, pressing it to his lips, his eyes on hers. ‘En suite facilities,’ he said seductively, sliding a corrugated plastic door to show off the avocado bath and orange carpet tiles. ‘The design is intriguingly retro, but there’s posh toiletries and a new Orla Kiely towel.’
Fingering the vase of tulips by the bed, Fern smiled at the Ferrero Rocher laid on each pillow. ‘You’ve gone to so much trouble. It’s so you. Much better than any bland old hotel.’
‘Phew.’ Hal wiped his brow with an exaggerated gesture. ‘There was a chance you’d turn and run.’
Fern hadn’t been wealthy for so long that she’d forgotten it’s possible to have fun on nought pence. Instead of flexing his credit card, Hal had spent days preparing. It was all for her and she was touched. ‘Call room service, would you? See if they can send up a guy, about yay high.’ She touched the top of Hal’s head. ‘He has to be funny and thoughtful and gorgeous.’
‘And horny as hell?’
Fern blushed like a virgin. ‘I wouldn’t put it like that.’ She peeked at him from beneath her eyelashes. ‘But yeah, OK.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’ Hal began to undo his belt and something stirred deep inside of Fern.
‘Come here, you,’ she said.
‘We smell of each other.’ Hal nuzzled Fern’s neck like a pony, before slipping out of bed and shimmying into his jeans. ‘Christ, it’s getting on for midnight, Fern.’
‘No!’ The hours had passed in a blur of limbs and mouths and exquisite pleasure. Fern had arched her back, cried out, begged; like her Pilates class, but more fun. ‘I’m starving. You’ve made me hungry.’
‘I’ll whistle up room service and then there’s a massage booked.’ Hal shot down the stairs, calling out to somebody as he went. The house was alive with noise, Fern only noticing it now that she was alone in the ‘suite’. Doors slammed. Feet slapped on floors. Reggae boomed above laughter on the storey below.
At least two of the things Fern had done since checking in were new to her. Hal treated sex as a playground; his enthusiasm was infectious but Fern would need to catch her breath before she got back on the swings.
As somebody in the street yelled ‘Josh, you’re a wanker!’ Fern realized she hadn’t made her daily call to Layla. Sifting through the useless debris that weighed down her handbag – Why is there a set square in here? – Fern’s fingers encountered some folded paper.
‘Bad timing,’ she muttered, taking out the old letter that had migrated from its box to her bag. The Zara holdall was a portable black hole, sucking in random objects from the atmosphere.
Or is it perfect timing? Adam’s heading on this letter was ‘7 Things a New Boyfriend Would Do that Would Definitely Annoy You’. Between the rumpled new sheets of Hal’s bed might be the ideal place to read it. Hal wouldn’t have committed any of the transgressions Adam had dreamed up back in ’93.
Something struck Fern. She and Adam had been younger than Hal at the time of the Great Rift. Fern was so used to being the older woman that it seemed easier to believe she’d never been as young as Hal. That she’d been born with cellulite.
7 THINGS A NEW BOYFRIEND WOULD DO THAT WOULD DEFINITELY ANNOY YOU
You seem to be getting over me. Perhaps you’re sitting there choosing who to go out with next. (DO NOT sleep with the bloke from Holland and Barrett. The one with the swoofy hair. I will react VERY BADLY if you sleep with him.) Whoever you go out with will annoy you. You’re easily annoyed. Here are some of the mistakes this new guy will make.
1. They won’t pay attention while you tell the hour-long story about how you chose the top you’re wearing. They’ll nod all the way through and by the time you finish they’ll have forgotten what you were talking about in the first place and say something like ‘what top?’ (Yes, I know, I did this ONCE. Never again.)
2. He’ll refer to conversations with his mates as ‘banter’.
3. He won’t ring when he says he will. If he rings he won’t leave a message.
4. If you put on a few pounds he’ll say, ‘Somebody needs to keep away from the pork pies.’
5. He’ll blame your ‘time of the month’ if you threaten to punch him. (You’ve threatened to punch me many times but I know it’s nothing to do with periods. You’re just violent.)
6. He’ll try to wheedle out of nights out with your friends. (He might have a point, actually.)
7. He won’t love you. Not like I do.
‘What you reading?’ Hal hovered above her with a tray, looking for somewhere to set it down.
‘Nothing. Just an old . . . nothing.’ Fern swallowed, bemused by the sudden time travel from the nineties to now, from Adam’s jokey heartbreak to Hal’s muscled shoulders. She patted the bed. ‘Put it here. We’ll be careful.’
‘The bastards have eaten all the nice bits and pieces I bought.’ Hal was sheepish. ‘It’s only toast and jam.’
‘Toast is just right.’ Fern took the knife out of the margarine tub. The sweating yellow surface was pebble-dashed with crumbs of various colours. ‘Blackberry jam! My favourite.’ Beneath the lid, a random pattern of green mould livened up the dark surface.
They fed each other fingers of dripping toast. The mould didn’t matter. Only Hal’s lips mattered as they slid down Fern’s neck and did their thing on her breast. With a hungry groan, he laid her back among the bedclothes.
The tray jumped in the air.
‘Shit shit shit!’ Hal leapt up, his head i
n his hands at the sight of the tea tidal wave lapping over his new duvet cover. The jam was like bloodstains.
‘It’ll wash out.’ Fern laughed until Hal saw the funny side.
‘I wanted everything to be swish.’ He pulled a crestfallen face.
Deep in her bag, Fern’s mobile chirped.
‘Leave it.’ Hal grabbed Fern’s wrist, pulled her to him over the crockery graveyard. ‘It’s just us this weekend.’
Disengaging his fingers, kissing them as they curled back, Fern shook her head. How could a carefree singleton, without even a cat to feed, understand? Fern was accountable for a newborn, a bed-ridden pensioner and a Tallulah.
Call me asap
‘Is something up?’ Hal registered Fern’s expression.
‘My friend. The pregnant one. I should have called.’ Fern pushed her arms through the uncooperative sleeves of the dressing gown. ‘I’ll call her outside, in case it’s . . .’ Fern couldn’t finish the thought, couldn’t say bad news.
The oversized robe flapped around her, its cuffs over her fingertips, as Fern bolted down the stairs, swerving to avoid a man meandering along in his underpants.
‘Evening!’ he said genially, scratching his balls.
Finding the sitting room, an empty oasis of psychedelic carpet and fake leather, Fern perched and dialled.
‘Tell me,’ she squealed when Layla picked up.
‘It’s you, thank God.’ The line crackled like a forest fire as Layla moved the handset. ‘Right. How’d you spell Amelie?’
When Fern didn’t answer, Layla added, ‘I’ve put together some little presents for her and I didn’t want to misspell it. I feel bad that I didn’t congratulate Ollie at the time. Fern? Are you there?’
After spelling out the name, Fern asked, ‘Why the “ASAP”?’
‘I want to get to bed.’
The baby was hanging on in there. Layla mentioned this in passing, and Fern responded with a neutral ‘Good, good.’ Eight weeks was longer than any of Layla’s other implanted eggs had survived. Fern didn’t counsel optimism or positive thinking; she would simply be there while Layla and Luc waited it out.