On the day of the talent show, I was sitting with my own class at the front of the school hall and feeling far more nervous about Mia’s performance than she’d seemed to be herself when we’d parted company that morning. Only two children from my own class were taking part. Lucy, who had ballet lessons outside of school, had opted to show off some steps. And Alfie had elected to sing ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ – but when it came to the moment for him to go on the stage, he got stage fright and ran back to his place in the audience. Nobody minded, of course, and we gave him another chance later, but he stayed resolutely sitting still with his thumb in his mouth. I couldn’t help feeling even more anxious about Mia. Would she do the same? Would Eddie?
I sat through the two Olivias singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ somewhat shakily together, and a boy in their class playing a squeaky version of ‘Three Blind Mice’ on the recorder. All the time I was becoming more and more fidgety with nerves and when, finally, Mr Gregory ushered Mia and Eddie onto the stage I almost wanted to get up and leave, I was so keyed up and anxious for them. They stood up there together, holding hands, Mia looking so small and solemn I could hardly bear it. And then, as the headmaster called for quiet, Eddie looked up and announced:
‘We are going to sing “This Is Me”, because we like this song and it’s about people who feel like nobody likes them.’
I gasped out loud, almost missing Mia adding:
‘And in the end, though, they didn’t even care, because they liked themselves.’
I was so busy swallowing back tears, I forgot about feeling nervous for them. Instead, I listened with awe as these two previously lonely, shy children sang along to as many of the lyrics as they could manage, smiling at each other from time to time, not caring when they got some words wrong or when they didn’t stay in time with the music. At the end, there was a storm of applause and cheering. The audience consisted of the entire school population, right up to the eleven-year-olds in Year 6 who’d soon be leaving us for senior school, with parents filling the back half of the hall. Because I was sitting right at the front with the reception class, I had to turn round to watch Eddie and Mia going back to their seats behind me, so that I could give them a smile and a thumbs-up. And it was then that I suddenly caught sight of someone standing right at the very back of the hall – standing, either because he hadn’t been able to find a seat, or … because he was applauding Mia and Eddie so frantically and excitedly. It was Josh. For a moment I felt myself go hot and cold, as if I was about to faint. Josh, watching our daughter in a school show? What was he doing here? It was so unlike him, he’d never come to anything before – not even when she was an angel in her very first nativity play at the age of four. He’d never been to a parents’ evening. He’d never even taken her to school or picked her up. Suddenly he caught my eye and even from that distance, right across the hall, I could see he was looking awkward. He gave me a quick little wave and sat down, and I turned back, forcing my attention back to the show and my own class.
More acts followed, with a magic trick performed next by a Year 2 boy and then some more recorder playing by a group of girls, but I found it almost impossible to concentrate. My head was spinning with the shock of seeing Josh there, combined with the emotion of seeing Mia, up there on the stage and reciting those words about liking yourself. At the end of the show, the headmaster asked the parents to please wait in their seats while we took the children back to their classrooms. I stood up to walk out with my class, who were the first to leave, giving Mia another smile as I passed and whispering ‘Well done’. But there was now no sign, at the back of the hall, of her father. I began to wonder if I had actually dreamt it.
Once we were back in our classroom it was almost school finishing time, and as soon as I’d helped to see the reception children off with their parents, I hurried to Mia’s class.
‘Hello, Nic,’ said a familiar voice from behind me as I approached the classroom door.
‘Josh!’ I turned and gave him a smile. So I hadn’t been dreaming! And although it had been such a shock to see him there at a school event, I was pleased, naturally – for Mia’s sake. ‘This is a surprise,’ I added.
‘I know.’ He shrugged, looking awkward again. ‘I didn’t say anything before about coming, because I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to get the afternoon off. But I’m glad I did. It was great, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes – fantastic.’ Despite the strangeness of being here with Josh, I couldn’t keep the happiness out of my voice, I was so excited about how well Mia and Eddie had done. Just then the classroom door opened and Mr Gregory started to shepherd the children out to the waiting parents.
‘Didn’t they do well?’ he enthused as soon as he saw me.
‘I was amazed!’ I admitted. ‘What they said up there, about the song: was that … something you suggested?’
‘No. They came up with it themselves. I thought it was great. You should be very proud.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Oh – this is Josh – my, um … Mia’s father.’
‘Ah! Pleased to meet you.’ Mr Gregory smiled. ‘Here she is now.’
I watched, fighting a mixture of emotions, as Mia threw herself into Josh’s arms, chatting excitedly about the talent show, and grabbing Eddie’s arm as he followed her out of the classroom to tell him proudly that this was her daddy.
‘This is Eddie, Mia’s friend,’ I explained to Josh as we began to walk away across the playground. ‘And this is Louise, his mum – my friend,’ I added, smiling at Louise, who’d been giving me and Josh surprised looks.
‘Pleased to meet you, Louise,’ Josh said. ‘And well done to both of you, Mia and Eddie. Your song was by far the best act in the whole show. You were brilliant!’
‘Can Daddy come with us to the café?’ Mia asked, tugging at my arm. ‘Please, Mummy?’ She turned back to Josh again, her little face flushed with the unexpected joy of having him there at school. ‘We’re all going to Smiths for an ice cream, Daddy. Can you come?’
He glanced at me, hesitating.
‘You’d be welcome to join us,’ I said, unsure whether I really meant it or not. It would have felt mean not to invite him, since he’d made the effort to come to the concert. But at the same time I felt slightly uncomfortable and a little bit resentful about the idea of him tagging along for the special treat Louise and I had planned.
Perhaps he picked up on this, because he bent to kiss Mia, giving her a quick hug, and said, ‘No – thank you, that sounds like a great idea but I really ought to get back. I’ve got some work to finish off. I’m parked just round the corner here, so I’ll say goodbye now. But well done again, kids. And Mia, next time I see you, we’ll be going off to Lanzarote.’
Fortunately this was enough to take the disappointed look off Mia’s face. She gave Josh another hug, and then the rest of us carried on to Smiths, Eddie and Mia walking in front of us singing ‘This is Me’ again at the tops of their voices.
‘That was unexpected, wasn’t it?’ Louise said quietly as we settled down at a table.
‘Yes.’ I hadn’t recovered from the surprise yet, or worked out quite how I felt about it. Although I was pleased he’d made the effort, it had felt so odd, seeing Josh here in Furzewell, at the school – on what I’d thought of as my territory – and I suspected it had felt odd for him, too. ‘I wonder if he’s going to start turning up for more things like this now,’ I added, thinking aloud.
‘Mia would love that,’ Louise said, putting a hand over mine and giving me an understanding look. And I knew she was right. It had been a fantastic ending to the school year for Mia – and that was all that mattered.
As arranged, Louise brought Eddie to play with Mia every day for the first two weeks of the school holiday while she was at work. The weather was warm and sunny, and they played in the garden almost the entire time, wearing shorts, sunhats and sun cream, making up their own games, climbing trees, kicking balls about, firing water at each other, laughing and having th
e kind of fun we all want our kids to have, before they grow up and retreat into the teenage world of gaming and social media. In the afternoons, Mum and I would often sit on the bench, watching them play, smiling as Smartie trotted around after them, wanting to join in.
‘Mia’s having such a lovely time with Eddie,’ I said wistfully to Mum one afternoon. ‘I wish I could keep her this age forever.’
‘We all wish that,’ she replied, smiling: ‘Sleepless nights, teething, nappies, toddler tantrums, school problems – they’re nothing, compared with the worries they bring when they get older.’
‘I hope I never worried you like that when I was a teenager,’ I said.
‘Not when you were a teenager, no,’ she responded. She paused for a moment and then added: ‘But I worry about you now.’
‘Sorry,’ I whispered, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. ‘Please don’t worry. I’m fine.’
After all, here we were, on a lovely sunny day in the garden of Eagle House, drinking tea together – mother and daughter – watching the children and the little dog play together. I was fine. I didn’t want Mum to be burdened by my issues. As it happened, there was no time to discuss it any further anyway, because just then there was a shout of ‘Hello!’ from the gate at the side of the garden, and Gran came in to join us, looking unusually tired and a bit grumpy.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked her, making room for her on the garden seat, as Mum went indoors to make more tea. ‘You don’t look very happy.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Nicky.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I’m beginning to think your mother was right. Why did I ever think I was going to be able to manage on my own?’
‘At Nightingale Court? But you are managing, perfectly well. What on earth is all this about?’
She opened her eyes again, looking at me and shaking her head.
‘I really think I’m losing my mind,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll probably end up being moved to one of those care homes.’
I took hold of her hand. ‘Gran, we’ve already been through this, haven’t we? Just because you’ve forgotten things a few times, it doesn’t mean—’
‘But it’s not just forgetting things. I’m hearing things now. Imagining things.’
‘What sort of things?’ Mum had come back out now with Gran’s mug of tea, and sat down on the other side of her, frowning at her.
‘Noises in the night. People crying, mostly. Screaming, sometimes.’
‘You’ve probably just been dreaming,’ Mum said.
‘Dreaming?’ Gran shot back. ‘I might be old, Ros, I might be losing my mind, but I know when I’m awake and when I’m bloody dreaming.’
‘Well, have you talked to Lizzie about it?’
Lizzie Barnes was the warden of Nightingale Court. She was about fifty, lived in one of the bungalows herself and was supposed to keep an eye on all the elderly residents, but we’d never seen much evidence of it.
‘Huh!’ Gran snorted. ‘No point talking to her. She sits around all day with music blaring, and from what Mary next-door to her says, she has it blaring all night too while she’s in bed. She wouldn’t hear if there was an earthquake under her own bungalow, never mind if any of us screamed for help.’
‘Surely she hears if anyone presses their alarm buttons?’ I pointed out. ‘She has the control panel, doesn’t she?’
‘So she says. Not that I’ve ever needed to push the bloody button and if I did I’d probably be better off dead than waiting for her to respond – lazy cow.’
‘Gran, this really isn’t like you, to sound so fed up,’ I said. Mum and I were exchanging worried looks. ‘How many times do you think you’ve heard someone screaming? Perhaps it’s kids outside in the street.’
‘It’s been happening every night,’ she said. ‘And sometimes during the day too. At first I thought it was someone’s TV. They all have it up loud, you know – most of them are deaf. Josie in the bungalow opposite mine has hers blaring out those American comedy programmes, with all the windows open. It’s a wonder I can hear myself think, never mind hear these screams and crying.’
‘Well, I think we should talk to Lizzie,’ Mum insisted. ‘If someone in the complex is crying every night—’
‘Not just someone,’ Gran corrected her irritably. ‘Lots of people. It sounds like … the end of the world, everyone screaming and wailing.’
‘Then it must be someone’s TV,’ I said. ‘Honestly, Gran, you said yourself, they all have their volume up loud, and perhaps someone’s watching a box set of some terrible horror series.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Nicky. I’ve spoken to some of the other residents, and no-one else has heard it. Is it me? Am I hearing voices in my head? They say it’s one of the signs of madness, don’t they?’
I squeezed her hand. ‘You don’t sound mad in the slightest. Anyone who was losing their mind would just take it as a normal everyday occurrence to hear screams in the night.’
She didn’t look at all reassured. I was upset, too, to hear her talking so negatively about Nightingale Court and its other residents. She’d been so happy there, so pleased with her little bungalow and the fact that it was all hers, and that she could live safely and independently there on her own.
‘We’ll find out what’s going on,’ Mum said gently. ‘I’ll come back with you, and we’ll knock on all the doors and ask everyone if they’re playing scary films late at night. If it’s not that, then maybe Nicky and I should walk round at night-time and listen outside your bungalow. As Nicky says, it could just be teenagers screaming in the street. You know what they’re like if they’ve been sitting outside the pub drinking cider—’
‘Thank you, Ros.’ Gran nodded. ‘I don’t want to think I’m losing my mind. But what with all the forgetfulness…’
‘Maybe you’re forgetting things because you’re tired,’ I suggested. ‘Because of being kept awake at night by these noises?’
‘If it makes you feel better,’ Mum added, ‘go and talk to Dr Osborne about your memory. I’m sure he’ll tell you it’s perfectly normal to get a bit forgetful as you get older.’
‘Huh.’ Gran shook her head. ‘The way I’m going, I’ll probably forget what I’ve gone to see him for.’
I laughed and squeezed her hand again. ‘At least you haven’t lost your sense of humour Gran.’
But it wasn’t funny, not at all. I’d already started feeling concerned about Gran’s forgetfulness – not because I thought it was anything out of the ordinary, but because it was upsetting her. Now this new issue was just adding to her worries.
As promised, Mum walked back to Nightingale Court with her a little later. She was gone for quite some time, and when she came back she was looking relieved.
‘I talked to most of the other residents – those who were home, and could hear me ringing their doorbells, anyway,’ she said. ‘Most of them didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, hadn’t heard anything, and claimed to be always tucked up in bed by ten o’clock, But one old boy admitted he’d been watching a Netflix series Zombie Flesh Eaters until late at night. Honestly!’ She chuckled. ‘What these old folk get up to!’
‘Zombie Flesh Eaters?’ I repeated, shuddering. ‘Sounds horrible! So does Gran accept that this is what she’s been hearing?’
‘Yes. He said there was quite a lot of screaming in it, and he apologised for having his TV up so loud with the windows open because it’s been so warm. Bloodthirsty old sod!’
‘Well, let’s hope he turns the volume down, now he knows he’s frightened her.’
‘Oh, he’s done more than that. He’s invited her in to have a glass of sherry and watch it with him!’
I burst out laughing. ‘Surely she’s not going to?’
‘I should hope not! But at least it’s made her laugh too, and taken the worry out of the situation.’ Mum raised her eyes and tutted. ‘What were we saying earlier, about worrying about your kids? Just when you think you can stop worrying about them, it starts all ove
r again – about your parents.’
I smiled, but didn’t respond. I wasn’t about to admit that I was already worried enough about her – my own mother – gadding about at night with the Gruesome Twosome, dressed to kill and made up to the nines. Who knew what they got up to in the bars and pubs they went to, and wasn’t it about time they acted their age? But then again, if at the age of about eighty it was all right for that old boy in Nightingale Court to binge-watch zombie movies, and invite his frightened neighbour in to watch it with him with a glass of sherry, what the hell did I know about what was normal?
CHAPTER 25
Our warm, sultry July ended with another thunderstorm, but then August began with the heat returning and creeping up another notch. There were news reports of an unprecedented heatwave in some parts of England and even here in Devon, where the climate was normally more temperate, some of us were beginning to complain that it was too hot. The grass in the garden of Eagle House, in the park and along the roadside verges had turned dry and brown, flowers wilted, and Mum’s shop sold out of ice cream and sun lotion. But I was grateful that the children could enjoy being out of doors during their school holiday.
My days were filled with activities for Mia and Eddie, and walking Smartie early in the mornings and late in the evenings, when it was cooler. I’d also now been out on two more dates with Craig, asking Mum to babysit and using Amber or Louise as alibis.
‘I don’t really understand why you’re keeping it a secret from your mum,’ Craig said, with a puzzled smile when he picked me up from the end of Pump Lane, as arranged, for our third date. ‘It’s not like you’re a teenager. Would she disapprove of me?’
‘No, of course not,’ I said, flushing slightly. To be honest, I did feel like a teenager, sneaking out on these dates. It was awkward and embarrassing, being thirty-five and a mother myself, but living back with my mum and having to lie to her. ‘I just … don’t really want anyone gossiping about us just yet – do you?’
The Lonely Hearts Dog Walkers Page 20