Olivia leant back and closed her eyes, drawing a deep breath and filling her nose with scents of furniture varnish, books, and that faint hint of lilies from the perfume Mrs May always wore that hung about this part of the store like a friendly ghost.
Her eyes opened when a cackle of children bustled in. Olivia rose quickly from the chair to see three boys about four or five years old with a woman about fifty entering the store, the kids rushing to the back. She smiled at the woman whose cheeks were rosy and whose words of ‘Careful!’ and ‘Don’t run!’ went unacknowledged by the kids. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Olivia. ‘I promised them each a new book if they were well-behaved last night while their parents are away enjoying their anniversary. If I can get through the rest of this week with these triplets, I think I deserve a whole pile of books myself. Or a case of wine.’
Olivia laughed. ‘It’s okay, I love seeing kids excited by books.’
‘I want this one!’ one of the boys exclaimed, holding up a copy of a book aimed at ten-year-olds.
‘Joshua, that has a scary dragon on the front. Choose another,’ said the woman.
‘Dragon!’ the boy exclaimed even louder, hugging the book to his chest. A second later, he dropped the book and picked up another.
‘Joshua, pick the book up and put it back where it came from, please.’ The woman gestured to the shelf. He sighed and did as she said, then all three pulled out various books and discussed the merits of each in the best possible vocabulary that four year olds could manage, with words like ‘cool!’ and ‘mine!’ and ‘look, an elephant!’
Despite their rambunctious nature, Olivia smiled at this simple pleasure. With all the technology around these days, it was refreshing to see. She pulled her phone from her pocket and sidled up to the boys’ grandmother. ‘Would you mind if I filmed them?’ Olivia whispered. ‘For my grandma, Mrs May. She’s in hospital and I think this might lift her spirits.’
The woman’s eyebrows rose. ‘Oh, of course. As long as it doesn’t end up on Facebook or YouTube then no problem at all!’
‘You’ve got my word.’ She smiled, then discreetly held the phone facing the boys as they rummaged through books and continued their exclamations and excitement. One of the kids pointed at a book cover and erupted in laughter. ‘Monkey face!’ he said, then tried to copy the expression of the illustrated animal, which caused the other two boys to burst out laughing too. Olivia held back a chuckle, and their grandmother shook her head with a smile. ‘Anything will amuse these boys,’ she said.
Olivia ended the video and after as much deliberation as a boardroom strategy meeting, they had decided upon one book each, though Joshua had complained that Jack’s book was bigger than his. She rang up the sale and sent the video to her mother, thinking it might lift her spirits as well.
Love it, was her text reply. Followed by, Call you later.
When she did call that afternoon, Olivia was anxious to see her grandma, fearful that something might happen and she wouldn’t get to say goodbye. She arranged for Marcus to close up on her behalf so she could collect Mia from school and take her to the hospital, where Olivia’s mother would meet them.
‘Mummy, where’s Nanna?’ asked Mia, not used to her mother picking her up from school.
‘She’s with Mrs May, we’re going to see them both now.’ Olivia smiled softly, but waited until they were in the car to explain. ‘Sweetie, Mrs May is very sick, so we have to be quiet and gentle, okay? Doctors and nurses are looking after her, and soon she’s going to move into a special new room! I think we should bring her flowers for her new place, don’t you?’
‘Yes!’ Mia exclaimed. ‘And a new book. And a teddy bear.’
‘And a teddy bear. Okay.’ Olivia started the engine.
‘Mum?’ Olivia asked a few minutes into the drive to Welston Hospital.
‘Yes?’
‘Is Mrs May going to die?’
Olivia gulped down a lump in her throat that had been growing all day. ‘Oh, honey. She’s just sick right now, but the doctors will give her some medicine and hopefully that will help.’
‘So she won’t die?’
Olivia eyed her daughter in the rear-vision mirror. Her wide eyes were curious but concerned, her fingers fiddled with her school backpack that sat on her lap. Part of the challenge of parenthood was trying to figure out how to respond to questions with honesty, yet without going into too much detail that might distress them.
Yes, Mrs May, her beloved grandma, would die. At some point. Everyone would, of course, but at nine decades of life on earth, her time was coming to an end sooner rather than later.
‘Not right now, sweetie. But she will at some stage. Because she’s old, and old people do die when they get too old because the world needs to make room for brand new babies to grow up into children like you and your friends. And then adults like me. But she’ll be okay, because she’s had a good long life, so we just have to spend as much time with her as we can while she’s still here.’
Mia waited a moment then responded. ‘So will she die on her birthday? Is that when people die, so you can count how many years they were alive?’
‘No, people can die on any day of the year. I’m sure there are some people who have died on their birthdays, but it’s rare.’
‘What does rare mean?’
‘Doesn’t happen often.’
‘So she could die today then?’
Olivia took a slow deep breath. ‘She probably won’t, honey. She’s being looked after at hospital. They said she’s feeling a bit better, so she might stay alive for many more weeks or months yet. Or even years. We just have to wait and see.’
‘I hope she doesn’t die before my tenth birthday. I want her at my party.’
‘I know, I know. But let’s not think that far ahead yet.’
Five months to go until Mia entered the double digits. Ten years she’d had, raising her daughter alone from day one. Where had the time gone? In another ten years her daughter would probably be ready to move out. Olivia shook her head at how fast life passed by these days.
Diana Chevalier met her daughter and granddaughter at the hospital entrance and led them to a room, explaining on the way that the stroke had affected some of her grandma’s short-term memory and her cognitive abilities, with some minor weakness on the left side of her body. Olivia held Mia’s soft hand as they entered, and the previously tall, strong, smiling woman she knew as her grandma lay small, weak, and unsmiling in her hospital bed with various tubes and drips around her. Her left wrist was in a cast, as it had broken during the stroke when she’d fallen off her chair.
Olivia had seen her like this before, but this time she looked different. More withered and beaten. Like she’d had enough and was ready to surrender. Her first instinct was to guard Mia against any distress, so she pointed to the tubes and whispered ‘See? That’s all the good medicine going into Mrs May’s body to help her.’
Mia nodded as they approached the bed.
‘Mum?’ Olivia’s mother whispered as she leaned over the bed. ‘Two lovely visitors to see you.’
May’s eyes flickered open gently and focused on Olivia. She appeared to have difficulty lowering her line of sight, so Olivia helped Mia up onto the side of the bed. ‘Oh, my favourite girls. All at once.’ Mrs May’s mouth smiled weakly to the right.
‘Hi, Mrs May, I hope you can come to my birthday party in October.’
Olivia and Diana chuckled.
‘You’re growing up,’ Mrs May said.
‘Yep. I’ll be ten.’
‘Ten?’ she asked. ‘I thought you were turning thirteen!’
Olivia’s shoulders relaxed. Her grandma still had a lot of fight left in her, and the stroke hadn’t affected her humour and charm.
‘When I was ten, I …’ Mrs May tried to scratch her cheek, but weakness caused her arm to flop back down. Diana scratched it for her. ‘I used to play in the mud.’
‘The mud?’ Mia cried. ‘Dirty mud?’
&nb
sp; ‘Very dirty mud.’
‘Yuck, Mrs May!’ Mia giggled like crazy and squirmed on the bed. ‘Did you still play in it when you were thirteen?’
‘Thirteen? Ah … no, my dear. By then, I wanted to spy on the boys next door.’
‘Even more yuck!’ Mia giggled again. ‘What about when you were … twenty?’
May was quiet for a moment. Her breathing quickened and her hand shook a little. ‘No mud and no boys,’ she said slowly. ‘Only men. I mean man. One man.’
‘You spied on one man? Oh!’ Mia held up her finger. ‘Was it Great-Grandpa?’ He had died before Mia was born so hadn’t needed an easy to pronounce nickname.
‘Yes, Great-Grandpa and Mrs May got married when she was twenty, darling,’ said Diana, stroking her mother’s forearm.
‘No, no.’ Mrs May’s brow furrowed slightly.
‘Yes,’ Diana responded. ‘You were twenty, remember?’
‘Yes, but no.’ She clenched the sheet on the bed with her right hand.
Diana eyed Olivia and she wondered whether to call a nurse.
‘Not him,’ May added. ‘William.’
Who was William?
‘Mum, Dad’s name was Jacques.’ Diana perched on the edge of her chair next to the bed.
‘I’m not talking about Jacques,’ she replied with surprising volume, her eyes clear and open. ‘William,’ she said with a soft exhalation. Her eyes went distant and she closed them and spoke again. ‘William. He was the one I loved.’
* * *
Olivia kissed her daughter’s forehead and went to turn out her bedside lamp, but Mia held her mother’s arm. ‘I’m glad Mrs May didn’t die today,’ she said.
‘I’m glad too.’ Olivia sat down again, knowing how Mia’s mind sometimes got worked up and caused her trouble sleeping. ‘It was nice to talk to her, wasn’t it?’
‘She’s funny.’
‘She is. Used to have me in hysterics sometimes when I was little.’ Olivia smiled at a memory …
The time her grandmother had made spaghetti and she and Olivia had decided to pretend it was worms, wriggling around on the plate.
‘Worms!’ she’d cry out, lifting one strand with her finger and jiggling it in the air.
‘I have a million of them!’ Olivia had said, lifting up a handful and doing the same.
‘Let’s eat them up!’ May said.
‘Bye-bye worms!’ Olivia had gobbled them up without a moment’s thought.
Her mother wouldn’t let her eat with her hands, but her grandmother was known for bending the occasional rule.
‘Anyway, darling, we should both get a good night’s sleep and be ready for a great day tomorrow. ’Kay?’ She gave Mia’s shoulder a rub.
‘’Kay.’
Olivia stood.
‘Mum?’ she asked. ‘What happens when people die?’
From the way the conversation was going, she would have to re-boil the kettle she’d flicked on several minutes ago. ‘Well, they get taken to a special place where their bodies are taken care of before they can be buried or cremated, and then their family can say goodbye with a special ceremony—a funeral. You know, like the one we had for Peepee?’ Mia had been adamant on calling their ill-fated kitten by the slightly ridiculous name. Sadly, the cat had escaped outside one day and tried to cross a street at peak school-traffic time and been hit.
‘No, I mean, what really happens to them? Is there a heaven?’
Olivia breathed out a ‘hmmm’. ‘Many people like to believe there is. I guess no one really knows. But I like to believe that somehow a part of the person lives on, like their soul. We just can’t see them anymore.’
‘So they could see us?’
Olivia shrugged. ‘Possibly, I’m not sure. Maybe they become present whenever a loved one thinks of them after they’ve died.’
Mia nodded slowly. ‘I don’t think they could see us though.’
‘Yeah? Why’s that?’
‘Because they wouldn’t have eyes anymore!’
‘Oh, Mia!’ Olivia shook her head.
‘Because if their bodies are buried then their eyes would be too, so souls must have special vision powers.’
Olivia covered her mouth as she chuckled. ‘You have a good imagination.’ She kissed her forehead again. ‘Nighty-night.’
‘Goodnight, Mummy.’
Olivia switched off the light and left the room, wondering if Mia would stop calling her Mummy when she turned ten. She would miss that. Things were changing, Mia was growing up and her grandma was growing … older. Sicker. With Diana having been a single parent like Olivia, Olivia had grown up around her grandparents, who had helped out with raising her after her father had left when she was two. She still communicated with him occasionally, but he lived in New Zealand and they weren’t close.
Relationships were strange things.
Olivia made a cup of relaxing herbal tea and sat on the couch. She thought of her father, her grandfather, and Mia’s father—who had never met his daughter. And then her mind wandered to what her grandma had said today …
William.
Who was she talking about? Was he just a random name she had mentioned in a moment of confusion? Mrs May had fallen asleep after that, and the three Chevalier women had left her in peace and gone home to share dinner at her mother’s house, along with Diana’s boyfriend Peter.
What if it wasn’t random? She had seemed so clear when she’d said it. What if she had loved some man called William and had never told anyone before? Her grandma had a lot of stories about her life, but maybe she had more to tell, another secret or two waiting to be revealed …
She retrieved her tattered notebook from the desk beside the entryway, where months ago—or had it been over a year?—she had taken notes about the book she planned to write for May’s memories. She also had a folder on her computer with various photographs, family-tree information, and stories her grandma had told her. Somehow, someway, she had to put it all together, and gather the missing details before it was too late.
Olivia unzipped her handbag and grabbed one of the squashed brochures about the memoir course she had shoved in there in case she came across any interested people while she was out and about. But maybe she was the interested person. Maybe she should take the opportunity like Marcus had suggested, or pressured, more like it. She didn’t have that much spare time, and she was often tired at the end of each day, but she could at least look into it further.
Before changing her mind she keyed in Joel’s number on her phone, and when it rang she glanced at the time … 9 pm. Oops, was that too late to call with an enquiry? She was about to end the call when a voice said, ‘Hello?’
She cleared her throat. ‘Oh, hi. Sorry, is it too late?’ She paused. ‘It’s Olivia. Chevalier, from—’
‘Mrs May’s Bookstore,’ he interjected. ‘Olivia with eight syllables. Hello there.’
‘Hello.’
‘I got a booking already from someone who found my brochure in your store.’
‘Oh, that’s great,’ she said. ‘And actually I’m calling because I want to know a bit more about the course. I know you said that it could help people who wanted to write stories from their family history, but I’m still not sure. My grandma is ill, and it’s making me think I should ask her for more details on her life before she … before she …’
‘Before it’s too late.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry to hear she’s unwell.’
‘Thanks. It’s okay, she’s almost ninety.’
‘Well, do you have anything already written?’
‘Some notes and a bit of an outline. But I don’t really know where to start, like do I write it chronologically, and how do I know what to include and what to leave out, and would some details be too personal?’
‘Those are all questions my course will answer.’
‘Okay, but also how much time would I need to take out of my life to do this. The course, and the book. How long does a
book take to write?’
‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘Let’s meet for coffee and I’ll answer any questions you have about the course, you can show me some of what you have noted down, and I’ll give you an idea of whether it would be a good idea.’
Coffee? Now she had to make time for that too. She usually had a quick coffee or lunch while catching up on emails at the store or Café Lagoon. ‘You sure? That would be good actually. And of course my shout, and I can pay you for your time, I wouldn’t want to get free advice and then not enrol.’
‘No need. I don’t know anyone in town, so you can repay me with your company and by telling me all about Tarrin’s Bay history and any fascinating secret spots I should check out.’ His voice sounded like he was smiling.
‘Oh, sure. If that’s okay.’
‘Of course. I’ll be hiking all day tomorrow, so how is Friday?’
‘Sounds good. I can take a break about 1 pm for lunch, if that suits?’
‘Lunch, even better. Where do you recommend?’
‘Café Lagoon, a few shops down from the bookstore.’
‘Awesome. See you at one on Friday.’
‘Great, see you then. Thanks.’ She was about to end the call.
‘Oh, Olivia?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you have a title for the book? Many writers find it helps to start with a title, even if it gets changed down the track.’
The title had come to her almost as quickly as the book idea. ‘Memories of May,’ she said.
‘Ahh, it has bestseller written all over it,’ he replied, and she smiled.
The call ended and her smile grew. It felt good to be doing something for her grandma. It also felt good to be having coffee with an interesting man.
Even if she didn’t have time for those things.
Chapter 3
Joel’s stomach growled as he trudged up the dry hill. The sticks and leaves crunching underfoot were music to his ears. He loved being outdoors, at one with nature, no distractions, no technology, nothing to do except walk. Breathe. Think.
He glanced around and up, then lodged the toe of his boot onto a protrusion of rock, grabbed the rough texture above and climbed higher. After a few steps up the rock face he reached the top, exhaling deeply as he sat on the flattened surface.
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