The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright (ARC)

by Beth Miller

  Wow, that’s a helluva facer. Thanks for stepping in. I’ve spoken to Gran and she’ll be there tomorrow.

  No mention, I noticed, of him coming here. Don’t over-exert yourself, Eduardo. I couldn’t understand why he’d become so detached from us lately. He hadn’t always been. Even when the twins were tiny babies, he and Georgia had come down from Glasgow to see us all the time. Things had changed, though, in the last few months, or maybe longer than that. A year, perhaps? He’d come for Granny Hurst’s funeral, of course, but he went back the same day. I couldn’t put my finger on when, but he’d definitely withdrawn from us. I mentioned it to Mum once, but she said it was probably because they had their hands full now the twins were toddlers.

  I messaged him the latest revelation about Anthony – let’s see how detached Edward managed to be with that one! – then sent Mum another text, my twelfth of the day.

  Mum, so worried about you. Please call.

  I prepared rice and vegetables to go with the curry. Cooking, as always, calmed me and helped clear my head. When everything was ready, it occurred to me that Dad had been in the bath for over an hour. I ran up and knocked on the bathroom door, but there was no answer. I could hear the radio blasting away. Would I prefer to have to go in there when Dad was naked, or for him to accidentally drown? It was a close-run thing.

  ‘Dad? I’m coming in.’

  I pushed at the door, but it didn’t yield. Oh God, he’d locked it, and now he was in there, floating lifeless, or bleeding to death from self-inflicted razor wounds. I beat the door with my fists, but there was no response. That’s it, I thought, there’s nothing else for it, I’m going to have to call the police. I stood for a moment, my hand pressed to my chest, trying to calm my banging heart, then as I turned to go and get my phone, Dad opened the bathroom door. He had a towel wrapped round his waist and no visible damage to any major arteries.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he yelled over the radio.

  ‘You’ve been ages,’ I said, feeling foolish and a bit cross, ‘and supper’s ready.’

  * * *

  As I watched Dad push his food around, I realised I should have done a proper traditional meal, a pie or steak of the kind Gran would make him. Mum was the one who was adventurous with food, who tried all my experimental cooking.

  Me and Dad ate/pushed food in silence. It seemed impossible to start any kind of conversation, from the small (what did he think of the curry?) to the big (would he reinstate Anthony if I could prove there was definitely nothing going on?) to the massive (how was he feeling about his failed marriage?). After a few minutes, Dad took his bowl to the sink and left it on the side, the food barely touched.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said – his first words since Bathroom-gate. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Shall I fetch you some chips?’

  ‘Ooh yes please, love.’

  I quickly finished my own food and walked up the road to the chip shop. It was only when I pushed open the door that I remembered that my old school friend Nita worked here.

  ‘Well, hello, stranger,’ Nita said. She was wearing a stripy apron, her long dark hair tied back neatly. ‘What you doing back here? Visiting your mum?’

  ‘Er, something like that… how are things here?’

  ‘Oh, you know, the excitement never starts. Fish and chips, is it?’ She started expertly turning chips in the hot fat.

  ‘Yes please, one portion.’

  ‘So how’s your business going, Stell? Vietnamese food, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Sri Lankan. Yes, it’s doing really well.’

  ‘Lucky you. You escaped. I’m trapped here forever. Can’t afford to get my own place.’

  ‘I know, it’s really tough. I’m only just scraping by, and I’ve got the tiniest room in a house share. And it’s in the worst part of Romford.’

  Nita raised a sceptical eyebrow. She knew how ecstatic I’d been to get out of my parents’ house. As she shovelled chips into a bag, I thought, there but for the grace of God. Swap stationery for batter, and that could so easily have been me, stuck in one of Dad’s shops.

  ‘Salt and vinegar?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Well, if you ever have a vacancy in the business, or the house, think of me, won’t you? My cabin fever is at critical. If I never see another blimming chip it’ll be too soon. Say hi to your mum and dad for me.’

  ‘Will do.’ I wished I could tell her what had happened, but I was worried about Dad being on his own in the house. ‘See you soon.’

  * * *

  After Dad scarfed down the fish and chips from the wrapper – Mum would never have stood for that – he said he was going to have a rest.

  ‘Dad? Can I, I mean we ought to, shall we… I mean, should we talk?’

  He looked straight at me, and I saw that he was starting to look old. His face seemed more lined than just a few months ago, and his hair was more grey than brown.

  ‘Not now, thank you,’ he said, and went out.

  During that difficult time after university, there were days when getting up was a challenge, knowing that all I had to look forward to was filling in yet more hopeless job applications. Mum would sometimes say, ‘Sweetheart, there’s going to be a limit to what you can achieve today.’ I whispered it out loud now, like a mantra: there is going to be a limit to what I can achieve today.

  I cleared up, then went to find Dad. He was in the living room, asleep in an armchair. I draped a blanket round him, then went upstairs and got into my old bed – Mum always kept it made up with clean sheets – and texted Theo. I tried to stay awake long enough for his reply but couldn’t keep my eyes open.

  Six

  Stella

  I was woken by a noise I couldn’t immediately identify. My phone was still clutched in my hand, and it was nearly eight o’clock. I’d slept for eleven hours straight. I realised the noise was Dad yelling, and I jumped out of bed and into the room formerly known as Mum and Dad’s room.

  He was lying on his side on the floor next to the bed, wearing nothing but pants, looking utterly confused. ‘I banged my head!’

  ‘Jesus, Daddy, what happened?’ I tried to pull him up, averting my eyes from his belly rolls, but he was too heavy to move.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ He struggled into a kneeling position. ‘I was sitting on the edge of the bed, putting on my trousers, when I, I don’t know, I must have tipped over. I hit my head on the floor. It really hurts, actually.’ He rubbed his forehead.

  ‘Can you get back into bed, Dad?’

  ‘We have to open your mother’s shop.’ He tried to stand up, then stumbled and sat back on the floor.

  ‘You’re going nowhere.’

  ‘I’m not, am I?’ he said, trying to smile. ‘I don’t think I had a very good sleep, I was in the living room for some reason.’

  Heaving with all my weight, I helped him get up into a crouch so he could climb back into bed. He crawled under the covers, still protesting. ‘You can’t manage the shop on your own.’

  I picked up his crumpled trousers from the floor – he must have been lying on them – and laid them over the back of the chair. ‘It will be fine,’ I said. ‘Try and get some rest. Gran’s on her way, so she’ll look after you. There’s no need to worry about anything.’ My strong dad was falling to pieces.

  ‘Thank you, Stella. You’re an angel.’ He closed his eyes, and I started towards the door, then his eyes snapped open. ‘If the Sheaffer rep comes in, tell her—’

  ‘To leave you the catalogue.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  * * *

  My first day solo in the shop was anything but calm. Anthony came in and threatened to take us to court, but not before telling me exactly where Dad could put a glue stick, then Edward was infuriating when I called to tell him what had happened, suggesting I drop my life and work in the shop full-time. And to top it off, we had a run on gel pens so I had to deal with an irate mother complaining I’d ruined her daughter’s birthday when there
were none left. Things took a much-needed turn for the better when I got back to Dad’s and discovered Gran in the kitchen, rolling out pastry.

  ‘Dear heart!’ she said. ‘What a marvellous trooper you’ve been!’ She glided round the table and planted a delicate, barely-there kiss on my cheek. She wasn’t one of life’s huggers, which was a shame as I could have done with one.

  ‘Thanks for coming so quickly, Gran.’

  ‘Not at all, Stella dear.’ She went back to her pastry. ‘How is your father?’

  ‘Haven’t you seen him yet?’

  ‘Barely. He let me in, then went off to bed. That was three hours ago.’

  I flopped into a chair, suddenly overcome by it all. Gran took one look at me and got the brandy out from the cupboard next to the sink.

  ‘Stella, how are you really?’

  I took a tiny sip of brandy – I hated the taste, but it was Gran’s go-to in a crisis – and gave a brief precis of the rollercoaster couple of days: Dad’s phone call, Anthony threatening lawsuits, Edward being weird, and Theo far away. Gran gave me her best: a pat on the shoulder and a top-up of brandy. I couldn’t help thinking how Mum would have gathered me into a tight, comforting embrace and held me for as long as I needed.

  I told her about Dad falling down/fainting this morning, and she nodded sympathetically. ‘My poor little boy. I always knew Kay would break his heart one day.’

  ‘To be fair, Gran, it did take quite a long time.’

  ‘Thirty years might seem long to you, sweet child, but to me it’s the blink of an eye.’

  I was under no illusion about the prickly relationship between Mum and Gran. I’d noticed from a fairly young age that their conversational barbs were more edgy than affectionate. I’d asked Mum about it once, and she said, ‘Oh, Alice wouldn’t have thought anyone was good enough for Richard. She’d have been the same with Jackie Kennedy or Grace Kelly.’ I hadn’t heard of these women at the time, so for quite a while I assumed they were Dad’s ex-girlfriends.

  Probably their mutual abrasiveness was due to class differences. My grandmother was from a well-to-do Hampshire family and, of course, as she loved to remind us, used to work for (minor) royalty. Though Mum always described this as being ‘in service’, which made Gran furious. She sent Dad to private school and was thoroughly disappointed when he didn’t get in to Oxbridge. Mum, on the other hand, grew up on an estate near Liverpool, and still had a soft Scouse accent that set Gran’s teeth on edge. I couldn’t help noticing that the accent came out more strongly when Gran was around.

  ‘What are you making?’ I asked her, changing the subject.

  ‘Your father’s favourite – steak pie.’ She draped the pastry neatly over a dish full of meat. ‘Ideally one would leave the pastry in the fridge for two days, but I’m going to simply shove it in the oven and beg for forgiveness.’

  She brushed the pie with egg yolk, put it in the oven, and sat opposite me. ‘Do you understand what’s happened, dear? Richard’s telephone message was so garbled I could barely follow it, and Edward was scarcely any more enlightening. Your mother can’t really have been having some folie a deux with little Anthony, can she?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Gran, it’s just a weird idea that Daddy’s got somehow.’

  ‘Well, that’s something. But I truly don’t know what’s got into Kay. She must see that one can’t simply walk out on one’s life in this way. One has responsibilities, after all. Husband, children, work. I did wonder…’ and she leaned forward and whispered, ‘if she’d lost her marbles.’

  ‘Gran! You can’t say that.’

  ‘Can’t say it about your mother, or about anyone?’

  ‘Anyone! It’s not the right way to say… look, never mind about that. Are you saying you think Mum’s got a mental-health issue?’

  Gran rolled her eyes. ‘If that’s what we have to call it nowadays, then yes, that’s what I think.’

  Dad walked in then, luckily, as I didn’t really want to hear Gran’s diagnosis. We both jumped up. I put the kettle on, while Gran whipped out a plate of biscuits she must have made before I arrived. It was great that Dad was up, but even his own mother would have said that he looked awful.

  And yes, here was his own mother: ‘Richard dear, you look awful.’

  Dad nodded. ‘Thanks, Mum.’ He slumped into a chair, and stared vacantly into space.

  He was unshaven, and his hair lay flat and unwashed against his head like a limp dishcloth. The dark circles under his eyes were closer to panda than human.

  ‘Are you still tired, Daddy?’ I asked.

  ‘Down to my toes. Bone tired,’ he said, and then to my horror he started to cry. Though I had heard him cry once before, on the phone yesterday, I’d never seen it. It instantly went straight to number one of the top ten things I wished I’d never seen.

  ‘She’s not coming back, is she?’ Dad wailed.

  Gran and I both ran over and held him – well, I did and Gran patted him gently – while he sobbed his heart out. Could he be right? Was Mum really not coming back? The echoing silence of her disappearance was scary and final. There was no such echoing silence from Gran, though. She forgot momentarily, perhaps, that I was closely related to Mum, and called her a few things I was surprised to hear. But the dissing seemed to soothe Dad a little.

  ‘I thought she’d have come back by now. I really did,’ Dad sobbed. I handed him my glass of brandy, and he chugged it down as if it was water.

  ‘Well, she easily might yet,’ Gran said, then added, contradictorily, ‘but good riddance, say I!’

  ‘I miss her!’ Dad said, leaning his head against my shoulder.

  ‘Me too!’ Gran said. Make your mind up, woman.

  After a few minutes, Dad pulled out of my arms. ‘I have to check in with the shops!’

  Of course – Dad’s daily ritual, never yet missed – was to email the managers at the other shops. What they thought of it, I wasn’t sure. He started to get up, but Gran fixed him with her special stare.

  ‘You’re in no state, Richard,’ she said. ‘Stella can do it.’

  ‘Sure. Just whip off a few emails, is it?’

  ‘Aileen needs a phone call rather than an email,’ Dad said. Aileen was the manager at Pencil Us In, Dad’s second-biggest shop.

  ‘You phone Aileen every day?’

  He looked at me, baffled. ‘Of course.’

  By the time I’d checked in with the other managers, and handled Aileen’s concerned/nosey questions about my parents, supper was ready. I shovelled in a load of Gran’s comfort carbs and fell heavily into bed. I was almost asleep when Edward rang.

  ‘Have you seen the email from Mum?’ he said.

  ‘No. I got a text from Rose saying they were both at the cottage in Wales.’

  ‘She’s sorted the Anthony problem.’

  ‘Oh, hurrah!’ I sat up. ‘Did she sound OK?’

  ‘It was a pretty weird message, to be honest. She said she was going up a mountain tomorrow, and went on about glue sticks. She possibly has totally lost her mind, but I can’t process that right now. Anyway, she’s arranged for Anthony to come back as manager. That’s the good news.’

  ‘Uh oh.’

  ‘The bad news is, he’s taking a fortnight’s holiday.’

  ‘What are you saying, Edward?’

  ‘Can you just stay until he’s back? Pretty please, Stell?’

  ‘A fortnight? Surely you could come—’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t drop everything. And I’m afraid you can. I’ve got responsibilities, and you’re lucky you don’t have any yet. That’s simply the way it is.’

  ‘I don’t believe this!’ I was too furious to cry. ‘How can you be so cold? You haven’t been here for months, and now we’ve got the worst crisis ever and you’re all, oh dear I’m a bit too busy to see my father who’s been walked out on.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to him plenty. And you and Gran are there.’

  ‘Yes! Some of us don’t have the luxury o
f being able to opt out,’ I yelled. ‘I want to go back to my home and my job and my boyfriend.’

  ‘But someone needs to look after Dad for a bit. And Mum’s shop.’ Edward put on his conciliatory voice. ‘You’re a superhero, Stell. You’re my hero.’

  Oh my God, he was every bit as maddening as when we were children. ‘Don’t fucking do that, Eduardo.’ I turned off my phone. Bloody Edward. And bloody Mum! Just when I thought I’d finally managed to get my life together, and she went and kicked it out from under me.

  Seven

  Stella

  The next few days passed uneventfully, if such a confusing, upsetting, annoying situation could be described as uneventful. I worked in the shop, and worried about Dad’s mental state, and watched Gran re-organise Mum’s kitchen. The relish with which she tackled this made me wonder how long she’d been dying to get her hands on it, but on the plus side, everything was tidy, and there were delicious home-cooked meals every day. Plus a packed lunch for me to take to the shop so there was, ‘No need for you to force down sandwiches made by people on dubious employment schemes, dear.’

  Dad was distant, prone to tears, there-but-not-there. He greeted the news that Anthony, Mum’s alleged lover, had been promoted to manager, with a strange lack of surprise. ‘I suppose I’d better apologise to him?’ he said.

  ‘Yes!’ Gran and I chorused, equally relieved that on this, at least, he seemed to have his senses back.

  ‘I’ll write him a letter,’ Dad said, ‘and take him champagne on his first day back.’

  But other than asking for a brief shop report at the end of each day, he didn’t speak much, and spent a lot of time sleeping, or hiding away in his bedroom.

  The agency girl Edward had hired, Callie, was efficient at serving customers. But everything else was down to me, and it was so tiring. I tried hard each night, in weary, before-bed phone calls to Theo, to think of a more interesting topic than the shop. But it was all I had to talk about. He seemed very far away and was exhausted too, juggling his own work and the catering with Gabby. He didn’t have time to visit, and I was too knackered to go and see him. Even when I went to sleep there was no respite, because I had panic-dreams about not having ordered enough stock. Had Mum felt this way too? In just a few days, I felt hemmed in by the shop. What had it been like to do this for twenty-five years?