by Jenni Keer
‘I love my car but I’m not having a sexual relationship with it,’ Theo said.
Oh, why didn’t the English language have an array of suitable alternatives for love, she wondered. It made things terribly confusing.
‘But the hugs?’
‘Not everyone is comfortable with man-hugs but Johnny and I don’t spare it a thought. I ruffle a child’s hair, I rub the belly of a friendly dog and I hug my best mate. Quite frankly, I don’t care if that’s misinterpreted.’ And then he paused for a moment, scratching his tufty chin as he too worked through a thought process. ‘Hold on a minute there, madam. You mean you thought I was gay?’ He swivelled his head in her direction as he placed a traffic cone on the ground. He chuckled. ‘It’s the hair, isn’t it? And the way I’m so immaculately groomed all the time?’
‘Oh, stop it.’ She shoved him playfully with her elbow as she tied the end of the rope to a fence post – although it felt more awkward than before. All the comfortableness and banter had become something more charged – on her part, at least. ‘You can’t tell me off for perpetuating stereotypes and then do the same.’
It was more complicated than that though, in her defence. Johnny had told her he had a partner, she’d been charmed by his ostentatious manner and quirky dress sense, and he’d taken every opportunity to gush over Theo’s good looks, wonderful personality and fit body. Actually – now she came to think of it – what was that all about?
‘Interestingly, I’ve known Johnny a long time and he wasn’t always quite so … theatrical. The turning point was pretty much someone commenting on the origins of his surname – which he seemed strangely unaware of. Gildersleeve, or golden sleeve, means flamboyant dresser. Guess he took it to heart and decided to embrace his heritage. He’s always been over-wordy and a bit of a dandy apparently, but when he bought out the previous owners fifteen years ago and relaunched the company as Gildersleeve Auctioneers, he really went for it.’
‘It still seems odd to me that you both own the company. Aren’t you a bit young to be a partner in a business?’ She knew he was a few years older than her but it was still quite a feat.
‘I came into a bit of money when my granddad died – it annoyed the olds that he bypassed them with the inheritance but I think he always felt a bit sorry for me as a kid. Before I knew it, Johnny was offering me the opportunity to be his business partner.’ Theo deliberately stressed the word, but she got it; there was no need to rub it in so vigorously.
‘Isn’t it odd to have a friend who’s so much older?’ she asked, wondering why Theo’s granddad should feel sorry for him, but then he never talked about his family or his childhood. ‘Do you even have things in common?’ Maisie didn’t have a huge circle of friends – mainly girls she’d been to secondary school with, or met through college and Wickerman’s. Zoe was her best friend and confidante. But all her friends, including her sister, had similar upbringings and points of reference. Theo and Johnny’s friendship was curious.
‘As opposed to having a sexual partner twice my age? You are a funny girl,’ Theo said. ‘And actually, we have lots in common, but we are also very different people. It’s far more exciting to have a friend who isn’t a mirror image of yourself. Think of the things you learn and the experiences you have. Not sure I want to hang out with another thirty-something laid-back bloke who rabbits on endlessly about how MTV shaped the Eighties or his enduring love of the iconic Tulip Chair – the sort of bloke who can’t even find a matching pair of socks …’
‘He sounds fun to me,’ and she smiled at the higgledy-piggledy man in front of her. ‘Just the kind of guy who’d hang out with a hyper-efficient, curvaceous marketing wunderkind who knows how to button up a shirt.’
As Maisie hung a laminated sign over the barrier to request people didn’t block the access, she decided Theo had a point. Friends shouldn’t be restricted to the people you drifted through life with. It was far better to seek out individuals who intrigued you and made you think, who had different backgrounds and interests.
‘Well, I can honestly say Johnny’s widened my horizons. He’s taken me to hear Shostakovich at the Barbican,’ Theo said, rubbing his hands together and walking towards the offices, as Maisie followed. ‘It was fab, by the way, very intense. So I bought us tickets to an Icons of The Eighties gig last year – which he utterly detested. Mind you, he totally adored detesting it – it was all he could talk about for a fortnight.’
That endearing lopsided smile enveloped his face and Maisie’s heart popped in a few extra beats per minute. Maybe it wasn’t just your friends who should be different to you. The adage opposites attract had come about for a reason, and Theo certainly couldn’t be described as a Maisie clone by any stretch of the imagination.
It was time to confront the truth in her heart – Theo’s sexual orientation was a total game-changer.
Chapter 17
‘Remember you were talking about that funny teapot the other day?’ Maisie’s mum said to her youngest daughter, her warm breath condensing into a little cloud as she spoke.
They were dressed like Arctic explorers and perched on carrier bags to stop the damp wood on a slightly green park bench from marking their clothes. (Maisie always came prepared.) An elderly resident of Willow Tree House was bundled up in more knitting than Kirstie Allsopp and scattering duck pellets from the local pet store at a collection of honking birds. Chuckling away happily to herself, she rocked backwards and forwards in her wheelchair, totally content. Maisie’s mum was a massive fan of getting the residents outside, even in the middle of winter, because, as she often reminded Maisie, they might not make it to the spring.
‘I hadn’t made the connection before but we had a new resident a couple of weeks back, Mrs Cooper, so the name didn’t ring any bells,’ her mum continued. ‘Poor thing, only in her early seventies, but she’s got emphysema and was struggling living alone. There I was, painting her nails, and telling her about our fragmented family – half my kids abroad, Lisa up in York and your father being a total arse and going where the attractive, short-skirted wind blows …’ She paused for effect as she always did when talking about her ex-husband, pulling her coat tighter around her body. ‘And she said her sisters, I forget how many, had lived in Suffolk their entire lives, as had she apart from a brief spell in London when she was younger.’
Maisie watched the honking Canada geese mob a happily giggling Margaret as she listened to her mother’s words and wondered where this tale was leading.
‘Then she said she’d recently lost her eldest sister, Meredith, and despite being at odds most of their adult lives, they’d spent their last few Christmases together at her sister’s house in, would you believe, Hickory Street? Well, I painted Relentless Ruby right up her finger, I was that surprised to hear the connection.’
A shiver of something trickled across Maisie’s shoulders, and not just because it was bone-chillingly cold. It was like that feeling someone was walking over your grave or one of those freaky and inexplicable moments of déjà vu. What an unnervingly small world, because if the cups were from Meredith’s sister – the coincidence was beyond incredible. Since her decision to reunite the set she’d drawn a blank, not only with locating the Mayhews, but also finding anything about the design online. Not one of the china-finding sites had come up with a match.
Margaret’s bag of pellets was empty, so the geese lost interest and wandered off to see what a young pushchair-wielding mother had for them. The elderly lady looked most forlorn.
‘Then this Irene Cooper said she wasn’t looking forward to spending next Christmas with a bunch of senile old lunatics, shuffling up and down the corridors and making jailbreaks in their nighties.’ Maisie’s mum chuckled. ‘Her lungs may have packed up but there’s nothing wrong with her brain. Or her tongue, for that matter. I had to remind her not to be quite so insulting to her fellow residents, who are a lovely bunch of people. She won’t find anyone to sit next to at the sing-alongs if she keeps letting her tongue r
un wild.’
‘Meredith stayed at the house all those years?’ Maisie asked, her eyes dropping to the path in front of her. It would have been easy to return to Hickory Street and knock on Meredith’s door. Think how pleased their old neighbour would have been to hear that the art book had been so treasured. Maisie’s stomach did a vicious little twist and she felt ashamed of herself.
‘Seems like it, dear. Now I feel bad I never went back to visit but you lose touch over time. It’s barely ten minutes by car but I suppose I avoided the area. Always convinced someone would recognise me as the woman who went loopy and threw all her husband’s possessions out the landing window.’
The jibes Maisie endured at school about having a jumble sale in the front garden went on for weeks but she’d never said anything to her mum. And the teasing died down. Eventually. If only her mother had left it at that but hell and the small town of Tattlesham really had no fury like Beverley Meadows; scorned and out for revenge. She even made the local paper after reports of mysterious graffiti appearing on her ex-husband’s front door, but her dad never confronted his ex-wife or sought revenge for the revenge. Just as well really. World War Three would have broken out in their small Suffolk town.
‘I really liked Meredith,’ Maisie said, gazing across the mere at the central fountain, water droplets shimmering down like candelabra crystals.
‘So did I. She was a real life-saver for me. Such a calm lady, never judgemental or prying. I guess having been through something similar, she understood.’
‘I didn’t know she had a husband,’ Maisie said, turning her head to look at her mum. As a child, she’d assumed Meredith had chosen to live alone. Coming from such a boisterous house, it was a decision that made perfect sense to her. But now, as an adult, she understood very few people actively made that decision. Humans were gregarious creatures and it was often circumstance that obliged people to lead solitary lives. Meredith’s situation had never occurred to her before.
‘That was the point. She didn’t. Her fiancé dumped her shortly before their wedding. It was all the more cruel because she was well into her thirties. Finally found someone after all that time, and then he left her for another woman and I don’t think she ever got over it. Love of her life, she told me once, over a cuppa. Now Meredith’s tea – that was something else,’ her mum said, going off at a tangent. ‘One sip and all was right with the world. Reckon she bought it somewhere posh. Like Waitrose …’
Despite regret still pulling at Maisie’s very core, this was positive news. If the sisters were all local, Maisie’s plans to reunite the tea set were feasible. Assuming the cups were from Irene (the timing and geography certainly fitted with their arrival at Gildersleeve’s), she would seek her out as soon as they returned Margaret to Willow Tree House. She didn’t even care about owning the set. It merely seemed important to make it whole again, in whoever’s possession it eventually resided.
Keen not to lose another moment, Maisie sprung to her feet and clapped her hands together. ‘Home, Margaret?’ she asked. The old lady nodded as a strong gust of wind whipped up a whirlpool of dead twigs and lost feathers in front of them and her mother shivered.
‘Can’t make out Zoe’s decision to come back to the UK,’ her mum said, changing the subject again. ‘I wouldn’t choose this—’ she waved a gloved hand across the mere ‘—over a blisteringly hot sandy beach on the south coast of Australia.’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Maisie reached out for her mother’s hand and gave it a woolly squeeze. ‘I’d miss my family too much.’
Her mother’s eyes started the familiar build-up of tears – it didn’t take much to set her off.
‘Oh, darling, you are a sweetheart. It’s a lovely thing to say, but we’re hardly the Waltons. Even the good times weren’t that great.’ She tugged at her duffel coat buttons through her mittens. ‘Let’s get Margaret back before she becomes a human Popsicle. And then you promised her a boxing match on the Wii, remember? Keep it low-key though. Don’t want her launching herself out the wheelchair again with those lethal left hooks of hers.’
Chapter 18
Irene Cooper was an interesting woman. And that was being polite.
‘What you nosing about my family for?’ Her tiny charcoal-black eyes were set in a face rippled with age, tight lips pinched together, betraying a lifetime of their vice-like grip on cigarettes. The oxygen tank next to her chair was a further by-product of that habit. It was difficult not to focus on the clear tubing that ran around her face and over her top lip, administering oxygen into her nose. ‘That Beverley woman said you wanted to talk to me about flipping crockery.’
Maisie’s mum had shown her to the old lady’s room and found them a tray of tea and biscuits, but had to leave abruptly to hunt down Naked Man, whose cries of, ‘I’ve got it. Who wants it?’ echoed up the long, burgundy-carpeted corridor.
Walking back to the care home and chatting with her mum, Maisie had learned Irene was a lady bitter with disappointed dreams. Thin and wiry all her life, she’d had a promising modelling career spread before her but had come off the back of a motorbike in the Sixties and ended up with a nasty scar across her face that put paid to it all. Maisie could still see the dent in her forehead and that her left eyelid was puckered into the outside edge of the eyebrow.
‘I knew your sister …’ Maisie began.
‘Oh yeah? I had a few. You’ll have to be a bit more specific.’
‘Meredith. I lived next door to her in Hickory Street when I was younger.’
‘Ah, the sensible one.’ Her face softened slightly. ‘Always had her head in a book and a mother to us little ones. Invited me over for Christmas Day in recent years. A kind soul – in retrospect kinder to me than I probably deserved. But then when you spend a lifetime being prickly, it’s hard to sand down your scratchy bits.’ She cackled to herself and let out a wheezy sigh. ‘They’re all dropping off the edge – the people I grew up with. And now she’s gone too and even though she had twelve years on me, it seems I won’t be far behind.’
The thought of her own imminent demise led to a prolonged coughing fit. Maisie sat uncomfortably not knowing what to do to help but also not wanting to patronise this spiky lady or attempt some back-patting that would probably only make matters worse. After a few minutes, the baby bird of a woman recovered and took a sip of her tea.
‘She’s up with the angels now. Reckon I’ll be heading south, though,’ and she tipped her head to the floor and gave a further chuckle. ‘So come on then, what’s this all about? Some scam to con me out of my life’s savings? ’Cause you’re a bit late – spent them on fags and booze. Might as well go out in a blaze of glory.’
Maisie explained about the teapot and cups coming up in the auction and how she remembered Meredith’s conviction the set should be together.
‘Oh, Verity’s set,’ Irene said, shuffling in her seat and pulling her thick wool skirt over her bony knees. ‘Black and white jiggly pattern?’
‘Verity’s set?’ Meredith had never mentioned a Verity – at least, not that Maisie could remember. ‘Was that your grandmother’s name?’
‘No, might have been my great-grandmother, but I forget now. I don’t remember a Verity in the family, but that don’t mean nothing. Gamma always referred to it as Verity’s though. I lied to Meredith and said I’d given them away because she was always harping on about the bloody things. That shut her up. Feel a bit rotten about it now, though, but then all I had was three sodding cups and saucers. I ask you – what good is that to man or beast?’ She looked across to Maisie who was picking at her lip and starting to feel uncomfortable. Her voice became more gentle. ‘But it’s nice you’re trying to get it all back together. Gamma would be pleased. Mother, on the other hand, wouldn’t give a flying fig.’
She paused for a few moments, struggling with her breathing. Naked Man chose that moment to throw open the door and give the ladies a clear view of his diminished assets.
‘Oh dear, there you are.�
�� Maisie heard her mother’s pacifying voice in the distance. ‘It’s a bit chilly. Shall we find you some nice warm clothes and get back to that game of bingo? You’ve only got two numbers to go.’
The old man either didn’t hear, or pretended not to, as he wiggled his hips and everything jiggled about. ‘Who’s up for a night of how’s your father?’ he asked, his top false teeth dropping from his gum with a slurp, as he gave an impish grin.
‘How’s my father?’ Irene muttered. ‘He’s been in the ground forty years. Not going to be in a great state, let’s be honest. You’ll have to come up with a more interesting proposition than that.’
Naked Man seemed to think about this and tried again.
‘Let’s make the bed rock, thweetheart.’ The air whistled through his teeth as he spoke. ‘I’ve got the stamina of a long-distance runner.’
This made Maisie think of Theo’s running past and her cheeks flushed scarlet as she linked this to Naked Man’s request. The news Theo was possibly on the market had caused restless nights, and any sleep she’d managed was filled with X-rated dreams where Theo’s extraordinary hair had proved that no amount of vigorous activity could persuade it to move anywhere.
‘I don’t think I’ll be going the distance with you but thanks for the offer.’ Irene dismissed him and returned her attention to Maisie, as Maisie’s mum appeared in the corridor, placed a dressing gown about Naked Man’s shoulders and steered him away.
‘Sorry,’ she mouthed, as she closed the door behind them both.
‘Totally gaga,’ Irene said, her index finger circling her ear. ‘I wouldn’t mind if he was a bit more with it, but what’s the point of all that effort if they don’t remember it afterwards?’
Maisie nodded. ‘Absolutely.’ Mind you, it had been a while since she’d rocked any bed – other than in her Theo-orientated dreams.
‘There were six of us – the Mayhew sisters,’ Irene clarified, returning to the conversation in hand. ‘Meredith, Phyllis, Cynthia, me and Joanie, then our little Essie,’ Irene was striding down memory lane now that Maisie had opened the gate. ‘Gadding about in our lippy and our mini-skirts – beehive hair giving that Marge Simpson a run for her money. We thought we were going to conquer the world but it didn’t turn out that way. All full of promise and giddy dreams and then we had this terrible year when every single damn one of us met with some misfortune or another.’ Irene tugged at her tube, which was obviously causing her discomfort.