by Jenni Keer
Maisie shrugged. ‘I’m happy to give you something for them, I said that from the beginning, but we don’t even know if you still have them. Equally, if you don’t want to sell, that’s fine. They are heirlooms, things to remember your granny by, and you absolutely can’t put a price on that.’ There was something about this man she didn’t trust and she wasn’t interested in playing his silly games. She made to turn back to the car.
‘Fifty,’ he said.
‘Fifty what?’
‘Pounds. For the plates.’ He dropped the butt and ground it into the gravel of the driveway with his heel.
‘Fifty pounds for three plates? I’m sorry but that’s absolutely ridiculous.’
‘There ain’t three – there’s a big one an’ all. Like a dinner plate with ears.’ So he did have them. She felt excited and angry all at once.
‘A cake plate?’
‘Yeah. One of them. So, it’s fifty.’ Maisie shook her head – his price was too high – and turned to the car for a second time. ‘Wait. You ain’t even looked at them yet. Let me show you.’ He rummaged in his trouser pockets for a bunch of keys and walked to the up-and-over garage door, unlocked it, and stood back as it disappeared into the roof. Inside, it was like a scene from Storage Hunters; packed full of cardboard boxes but the contents a total mystery.
‘All her bloody crap. Been there for nearly two sodding years. The missus said she were going to boot fair the last of it, might as well get all the cash we can, but it’s still sitting here. Now, which box was it?’ he muttered to himself, as he began to pull open flaps and peer inside.
Maisie could have told him. She could have walked straight over to the left-hand side of the garage and pointed. The prickling was back and it was intense. Instead, she waited patiently as he worked his way down the row until he stumbled on the plates.
‘There. Look. No chips or nothing. Lovely pattern – all squiggles and stuff. Look great with anything. And here’s the big one – just like I said. Gotta be worth it, especially if you’ve got the other cups ’n’ stuff?’
Maisie didn’t have money for non-essentials, especially since the salary drop working for Gildersleeve’s and her acquisition of a dubious collection of garden ornaments, but she was torn. He didn’t want his granny’s belongings. They meant nothing to him. She might as well have left them to a charity. But he was trying to extort an unreasonable amount of money from her for something he realised she was interested in.
On the other hand, if she walked away, that was it. She couldn’t reunite the set. There was no doubt he’d sell it just to spite her. And it was about so much more now. It was calling to her and she couldn’t let it down.
‘Twenty?’ she offered. She wasn’t so green she’d pay his initial asking price. He looked at her, his slitty little dark eyes weighing her up again.
‘Fifty. And you can take the whole box. Take it or leave it.’ Perhaps she’d made a mistake by haggling. It indicated she was keen. ‘It’s a now-or-never offer. I’ll get our missus to shift ’em next week. ’Bout time we got shot of it all anyway.’
‘Twenty-five?’ she squeaked. Why was she even bothering? He’d worked out she wanted them now.
‘Fifty-five. The price just went up.’ His lip curled again and he picked up the plates and held them at waist height in front of him.
‘You can’t do that. That’s not fair.’
‘I can do what I like, lady. In fact, I can go all Spanish and start chucking them at the goddamn garage wall if I feel like it.’ Correcting his cultural reference would not endear her to him, so she said nothing. ‘Well?’ he said, lifting them and pulling his arm back as if he was about to launch them at the brickwork.
‘Okay, fifty but there’s no way I’m letting you put the price up. That’s just mean.’ Her eyes fell to the floor. ‘They really aren’t worth that much,’ she whispered. ‘I just like them.’
‘Yeah, the wife is the same about handbags. She can put this towards another one now. I’ll treat her. Right, get your banking app up and I’ll tell you my account number.’
Maisie transferred the money, wondering how much his wife’s handbags cost if fifty was just a proportion, then she picked up the plates from where he’d put them down to sort the money.
‘Oi, hold on, missus. You’ve gotta take the whole box. That was the deal.’
‘I really don’t want—’
‘Take the damn box.’ His voice was loud and intimidating. ‘I want my garage back. Even if I have to do it one box at a sodding time.’
Maisie stood back from the small circular dining room table in the corner of her living room and smiled. Arranged in trios, with the cake plate and teapot in the middle of the table, the tea set looked stunning. As soon as she’d returned from the grasping grandson she was desperate to see the pieces together and discovered the tea plates all had little symbols on the bottom as well, tallying up with three of the cups and saucers.
It was lovely, she thought, that Verity’s set was being reunited alongside her efforts to get her own family back together. If she could achieve both, it would truly be a year for reunifying.
Nigel was trying to squeeze his fluffy pompom of a body up the tube that led to his sleeping level but because he had a cucumber baton in his mouth, he was considerably wider than the tube. The doorbell went and he turned to look at Maisie.
‘No idea.’ Maisie shrugged at Nigel and skipped out to the hall.
As the door swung inwards, Maisie was greeted by a slender, elegant and slightly older version of herself – but then what’s a decade between sisters?
‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’ Lisa asked.
Chapter 29
Maisie’s eyes dropped to the collection of bags at her sister’s feet. This wasn’t a flying visit. Her scattered family members really were catapulting themselves back into her life at an alarming rate.
‘Chillax, sweetie. I just want a decent bed for a couple of nights – preferably memory foam but sprung at a push. York is so hectic and I need some time out to reconnect with myself. I haven’t eaten so whatever you’ve got in will be fine but I’m gluten-free now.’
Lisa squeezed past her sister, planting a huge kiss on her cheek as she did so, and disappeared into the house, leaving her luggage on the doorstep.
‘Come in, why don’t you?’ Maisie said to the empty hallway as she bent down to gather her sister’s belongings, only to hear a shrill scream as Lisa scurried back into the hall moments later.
‘You’ve got a mouse in there.’
‘A hamster.’
‘Get rid of it.’
‘No.’ Maisie’s voice went up an incredulous octave and they stood looking at each other like some sort of Mexican stand-off.
‘You know I’m scared of rodenty hairy things with tails.’
‘Nigel doesn’t have a tail.’
‘Nigel?’ If Lisa was the sort of person prone to humour, she might have accompanied that with an incredulous laugh. Instead she snorted. ‘I’m not going back in there until he’s gone. Put him in the garden or something. He might get out and—’
‘And what?’ Maisie laughed. ‘Savage you with his teeny-tiny teeth or pin you to the floor under his microscopic two-hundred-gram frame? You sit in the garden.’
Lisa huffed. ‘Can you at least move him somewhere I don’t have to look at him?’
‘How about you face the other way so Nigel doesn’t have to look at your sour, pouty face?’ It wasn’t something she would have dared say to Lisa when she was little but she felt braver on her own turf.
Realising her baby sister wasn’t going to bend to her will, Lisa stomped back into the living room. Although Maisie was delighted to have another family member close, albeit temporarily, she drew the line at evicting Nigel – this was his home, after all.
‘How are things?’ Maisie asked a few minutes later as she cracked open a bottle of chilled Chardonnay she kept in the fridge for emergencies. The unexpected arrival of Lisa, with her in
nate ability to turn her ordered life upside down, definitely qualified. Maisie took one look at the abandoned shoes, the jacket slung across the back of the sofa and the trail of charger leads and clothes from her sister’s luggage, and hastily downed her first glass.
‘Good. Honestly – good.’ Lisa was shoulders back and chin defiant, but Maisie gave her a penetrating look. Lisa was not the sort of person who dropped in on family with no notice if things were ‘good’.
‘I wanted to get away for a bit, that’s all. Got someone bothering me. Needed some air.’
She avoided eye contact, stared intently at her lap and then promptly burst into tears. Maisie looked across at her sister, open-mouthed. The thing about Lisa was, however dramatic her actions, it was always a strong, angry, totally indignant drama, not a vulnerable, pity-me drama. Maisie sidled closer and placed a comforting hand on her sister’s shoulder.
‘You can always get help. Talk to the police if it’s harassment?’
The hand was immediately shrugged off.
‘I’m perfectly capable of sorting my own life out. It’s just a friend who wants more than I’m prepared to give – honestly, you go on a couple of dates and blokes think you owe them the moon. Not sure where the tears came from. Guess I’m overtired. It’s been a long drive.’ Lisa carefully wiped under her eyes with her beautifully manicured index fingers so as not to smudge her perfect make-up. She gave a fortifying sniff and tilted the defiant chin back up.
There was so much about Lisa’s life Maisie didn’t know. The impersonal was posted on social media for all to see but the things that really made her sister tick were not discussed and never had been. Perhaps some quality time with Lisa would bring them closer. The ten-year age gap meant Lisa had left home by the time Maisie was nine – so desperate to escape Hickory Street that she’d moved in with a biker boy she’d met online. Mum was traumatised and rung her about four times a day to check she hadn’t been raped and murdered by this mysterious man but the relationship hadn’t lasted long. He was merely the springboard into the unsettled and hedonistic life that Lisa had led for the last fifteen years.
‘For goodness’ sake, stop looking at me with those anxious eyes,’ Lisa muttered. ‘It’s like having Mum here. I’m totally fine. PMT and two hours’ sleep would even break Genghis Khan.’ And the old Lisa was back in the room.
Great, so her sister was bossy, premenstrual and overtired. Maisie picked up the bottle and refilled her glass.
‘So, you’re here for the weekend? Or longer?’ Maisie tried to plan life around her unexpected guest. Theo was coming over Saturday night to look at the tea set and she didn’t want the glamorous Lisa wafting about in the background, half-dressed and fresh out of the shower, when he did.
‘Maybe a few days or so but I won’t get in your way. I know you’ve got a spare room so I can tuck myself out of the way.’
‘I’m afraid it’s out of bounds. I have, erm … things stored up there.’ She didn’t want Lisa nosing about and scoffing at her artwork. The room had a key so she would lock it. Her paintings were private and she wanted to keep them that way.
‘Can’t the things be moved? Honestly, Maisie, that’s what a spare room is for – guests.’
‘If you’d given me more notice it would be different but there are personal items up there and I’ve got nowhere else to put them. Stay for a couple of days, by all means, but you’ll have to crash on the sofa. Mum’s got a guest bed and Zoe’s back at her Norwich flat. Share the love?’ Maisie knew from previous experience, Lisa’s idea of not getting in the way was sprawling across the living room furniture expecting everything to be brought to her.
‘Oh, come on. You know Mum fusses and completely overreacts? And Zoe and I have never got on.’ And then Lisa shifted to flattery. ‘I need to be with someone who’s not going to get on at me, who is kind and understanding, and who can give me some space to recharge …’
And Maisie realised her big sister was moving in with her for a while, whether she liked it or not. And knowing Lisa, that ‘while’ was unlikely to be as brief as a few days.
Maisie began to prepare for Theo’s visit. Lisa’s clutter was returned to her overnight bags and stood at the foot of Maisie’s bed but it would doubtless be scattered across her living room again by the end of the following day. Then she paid her sister to be elsewhere – Lisa complaining she was short of funds as there had been some mix-up at the bank. Clutching two twenty-pound notes, Lisa decided to head to Norwich to clear her head and why didn’t Maisie join her?
‘Because I’ve got my boss coming round.’
‘Yeah – this evening. It’s lunchtime. Come and catch a matinee with me?’
‘Films are more your thing than mine.’ Maisie found it impossible to sit still for that long. If she had two hours to kill, she knew where she’d rather be – and it was a solitary activity. ‘I need to tidy up.’
‘You are joking? This bloody house is immaculate. Always was your problem, Maisie, too obsessed with the irrelevant minutiae of life to get out there and live. Honestly, you’re so tightly coiled that if anyone springs your release catch you’re going to ping over the moon.’
It wasn’t fair; she was organised, not uptight.
‘Have you even got back out on the dating scene? It doesn’t do to dwell.’ Lisa peered into the large white-framed mirror above the mantelpiece and applied a generous layer of strawberry-red lipstick, blotting her lips together and then winking at her reflection.
‘I don’t need a man to be complete,’ said Maisie.
‘No, but you need to get laid to feel alive. There must be someone who gets your heart racing?’
Maisie couldn’t stop her face colouring up and she focused intently on rug tassel-alignment and didn’t comment.
After Lisa had left, Maisie continued to restore order to her tiny terrace. Nigel followed her around in his plastic ball, always curious to oversee the domestic chores. She let him clatter over thresholds and bump into furniture as she carefully carried the tea set through to her tiny circular dining table in the far corner, ready for Theo’s knowledgeable pronouncements. Finally, with a few minutes to spare, she returned the hoover to the understairs cupboard, only to be greeted by two open halves of plastic ball in the hallway, and not a stumpy hamster tail in sight.
As she scrabbled around on all fours, desperately trying to locate her tennis ball-sized companion, the doorbell went. It was Theo. ‘Quick. Come in. I need to close the door,’ she gabbled. ‘Nigel’s gone missing.’
‘Nigel?’
‘I know.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘It’s an old-fashioned man’s name but I didn’t name him and those older-generation names are in at the moment; one of my old schoolfriends called her son Wilberforce. I’ve looked everywhere – in the cupboard under the stairs, behind the sofa, at the back of the television cabinet …’
‘Those are some pretty tight spaces. How old is Nigel?’
‘About eighteen months.’
‘Okay,’ he said, tossing his jacket towards the bannister rail. It slid down the final foot, but failed to stop at the newel posts and tumbled to the floor. ‘Any chance he could have got outside? Near the road?’
‘Possible but highly unlikely. It’s hardly like he’s tall enough to reach the door handle,’ she said, eyeing the creased pile of jacket but not making a fuss. Nigel was more important.
‘Where did you see him last?’
‘He was following me around as I hoovered, and I was half chatting to him about my day, but when I came back to the hall I found his ball and he was nowhere to be seen.’
Theo frowned and scratched his bouncy hair. ‘Okay, okay, don’t worry, we’ll find him.’ He put a comforting hand on her shoulder and an involuntary ripple made her quiver. ‘He’ll have to come out eventually, even if it’s just to use the loo or because he’s hungry.’
‘Knowing him, he’ll wee on the carpet … more mess for me to clear up.’
He gave a half-smile. ‘And you don
’t do mess, do you?’ They were by the living room door now and he glanced into the room. ‘No wonder you keep huffing at the state of my desk. Do you actually live here? Or just levitate above the furniture?’
He ducked into the room and began peering behind the sofa and opening cupboard doors, calling Nigel’s name and working around the room in a methodical fashion.
‘I’ll carry on down here and you look upstairs – I’d feel uncomfortable being in a lady’s bedroom – and we’ll meet in the middle?’ he called over his shoulder.
‘Okay,’ she said, and scampered up the stairs. Could Nigel really have climbed them? But then she’d seen him scale the side of the sofa before, his little claws digging into the fabric as he heaved his fluffy, bulbous body upwards.
She gave her bedroom a thorough search and then closed the door when she was satisfied he wasn’t in there. Theo bounded up the stairs.
‘He’s not in my bedroom,’ she said. ‘I’ll try the bathroom.’
‘How about in here?’ Theo said, going for the handle of the spare room.
‘He won’t be in there. It’s locked.’
‘Oh yeah – got a secret you don’t want anyone to know about?’ There was a mischievous look in his eyes and a curl of the lip.
‘Something like that.’ She couldn’t prevent a flush of red creeping across her cheeks.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve got a kinky Christian Grey red room?’ he teased. ‘Somewhere you can control things other than your pencils?’ Deliberately not answering, she went into the bathroom and got down on all fours to peer behind the basin pedestal and heard the familiar scratching of claws. Nigel was casting his knowledgeable eye over the pipework.
‘I’ve found him,’ she called to Theo, who was still staring at her locked spare bedroom door, clearly itching to know what lay behind it. There was nothing more intriguing than an unanswered question.