Читать книгу While You Were Dreaming - Lola Jaye - Страница 13

The next morning, Millie walked into the house to the sound of a singing Kitty crouched on all fours.

‘I wanted to make myself some breakfast this morning, went to the fridge, and was almost knocked out by the smell!’ she said, head deep into the fridge.

‘It’s not that bad!’ said Millie, placing her handbag onto the wooden table.

‘It is!’ replied Kitty as she stood up and clocked Millie.

‘You look worse than me and I’m jetlagged. Partying, were we?’

‘Of course not!’ replied Millie, a little offended as to why Kitty would think she’d be partying whilst Lena was still in hospital.

‘Millie, surely you’re not so lazy that you can’t clean the fridge?’

Millie stared at the batch of sweet potatoes and the thick ashy mould congregating on them. The garlic and apples were still okay, but the potatoes were definitely on the turn. Kitty grabbed the sponge again and got to work, as Millie remained rooted to the spot. Kitty assumed Millie must have got very slack over the years. But to Millie, these were some of the last things that Lena had bought before going to sleep. She’d picked them out, paid for them, and loaded them into the fridge with her very own hands. Chucking them away would be like chucking out something that Lena had been a part of.

Millie knew it probably wouldn’t make sense to anyone but her, but it was simple; she hadn’t been ready to take that step. Just as she didn’t want to go into Lena’s room.

As Kitty tied up the large bin bag containing the rotting groceries, Millie thought her heart would break. ‘Can you take this downstairs to the wheelie bins?’ Kitty asked her.

Outside, Millie heaved the ‘rubbish’ into the big green bin and slowly shut the lid. It was a sunny day and a car whizzed by with its bass line blasting out. A neighbour two doors down was loading glass bottles into the recycling bin. Life was ticking along as it always did but for Lena, it was as if everything had frozen in time.

If Millie had done a superficial clean of the house, Kitty had made it sparkle. They spent the day together and went food shopping.

‘Lets cook up something lovely for dinner. Cara could come over, too. Would be like old times, us all eating together!’

Millie cast her mind back to their childhood, and remembered the umpteen TV dinners that Lena would dish up whilst their mother went to another audition or just shut herself away in her room. She was too polite now to taint her mother’s rose-tinted memory and didn’t want to spoil what had been a really nice day together.

Millie called Cara, who said she didn’t want any dinner but would need to come over later anyway.

Kitty was packing away the last of the dishes as Cara walked in.

‘I saved you some chicken,’ said Kitty.

‘I’d better not thanks though. Ade’s cooking later. I just came to check things like the bills and bank statements. I’m not even sure if there’s enough money in her account to pay for everything and keep things ticking over while she’s…away.’

‘She’s still getting paid, so there should be,’ added Kitty rather carelessly.

‘Well I’d better check through everything, see if there are any policies to be renewed. Like insurance policies might need to be renewed,’ said Cara as she parked herself on the cosy sofa that had cost twenty pounds in a car-boot sale. ‘You know what Lena was like–is like. She would have everything listed somewhere.’

‘The sensible one of my girls,’ said Kitty, which Cara took instant offence to. ‘Do you know, she has a list of everything that gets paid when, just so she can double-check with the bank? I found it in the drawer in the kitchen. I’ll go and get it.’