Читать книгу The Happy Home for Ladies - Michele Gorman - Страница 8

By the time I got back with all Mum’s shopping, Dad was there, sopping wet from the squall that had whipped up outside. His dress shirt was stuck to his chest and little rivulets dripped down the sides of his face from his flattened hair. His whole head had gone grey early, but at least he’s still got it, and despite the stress of being an entrepreneur, he doesn’t look his age (fifty-eight). He does look like a builder, which he is, even though he spends more time on email now than on building sites.

‘You really didn’t park in the garage?’ I asked him.

‘You really did?’ he shot back. ‘I told you it was a waste of money.’

That’s pretty much what passes for a friendly greeting in our family.

Dad wasn’t offended because he’s cheap. We’re talking about the man who drives a £60k car. He and Mum went on exotic holidays. He’s not afraid to spend his cash. He just hates feeling ripped off. That’s why he buys own-brand baked beans if the good ones aren’t on sale. Tesco won’t ever put one over on him.

Not Mum, though, aka Spendy McSquillions. She’d never met a purse she couldn’t empty. It was a good thing their business had done well.

‘I’m only supposed to have one visitor at a time,’ Mum said when I gave her the carrier bags from downstairs.

‘I’m sure it’s fine, Bev,’ Dad said. ‘Phoebe’s driven all the way here.’

‘I know, thank you,’ she said to me. ‘But really, you don’t have to stay, now that Dad’s come. I’m fine, don’t worry about me.’

I could tell that she was fine by the way she was just as critical as usual.

‘Mum’s right,’ Dad added, glancing at his phone. ‘You’ve got to get out of that garage,’ he said, like the parking attendant there was holding my car hostage.

‘I don’t care about the money, Dad.’

But I let them convince me to go back to their house. He’d only keep going on about the expense anyway, and clearly Mum wasn’t in any danger.

I couldn’t say I was completely at home at my parents’, but it felt comfortable enough. Like I said, it wasn’t where I grew up. They sold that when they decided to make their fortune a hundred miles south. Still, I flattered myself that the guest bedroom where I always stayed was ‘my room’, and that I’d at least get first dibs over any Tom, Dick or Harry who came to visit.

Dad didn’t stay at the hospital very long after me, but he went back to work and then out for some dinner meeting that couldn’t be moved just because his wife and business partner was dining in Critical Care.

When I got to Mum’s room the next morning, all I saw was a lump in her bed with a sheet pulled over it. Exactly like they did in films when the paramedics had done all they could to save the patient.

She was dead! ‘Mum!’

‘What!’ snapped the voice under the bedding.

‘What are you doing?’

Mum appeared with an angry yank of the sheet. She had her phone to her ear.

‘You’re not supposed to use that in here!’

‘No kidding, Phoebe, so stop shouting about it or the nurse will hear. Shush.’ She waved me away as she continued to talk and scribble in the notebook I’d picked up for her in the shop.

‘That could interfere with the machines, you know,’ I said when she’d hung up.

‘Don’t be such a worrier,’ she grumbled. ‘It’s my machine, so it’s my risk.’

‘There are other patients with machines on the ward, you know. Do you really want to kill one of them with a phone call?’

Mum rolled her eyes. She was a famous eye-roller. ‘Don’t believe everything you read, Miss Health and Safety. If it was such a problem, then they’d block mobiles.’

‘If it’s such a problem, then they’d put up signs.’ I pointed to the warning posted by the door. ‘Oh, look, they have.’

Then, right on cue she said, ‘Are those the same clothes from yesterday?’

‘I was at work when Dad rang,’ I reminded her. ‘I can pick up some things later if it’s so important to you that I dress for the hospital.’ I knew I should have at least borrowed one of Dad’s shirts. Though the checked trousers were still a problem.

I didn’t usually take Mum’s image critiques to heart. I’d never leave my flat if I did that. Instead, I tried not to give her too much to work with. It was easier emptying the gun than trying to keep the bullets from hitting their mark when she spotted an easy target.

‘Standards,’ Mum said. ‘Anyway, did you have a nice breakfast with Dad?’ We’d gone out to the builder’s caff before he left for the office. ‘The food here is vile. They couldn’t make a decent fry-up with guns to their heads. You could teach them something. Maybe you should work for the NHS. I bet it pays better than what you’re getting now.’

Not wanting our possibly last conversation to be an argument, I ignored her career advice. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t be eating fry-ups, Mum,’ I said instead. Although she was generally one of those women who kept fit and ate well-ish. If she started filling out a bit, she just cut back, as she loved to say. Simple as that. The implication was that anyone could do it. But I’m no supermodel and there’s no ‘just’ cutting back. I’m rounded, like any good chef worth her salted butter should be.

‘At least put on some decent clothes if you’re going to stay,’ she said. ‘I don’t want people thinking my cook is visiting me in hospital.’

‘Sorry I didn’t think to pack a ball gown for your heart attack,’ I said. I’d gone from worried about my mother to rowing with her in less than twenty-four hours. In other words, totally normal.

She glanced at her phone. ‘The shops are open now.’

‘I’ll stop back after lunch, then,’ I told her.

My mobile rang a few hours later. ‘I’m sorry I snapped at you,’ she said, and she meant it. She usually apologised for her outbursts. Not for thinking what she thought, but at least for saying it out loud. ‘You don’t have to bother with new clothes. I’ll be out of here soon anyway, as soon as the doctors tick all their silly little boxes. They’re only covering themselves. I’ve been through most of the tests now, and they’re saying it probably wasn’t even a heart attack. I don’t want you to worry, okay? Honestly, Phoebe, you don’t have to stay. There’s nothing wrong with me. Ask your dad if you don’t believe me.’

‘Well, if you’re sure.’ I didn’t need too much convincing, because everyone knew that my mum was invincible. She’d probably be back at the office bossing everyone around before I got to work on Monday.

My jaw started to unclench as soon as I got onto the motorway toward home. Please don’t get me wrong. I love my parents. It’s just sometimes hard being their daughter. Maybe all driven people are like that, setting the same high bar for everyone else that they do for themselves.

I didn’t strictly have to go past work on my way home, but I drove that way anyway. The care home is a grand old building and would practically be stately if there was anything aristocratic about the residents. It used to be the owner’s family home – also not aristocrats – and there’s a portrait in the entrance of the card-happy ancestor who won it gambling. He lost everything else the same way, though, so it’s never really been looked after beyond the minimum of upkeep.

The house is set back from the road with wide, sloping lawns running on either side. Our boss, Max Greene, had the drive widened a few years ago, but other than that it hasn’t changed since his mother owned it. That’s both a blessing and a curse.

June’s car was parked out front. She wasn’t supposed to be working on a Saturday. We’re the weekday staff. We’ve got night and weekend cover and she promised me no more overtime. She had the nerve to get snappish just because I pressed her on it.

I pulled into the drive behind her car.

‘You didn’t answer your phone,’ my best friend called down the corridor as soon as she saw me come through the side door where the office is. ‘How’s your mum?’

So she wasn’t going to make it easy for me to bollock her about the overtime.

‘As frightful as usual,’ I said, throwing myself down on the extra chair in front of her desk. June’s mind might be ultra-organised, but her office isn’t. There are binders stuffed full of receipts and records teetering all over the top of the cabinets, and her desk looks like she’s been shredding evidence. ‘I was driving when you rang,’ I said. ‘And you were working while I was driving.’

But June didn’t rise to the top of senior management (also the only management) at the Jane Austen Home for Ladies by caving in at the first sniff of trouble. She ignored me. ‘Frightful is good,’ she said. ‘That means Bev’s back to normal. She’s out of hospital now?’ She stretched her arms above her head and leaned back in her office chair, like she hadn’t a care in the world. The hem of her top rode up to flash a few inches of tummy, but she didn’t notice.

‘No, but she’ll be home soon. It doesn’t sound like anything too serious.’ Of course, June knew this already. I’d rung her from the hospital just after I first saw Mum. Was that only yesterday? ‘She sent me home.’

June nodded. I didn’t have to explain. We’d spent our entire childhood at each other’s houses. She knew all about my parents first-hand.

‘Nick’s gone home,’ she said with a smirk. ‘He only came in to do an hour with Laney.’

‘Hmm? That’s not why I’m here.’

It was exactly why I was there. Even though my dreams about Nick were quite hopeless by then, I couldn’t stop wishing. It’s not easy getting over someone when you’re around him every day at work.

‘I only came in to get you out of the office,’ I lied. ‘You’re not supposed to be working on your day off.’

‘And you’re not supposed to be stalking on your day off.’

Touché. We should both have been away from work doing better things.

She closed her laptop. ‘Do you want to do something? I told Callum I might meet him later, but it’s not set in stone. We can get a drink if you like.’

‘June, you cannot keep blowing Callum off,’ I said. ‘He’ll get sick of it eventually, and then he’ll dump you.’

But she shook her head. ‘The less I see of him, the more he likes me.’

‘By your logic, he’ll be in love with you if you never see him again. Doesn’t it seem a little bit, I don’t know, unhelpful to your sex life never to see your boyfriend?’

I could never do that. When I’m mad for someone I can’t keep away from him. Well, obviously, because there I was at work on a Saturday, on the off-chance that I might see Nick.

And June was mad for Callum. Mad like I’d never seen her before. It was easy to see why. He was gorgeous and fit and loads of fun, and they were really going for it, hot-and-heavy-wise, when they first got together. But then he made one little joke about her trying to handcuff him when she suggested a weekend break, and she started playing so hard to get that he had more chance of winning the lottery than seeing her.

He was still keen, so far, but for how long?

‘Come on, I’ll walk out with you,’ she said.

I might not have seen Nick, but at least I got her away from work. ‘Go see Callum,’ I urged her when we got to our cars.

‘Maybe.’

Dad rang me around midnight. ‘Phoebe, this is your father.’

‘What’s happened?’

But I knew, even as I asked the question. Mum wasn’t invincible after all.

The doctors were baffled. None of the tests had shown that cardiac arrest was imminent. But then, Mum always did love to surprise people.

She left behind pages and pages of notes in her sprawling handwriting. Like she couldn’t get the words on the page fast enough. That’s what she’d been doing on her mobile all the time. Planning her last hurrah, just in case. She’d probably spent her final hours on earth trying to figure out which canapes would most impress their neighbours.

At twenty-eight, I was half orphaned. I was also stuck with such a confusing mishmash of feelings about Mum that I didn’t have the faintest idea what to do with them. All I could do after the funeral was to throw myself back into my life and hope for the best.