‘That’s not fair.’
I took a breath. ‘I’m sorry. It’s not just the whispering-gallery thing. I find these events a little tricky. I’m not used to having to pretend to be someone I’m not.’
His smile returned, his face softening. ‘Hey. You’ll get there. They’re nice people once you know them. Even the ones I’ve dated.’ He tried to smile.
‘If you say so.’
‘We’ll go on one of the softball days. That’s a bit lower key. You’ll love it.’
I raised a smile.
He leant forward and kissed me. ‘We okay?’ he said.
‘We’re okay.’
‘You sure you don’t want to come back with me?’
‘I need to check on Margot. Plus I have a headache.’
‘That’s what you get for knocking it back! Drink lots of water. It’s probably dehydration. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.’ He kissed me, climbed into the taxi and closed the door. As I stood there watching, watching, he waved, then tapped twice on the screen to send the taxi forward.
I checked the clock in the lobby when I arrived back and was surprised to find it was only six thirty. The afternoon seemed to have lasted several decades. I removed my shoes, feeling the utter relief that only a woman knows when pinched toes are finally allowed to sink into deep pile carpet, and walked up to Margot’s apartment barefoot with them dangling from my hand. I felt weary and cross in a way I couldn’t quite articulate, like I’d been asked to play a game whose rules I didn’t understand. I’d actually felt as if I’d rather be anywhere else than where I was. And I kept thinking about Felicity Lieberman’s Did he do the whispering gallery on you?
As I walked through the door I stooped to greet Dean Martin, who bounced his way up the hall to me. His squished little face was so delighted at my return that it was hard to stay grumpy. I sat down on the hall floor and let him jump around me, snuffling to reach my face with his pink tongue until I was smiling again.
‘It’s just me, Margot,’ I called.
‘Well, I hardly thought it was George Clooney,’ came the response. ‘More’s the pity for me. How were the Stepford Wives? Has he converted you yet?’
‘It was a lovely afternoon, Margot,’ I lied. ‘Everyone was very nice.’
‘That bad, huh? Would you mind fetching me a nice little vermouth if you happen to be passing the kitchen, dear?’
‘What the hell is vermouth?’ I murmured to the dog, but he sat down to scratch one of his ears with his hind leg.
‘Have one yourself, if you like,’ she added. ‘I suspect you’ll be in need of it.’
I was just climbing to my feet when my phone rang. I felt a momentary dismay – it would probably be Josh and I wasn’t quite ready to talk to him, but when I checked the screen it was my home number. I pressed the phone to my ear.
‘Dad?’
‘Louisa? Oh, thank goodness.’
I checked my watch. ‘Is everything okay? It must be the middle of the night there.’
‘Sweetheart, I’ve got bad news. It’s your granddad.’
26
In Memory of Albert John Compton, ‘Granddad’
Funeral service: St Mary and All Saints Parish Church,
Stortfold Green
23 April 12.30 p.m.
All welcome for refreshments afterwards at the Laughing Dog public house on Pinemouth Street
No flowers, but any donations welcome to the Injured Jockeys Fund.
‘Our hearts are empty, but we are blessed to have loved you.’
Three days later I flew home in time for the funeral. I cooked Margot ten days’ worth of meals, froze them, and left instructions with Ashok that he was to sneak up to her apartment at least once a day on a pretext and make sure that she was okay, or that if she wasn’t, I wouldn’t walk in a week later to a health hazard. I postponed one of her hospital appointments, made sure she had clean sheets, that Dean Martin had enough food and paid Magda, a professional dog-walker, to come twice a day. I told Margot firmly that she was not to sack her on day one. I told the girls at the Vintage Clothes Emporium that I would be away. I saw Josh twice. I let him stroke my hair and tell me he was sorry and that he remembered how it felt to lose his own grandfather. It was only when I was finally on the plane that I realized the myriad ways I had made myself busy had been a way not to acknowledge the truth of what had just happened.
Granddad was gone.
Another stroke, Dad said. He and Mum had been sitting in the kitchen chatting while Granddad watched the racing and she had come in to ask if he wanted a top-up of tea and he had slipped away, so quietly and peacefully that fifteen minutes had passed before it had dawned on them that he wasn’t just asleep.
‘He looked so relaxed, Lou,’ he said, as we travelled back from the airport in his van. ‘His head was just on one side and his eyes were closed, like he was taking a nap. I mean, God love him, we none of us wanted to lose him, but that would be the way to go, wouldn’t it? In your favourite chair in your own house with the old telly on. He didn’t even have a bet on that race so it’s not like he’d be headed up to the hereafter feeling gutted that he missed out on his winnings.’ He tried to smile.
I felt numb. It was only when I followed Dad into our house and saw the empty chair that I was able to convince myself it was true. I would never see him again, never feel that curved old back under my fingertips as I hugged him, never again make him a cup of tea or interpret his silent words or joke with him about cheating at Sudoku.
‘Oh, Lou.’ Mum came down the corridor and pulled me to her.
I hugged her, feeling her tears seep into my shoulder while Dad stood behind her patting her back and muttering, ‘There there, love. You’re all right. You’re all right,’ as if saying it enough times would make it so.
Much as I loved Granddad I had sometimes wondered abstractly if when he finally went Mum would feel in some way freed from the responsibility of caring for him. Her life had been so firmly tied to his for so long that she had only ever been able to carve out little bits of time for herself – his last months of poor health had meant she could no longer even go to her beloved night classes.
But I was wrong. She was bereft, permanently on the edge of tears. She berated herself for not having been in the room when he had gone, welled up at the sight of his belongings, and fretted constantly over whether she could have done more. She was restless, lost without someone to care for. She got up and she sat down, plumping cushions, checking a clock for some mythical appointment. When she was really unhappy she cleaned manically, wiping non-existent dust from skirting and scrubbing floors until her knuckles were red and raw. In the evenings we sat around the kitchen table while Dad went to the pub – supposedly to sort the last of the arrangements for the funeral tea – and she tipped away the fourth cup she had made by accident for a man who was no longer there, then blurted out the questions that had haunted her since he had died.
‘What if I could have done something? What if we had taken him to the hospital for more tests? They might have been able to pick up on the risk of more strokes.’ Her hands twisted together over her handkerchief.
‘But you did all those things. You took him to millions of appointments.’
‘Do you remember that time he ate two packets of chocolate Digestives? That might have been the thing that did it. Sugar’s the devil’s work now, by all accounts. I should have put them on a higher shelf. I shouldn’t have let him eat those wretched cakes …’
‘He wasn’t a child, Mum.’
‘I should have made him eat his greens. But it was hard, you know? You can’t spoon-feed an adult. Oh, Lord, no offence. I mean with Will, obviously, it was different …’