Maggie took hold of his arm. ‘You’ll come with me to the car, Robert, won’t you? While Lara just has a chat to the nurse?’
Dad never ceased to surprise me. ‘It would be my pleasure.’ He did a little bow.
I didn’t know how Dad would react to me getting in the driving seat, but Maggie was brilliant. She sat in the back with him and started chatting about the flowers lining the driveway to the nursing home. So different to Anna. She’d last seen Dad when he was starting to get muddled, way before he didn’t know who people were. Whenever he said something a little odd, she’d wave her hand and say, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Robert,’ and my poor old dad would stand there, digging around for the right words to describe what he meant, then lapsing into silence, muttering about becoming a little forgetful these days. Yet Maggie, who’d never had the luxury of knowing my dad when he was well, instinctively knew how to steer him onto a topic of conversation he could manage.
In between reminding myself to keep my eyes on the road rather than watching them in the rear-view mirror, I listened to Dad. ‘At my house, I’ve got rudbeckias like that. But best – Shirley loves them – are my hollyhocks, so dark they’re almost black.’ So cruel he could remember the colours of flowers from my childhood but not that I had a son.
I hoped this wouldn’t turn out to be a terrible mistake. Despite Maggie’s bluster about how Massimo should be grateful he didn’t have to put up with Dad every day of the year, my husband had never been big on surprises that weren’t his own.
Maggie winked at me in the mirror as Dad started singing ‘Tiptoe Through The Tulips’ without getting a single word wrong. Seeing him so animated, so joyful, whittled away my concerns about Massimo’s reaction to Dad.
I really needed to become more like Maggie and follow her ‘Worry about worries when you need to worry’ philosophy.
If nothing else, I’d see whether Massimo really had changed his spots.
41
MAGGIE
There were so few moments in life when I thought, ‘I played that right’. Mainly I looked back and thought, What a bloody numpty. What was I thinking of? Usually when tequila or vodka had been doing the thinking for me. Yet when Lara did a perfect bit of parallel parking and Sandro dashed over from Anna’s house, skipping with pleasure at seeing Robert, I could have danced for joy.
I left Lara to settle Robert and went off to fetch Mum. By the time I got back, Sandro was teaching Lupo to give a paw to Robert, who seemed to like the feel of Lupo’s coat and kept stroking him. There was a reason old people with dogs lived longer. I was delighted to see Sandro taking charge of Lupo, so far removed from that little boy who’d been cowering in the treehouse. Lara was taking a video, her whole face lit with cheery anticipation as though she’d walked onto a sunny beach on the first day of a fortnight’s holiday.
Mum was thrilled to be involved, fussing around Robert, singing little tunes she knew from the sixties and encouraging him to join in. I could see his mind working like a jukebox, spinning round, often failing to grab the right disc, but sometimes coming up with the goods. The atmosphere reminded me of a street party, with Mum swaying her hips and Robert croaking out ‘Hello, Dolly!’ A bit of Union Jack bunting and some Victoria sponge and we’d be good to go.
I was just getting into the swing of it, when Nico came round, his face taut with tension.
‘They’ve discovered a break-in at one of the storage facilities for the garden centre. I need to talk to the police and give them a rundown on what’s missing.’
‘What about Francesca’s regional finals?’
‘She’ll be devastated if she misses them, but I’m not going to be finished with the police in time. Such a bugger that Massimo’s away.’
‘Do you want me to take her?’
His face shifted between relief and that little giveaway flick of ‘How am I going to sell this to Francesca?’ I was a bit tired of the do-si-do ‘three steps to the right!’ dances we were still having to do just to keep Francesca on an even keel.
I wasn’t busting to spend my Saturday driving to Portsmouth with someone pouting away next to me, so I said, ‘She’s got two choices. Either she goes with me or she’ll have to miss them.’
Nico nodded. ‘I’ll go and tell her.’ He kissed me. ‘Thank you.’
I said goodbye, resentfully readjusting my expectation of a fun day with everyone else in favour of dusting down my dutiful stepmother/chauffeur cap.
Nico had obviously read the riot act because Francesca did have the good grace to thank me when I got home. It was pathetic how little watering I needed. ‘Shall I make you some eggs to give you a bit of energy?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I’ve had some Nutella.’
I raised my eyebrows at Nico, telepathically transmitting my ‘That won’t keep her going beyond the first five strokes’, but he shrugged and said, ‘Take a banana with you.’ I knew there was no point in trying to reason with her.
I asked Sam if he wanted to come with us, in the vain hope he might fancy a two-hour round trip to Portsmouth but he laughed and said, ‘Why would I want to do that? I’d rather stay here with Nan.’
When we got into the car, it was a bit like being on a first date with someone who’d already decided you were too fat, too ugly or too boring, but had made the mistake of signing up to a seven-course meal.
I made an effort anyway. ‘Do you want to tune the radio into a station you like?’
I swear she’d never listened to heavy metal in her life. But there we sat, in radio purgatory until we passed the A3 when the signal got so poor I just tuned into Radio Two. In between times, I asked her questions, questions I already knew the answers to, valiantly trying to create the illusion there was a fragment of a relationship there, she had some connection to me, something we could build on.
‘Are you nervous?’
‘Not really.’
‘Which is your favourite race?’
‘Crawl.’
‘Isn’t that the stroke Uncle Massimo won the Regional Championship with?’
‘Yep. But that was in, like, 1986.’
Then the radio would fill the silence and I’d remind myself not to sing. Francesca never felt any need to fill the quiet enveloping the car. I wondered if it was because she didn’t think I had anything worth saying. Or because she didn’t know what to ask me. Or whether I was so far down on her list of things to think about, it simply didn’t occur to her to waste five seconds on making me feel comfortable.
Just before we got out of the car, I said, ‘Will you know many people there?’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, as though I was trying to catch her out.
‘Other competitors, their parents, coaches, supporters?’
‘There’ll probably be a few people I know from the county championships. Why?’