The Last List of Mabel Beaumont(22)

He squints at me, as if trying to work out who I am.

‘Can I ask what your connection to Erin is, madam?’

‘You can. She’s a…’ What is she?

‘We’re friends,’ Erin says.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s right. We’re friends.’

‘Well,’ he says, brushing his hands against one another and turning to walk away. ‘Perhaps you could conduct your personal relationships outside of work in the future.’

When he’s gone, Erin thanks me.

‘Was that really about the lateness?’ I ask.

‘No. He saw me and Hannah.’ She gestures to a girl of a similar age on the next checkout over. ‘He saw us kissing, in the car park. We’re seeing each other. He doesn’t like it.’

‘Whatever has it got to do with him?’

She shrugs. ‘Nothing. It’s just, men like him, they think we’re all here for their entertainment, don’t they? And they don’t like it if we’re not interested in them. In men, I mean. They feel like it’s some kind of personal attack.’

I shake my head. ‘He couldn’t get the hang of potty training.’

‘What?’ Erin shakes her head slightly as if she’s not sure she’s heard me correctly.

‘I knew his mother. And he used to shit in his pants until he was almost five.’

She laughs and covers her mouth, and her eyes are sparkling. I lift my hand in a wave and turn to go.

‘What was all that about?’ Julie asks.

‘I don’t like bullies,’ I say.

And then we’re outside and she’s untying Olly from the post where we left him, and we’re heading home.





‘I’ve got half an hour before my next client,’ Julie calls from the kitchen, where she’s making tea.

I look up at the cuckoo clock on the wall. Her two hours with me ended half an hour ago. Just as I’m looking at it, the cuckoo pops out and makes me jump. I remember Arthur coming home with that monstrosity after a solo shopping trip some thirty years ago. How has it lasted this long? We argued about it for weeks, him saying he’d always wanted one since he was a boy and me saying I found them ridiculous, and then one morning I came down for breakfast and it was on the wall. I could take it down now, I realise. There’s nothing and no one to stop me.

‘Here,’ Julie says, putting a mug of tea down on the windowsill next to my armchair.

She’s made one for herself, too, and she settles on the sofa.

‘You were due to finish at four,’ I say.

‘I know, but my next lady lives nearer here than my house so it didn’t really make sense to go home in between. I mean, as long as you don’t mind.’

I watch her carefully, but if she’s lying, I can’t tell. I don’t know her well enough yet. I want to say that I don’t want her to give me special treatment, that I don’t want her pity. But I can’t think of a way to put it.

‘I don’t need you,’ I say.

She looks a bit affronted. ‘Who said you needed me, Mabel?’

‘No one. But I don’t. I don’t want you to think you have to look after me just because I’ve got no one else.’

‘The thought never crossed my mind,’ she says.

That time I can tell she’s lying. She looks off to the left. I saw something about that on a documentary about lie detector tests. Gotcha, I think. So that means she wasn’t lying before, then, about her reason for staying on.

‘Do you mind me asking why you didn’t have any children, Mabel?’

‘Do you mind me asking why you didn’t?’

She takes a sharp breath. Is it too late for her? You hear all kinds of stories these days, don’t you? Twins at fifty, all sorts. Once I hit my mid-thirties, people assumed I was past it, but it’s not so simple now. Maybe she still holds out some hope. Although with her husband gone, it’s not looking good.

‘We tried for years,’ she says, and the sadness drips from her voice and I wish I hadn’t asked.

‘Years?’ It’s just a word, just something to say.

‘Years. I got pregnant three times, in all. The first time, we got to the twelve-week scan, all excited, holding hands, only to be told there was no heartbeat. Then nothing for a year or so, and just when I’d stopped expecting it, another late period. I couldn’t believe it when I did the test. Martin was worried, though. I thought it wouldn’t happen twice, but he was more cautious. And then a few weeks later, I started bleeding. I went to hospital, begged them to do something, but they said there was nothing they could do. That if you’re going to miscarry, you’re going to miscarry. I remember the smell of disinfectant in the room when the doctor said that, and the lack of sympathy. They sent me home. And I sat on the toilet for hours, cramps coming and going, until it was over.’

She shifts a bit on the sofa, as if she’s physically uncomfortable telling the story. Olly’s lying next to her, and she absentmindedly leans in to stroke him, but he pulls away.

‘Martin said we should stop trying, that it was too painful. He was worried about what it was doing to my body and to both of our hearts, too. But I was desperate for a child. And all my friends were having them, of course. Falling pregnant by accident, having twins, all that. We nearly split up over it. He said I was obsessed. And I was, I think, for a while. That third time was a good five years after the first, and as soon as I got the positive test, I told Martin I was giving up work. That I was going to lie in bed until the baby came. He said I was mad, that we couldn’t afford it, and we couldn’t, really. But we didn’t need to because six weeks in, more bleeding.’